Johann Nikolaus Tetens (1736–1807) and the Idea of Phoneme: A Chapter in the History of Linguistic Thought.

In this article, I focus on Johann Nikolaus Tetens's linguistic theory to make three arguments: (a) this linguistic theory endorses a phonological (contra phonetic) approach to the acoustic sphere of language; (b) the phonological approach is based on the idea that sounds can turn into phonemes (of a properly human language) only when a minimally rational reflection on them is made; and (c) the phonological approach allows us to understand the phoneme as a differential unity, as being composed of structure and function, and as giving a theoretical basis for language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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