Abstract
AbstractVariation in writing is highly frequent at both the visual and the functional levels. However, as of yet, the associated notion of allography has not been systematically described. In this article, two major types of allography are proposed: graphetic allography, conceptually comparable to allophony, depends on visual similarity and captures how concrete units are associated with visual abstractions, i.e., how three graphs in <cabana> are instances of the basic shape |a|. Graphematic allography, conceptually closer to allomorphy, does not depend on visual similarity but groups together units that share the same function, i.e., represent the same linguistic unit (phoneme, syllable, morpheme, etc.) and are complementarily distributed, meaning there exist no contexts in which they contrast. An example is the positionally conditioned alternation between |σ| vs |ς| for the Greek grapheme <σ>. By means of a number of criteria, subtypes of graphetic and graphematic allography are proposed and examples are given from different writing systems. A special case that is discussed is the complex phenomenon of capitalization. Additionally, examples of variation phenomena that are not included in the concept of allography are given, and orthographic variation is addressed as a marginal case of variation dependent on the norm rather than the system.
Highlights
Whereas graphetic allography was concerned with graphs being assigned to graph classes and to basic shapes, graphematic allography is concerned with basic shapes being assigned to graphemes
These graph classes are in a paradigmatic relation and are allographs of a basic shape, the most abstract graphetic unit characterized by salient visual features required for categorical perception
Graphematic allography describes how basic shapes are associated with graphemes
Summary
In his textbook on writing systems, Rogers (2005: 10–11) vaguely defines “graphemes as classes of allographs” and adds that “[a] grapheme often has a good deal of allographic variation related to style of handwriting or printing” He obviously speaks of the visual level and a different phenomenon than Qiu. Roger’s brief treatment of allography is all the more surprising since he mentions that the “nature of allographic variation and its conditioning factors is more complicated for graphemes than for phonemes”. By addressing the question “What is allography?” in detail, this article proposes a typology of phenomena that pertain to structural variation in writing at both the visual and the functional levels It constitutes foundational research for the young subdiscipline of grapholinguistics but, as mentioned above, provides welcome input to other disciplines interested in writing.
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