2024/06/07 by Meletis, Dimitrios
paper · doi:10.25364/04.49:2023.94.3
Naturalness Theory is an umbrella term for functionalist linguistic approaches encompassing – most prominently – Natural Phonology (NP) and Natural Morphology (NM). In NP, the basis for explanation is phonetics, the core tenet being that natural phonological processes eliminate difficulties in articulation and perception. By contrast, in NM, whose development was influenced by NP, the basis for explanation is semiotics, the main claim being that ‘good’ semiotic structures (e.g., a biunique relation between a sign’s signans and signatum) are more easily processed cognitively. Several scholars from within the paradigm have tried to integrate NP to a larger naturalist paradigm and connect it to other components (Natural Syntax, Natural Textlinguistics, etc.) by positing a semiotic metatheory suitable for all of them, while others – including Bernhard Hurch – argue for NP’s independence as ‘phonology is different’. In this paper, three central questions are addressed to discuss the question stated in its title: (a) Is phonology too ‘different’ from other levels of language for a semiotic metatheory to be able to account for it, too? (b) Are there, thus, two different strands of NP – a semiotic and a non-semiotic one? And (c) are NP’s and NM’s respective conceptions of naturalness – absolute vs. scalar and evaluative – reconcilable or is Naturalness Theory a collection of separate – if at their core related – approaches?