ABSTRACT
The phrase "phonology as an intelligent system" suggests a contrast: a contrast with other views such as "phonology as an articulatory system," "phonology as a communicative system," "phonology as a social system," and "phonology as a mechanical system." Each of these views has something important to contribute to the study of phonology, but there is an important side of the matter that has been underplayed, and which today we should bring out and to the fore. The most interesting aspect of language is its role in the expression of human thought and intelligence, and yet until recently it seemed that there was a serious rift between those aspects of syntax and semantics that reflect thought, on the one hand, and the principles that govern phonology, on the other. 1
This rift no longer gives the impression of being quite so immense and unbridgeable . This is not to say that phonology encodes propositional material; rather, the principles that govern the structure of the phonological components of a grammar, it is becoming clear, operate in accordance with more general principles that offer some hope of being understood within the larger context of cognition; and this is the possibility that I wish to consider. Thus we may emphasize here phonology as a cognitive system, one that organizes information first and foremost, one in which what is important is not the accidental outer form, the sound, associated with the elements of the phonological system, nor the social or communicative context, but rather the system of contrasts and constructs which is the essence of the phonological system within the grammar.
