1966/03/01 by James Sledd · 77 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Poetry Analysis and Criticism #Cybernetics and Technology in Society #Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature #Linguistics #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.2307/411598
published in Language 42(1), 18-41 (Linguistic Society of America)
openalex publication_date 1966/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
In 1955, in a review of the Trager-Smith Outline of English structure, I made a first attempt at phonemicizing an old-fashioned dialect of Atlanta, Georgia, which did not seem to fit the overall pattern of nine vowels and three semivowels that Trager and Smith had proposed. Further discussion followed at the First Texas Conference in 1956, where the arguments for a tenth vowel were strengthened by Raven I. McDavid and Sumner Ives; but even the rebellious, at that time, were still working within the Smith and Trager framework, and when their arguments were published in the proceedings of the Conference, they suffered because the secretary who transcribed them had been unable to cope with so many different dialects and because proof-reading had been peccable. A tentative report on the Conference to the 1956 Linguistic Institute at Ann Arbor was received with benevolent amusement, and ensuing debates with myself and Hans Kurath appeared in later numbers of Language and in my Short introduction to English grammar .