Volumetric terminology in Ludwik Zabrocki’s (1907‒1977) structural phonetics
Volumetric terminology in Ludwik Zabrocki’s (1907‒1977) structural phonetics

Summary/Abstract: There can occur a specific quandary when trying to evaluate the achievements of great thinkers who were ahead of their time in their scientific creative output, and who were forced to develop their investigations within the paradigmatic status quo, which specifically concerns the issue of terminology. In a historiographic perspective, terminology usually results from the current lexical resources that reflect the thought horizons of researchers in a given period of time (a paradigm). Therefore, it might be of merit to explore beyond the terms themselves and to relate them to a whole theory under inspection through a different metatheory. In this paper, we focus on the relation between concept, phenomenological quality and name in the theory of the eminent Polish linguist Ludwik Zabrocki (1907‒1977). We discuss aspects of spatiality in selected facets of Zabrocki’s structural phonetics, focusing on issues such as: the substantiality of sonic primes, the polarity of processes, the field of processes, the space of codal systems and the summation of cognate elements. The analysis highlights the enormous and crucial role that the experience of space plays in Zabrocki’s theory. The physical aspect of experiencing phenomena points to the metalevel of embodiment on the one hand, and phenomenology on the other. Accordingly, juxtaposing the two perspectives as analytical dimensions, we attempt to present Zabrocki’s theory as a type of embodiment, adducing for this purpose some of the tenets of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology.

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