Fonelogia: argumentos em prol de uma fonética-fonologia ecossistêmica

Abstract

The objective of this article is to defend a reunification of the Lautwissenschaften (sound sciences) as required by the ecological view of the world, i.e., without a rigid separation of “phonology” and “phonetics”. This becomes possible when we see language as part of an ecosystem which contains ecosystems inside itself. However, one must keep in mind that a reality may be considered an ecosystem only if it consists of interactions (I) by some agents (P) that take place somewhere, its locus or territory (T), as required by the original concept of ecosystem in ecology. From here on, at least three additional ecosystems have been detected in language, beyond the traditional natural, mental social and integral ecosystems, namely, articulatory ecosystem, perceptive ecosystem and phonelogic ecosystem. The latter conflates “phonetics” and “phonology” into a unified ecosystem. Otherwise, it is more adequate to talk of “ecology” as, for instance, ecology of phonelogic features, ecology of the lexicon and so on. Both the latter and the former are organized not as “structures”, but as “networks of organic interactions”. The article also emphasizes that the objective is not to propose ecosystems praeter necessitatem, but to show that the study of any language phenomena, including their sound-side, may be done from the ecosystemic perspective.