L212 Firthian Prosodic Analysis.
Lecture 2.
‘Prosodies’ and ‘Phonematic units’.
Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic: These are linguistic relations. 
Paradigmatic relations are about alternance and difference, within systems of contast. Syntagmatic relations are relations between successive items, or items which are hierarchically organised. Syntagmatic relations bind things together, or keep things apart: like constraints on cooccurrence. Syntagmatic relations are most closely associated with structure.
Example. (from Hjelmslev, who invented this pair of terms, though the ideas go back at least to Saussure). 
p e t
m a t
p and m are in paradigmatic relations, as are e and a. The relation between p/m a/e and t is syntagmatic. You can’t for example combine things in the order p/m t a/e. cf. constituent structure.
In FPA, prosodies are associated with syntagmatic relations, phonematic units with paradigmatic relations (cf. Firth 1948).
Interpretations of ‘prosody’ in FPA. 
1.	Long-domain Robins (1957a: 8) ‘extensional prosodies’.
This means phonetic parameters which are typically long-domain (eg. rounding, nasalisation, frontness, f), etc.) are to be treated as prosodic. Goldsmith (1992) confuses prosodies with just this. Long domain phonetics ≠ contrast over a large structure.
This is a wrong interpretation. It conflates phonetics and phonology. Cf. Allen (1957: 79): “…the prosodies are relational and not simply phonic properties of structure”. Haas (1966: 132): 
The prevalence of non-segmental modes of manifestation [of prosodies] has led some linguists to interpret Firth’s “prosodies” as just “suprasegmental” and “phonotactic”, though Firth’s own examples… should have warned them against such a mistake. It is serious, because it disposes of what is an important distinction of linguistic values as just a diference in phonetic appearance.
2.	Peculiarities of structure Robins (1957a: 8) ‘demarcative prosodies’.
Anything particular to one place in structure is prosodic. Eg. aspiration, lateralisation, retroflexion and plosion in Thai (Henderson 1949). Firth (1948) treats glottal stop in German in this way too. Hjelmslev (1935) also takes this as one interpretation of prosody. cf. Trubetzkoy’s ‘Grenzsignale’. 
Henderson (personal communication, 1978; reported in Roberts 1979: 119): 
…subdivisions like ‘demarcative’ and ‘extensional’ etc. do not reflect Firth’s own way of looking at things—they are the product of people who have tried to explain Firth.
Compare also Scott (1956) on Szechuanese
3.	Prosodies as abstractions away from the material
Prosodies are taken away from the phonic material, and phonematic units are what is left. This is like view (1), except that it’s even more phonetic. eg. Lyons (1962), on Turkish vowel harmony. (For a better account, see Waterson 1956.) Rounding and frontness are taken away from the vowels, leaving only height as phonematic. 
There can be no question of ‘residue’ in the phonic material after any particular abstraction for a specific purpose has been made. All the phonic material is still available for further abstractions for a different order in separate analyses.
(Firth 1957a: 15)
4.	Prosodies are variable, properties of some other structure.
Whitley’s unpublished analysis of Irish (Whitley, ms) is a clear example of this. The syntactic structure is definite article + noun + adjective, and the piece could be glossed as ‘the little head’. The prosodic features are written as sub- or superscripts. For clarity they are italicised: 
´n kJaun bJog	´)-P-yhP—wN-P-yP—wP	Nom. sg.
´n xJi˘NJ vJigJ	´))-H-yhP—yN-H-yP—yP	Gen. sg.
n´ kJi˘NJ vJog´	n´-P-yhP—yN-H-yP—wP´	Nom. pl.
n´ gJaun mJog	n´-N-yhP—wN-N-yP—wP	Gen. pl.
Some, but not all, of the prosodies vary depending on the grammatical structure. Prosodies written above the line are prosodies of the word junctions, those below are prosodies of word-finality. Constant features (including prosodies) are written on the line.
Compare also: Bendor-Samuel (1960) on Terena; Waterson (1956) on Turkish; Palmer (1955) on Tigrinya; Sprigg (1955) on Lhasa Tibetan
5.	There is no useful distinction between prosodies and phonematic units
This is a modern interpretation (Simpson 1992a). It depends on the understanding that prosodies are established on phonetic criteria; since there is no time information in phonology, the timing of the phonetic exponents of prosodies is no more predictable than that for phonematic units. Furthermore, all categories are in both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships, so the phonematic/prosodic distinction on that basis is naive.
6.	Prosodies represent non-terminal contrasts
This is another modern interpretation (Coleman 1992a, Ogden 1995).This is tantamount to saying that phonological contrast may be expressed at different levels in a hierarchical phonological structure. All syllable and rhyme level features are then prosodic, while the terminal nodes of the graph represent phonematic units. ‘Syllable’ itself is prosodic under this view, since a syllable can be understood as an abstraction over combinations of C- and V-units (cf. Firth 1948). From this point of view, Nespor and Vogel’s (1986) sense of ‘prosodic’ is quite close to the Firthian one.
Compare also: Carnochan (1960), Vowel Harmony in Igbo; Halliday (1959) on Chinese; Palmer (1956) on Vowel Harmony in Tigre; Waterson (1956) on Turkish; Robins (1953) on Sundanese
Notational conventions for marking prosodies vs. phonematic units include: italics; Greek letters rather than Roman ones; raised letters; lowered letters; underlining; smaller letters; capital letters; no specific distinction. Firth encouraged this diversity. FPA isn’t bound to notation like so many other phonologies are.