Natural Phonology: Natural Classes and Processes

Abstract

Natural phonology is a linguistic theory developed by David Stampe and Patricia Donegan that seeks to explain the phonological patterns observed in human languages. The phonological processes are seen as natural and regular reactions to the limitations of the human vocal and auditory system. A natural class refers to a combination of segments which tend to behave similarly because they have features in common. The problem of this study is that NP heavily depends on theoretical arguments and introspection rather than empirical data. Only limited rules can categorize the natural classes and apply to features. This research aims at identifying the gist of the theory of natural phonology, clarifying its principles and processes. This study hypothesizes that there are no regular processes and there are phonological variation across languages. The model adopted of this study is Donegan and Stampe 1979. This study concludes that NP supposes that the samples of speech are governed by innate and universal set of phonological processes.