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Structural Dialectology*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2026
Abstract
Where traditional dialectology usually asks only such questions as, 'What does the vowel of this word sound like at each point under investigation?', structural dialectology goes on to ask, 'How does this vowel sound fit into the phonemic system of each point?' Examples taken from the Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz illustrate how this second, structural question can add new insights not only to dialectology but also to general phonological theory, both synchronic and diachronic. Dialects are one of our great linguistic laboratories. In order to exploit them to the full, we must no longer regard the field worker merely as a recording machine (he does that badly, and has higher values) and his informant merely as a talking machine. Even so simple a matter as determining (with the informant's help) whether two words rhyme will both correct recording errors and yield valuable structural information.
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- Copyright © 1968 by Linguistic Society of America
Footnotes
*
This paper was delivered as the presidential address before the forty-second annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America on 28 December 1967, in Chicago.
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