Filologija, No. 65, 2015.
Original scientific paper
On the grapheme and the Croatian alphabet
Ivan Marković
orcid.org/0000-0003-0005-5768
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
The terms grapheme, graph and allograph are well-known both in grammatology and in phonology. The paper outlines the concepts that should be associated with them and the method of their establishment. It advocates a close relationship between grammatology and phonology, precisely between graphemics of a specific alphabetic script and phonemics of a language written in it. The paper puts forward a position according to which the number of graphemes in a specific alphabetic script is equal to the number of phonemes in a language written by that script. In the paper the grapheme is interpreted as an abstract unit, a class of realised graphs with the same basic function, something already done in linguistics at the level of definitions, but not done or not done consistently in the available analyses of specific alphabetic scripts. Afterwards, the established concepts and the terminology are applied to the description of the Croatian Latin script and its alphabet (Cr. abeceda). In accordance with concept distinctions, a new notation is proposed — graphs are enclosed in angle brackets (thus far generally used to denote graphemes), whereas graphemes are enclosed in double angle beckets, e.g. grapheme 〈〈a〉〉 is realised by its allographs 〈a〉, 〈a〉, 〈A〉, A〉, etc.
Keywords
grapheme; graph; allograph; alphabet; grammatology; angle brackets; Croatian
Hrčak ID:
154178
URI
Publication date:
13.3.2016.
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