Morpho(?) Phono (?) Logical Fuzzy Edges: The Case of {-/I/-}/{-/U/-} Semantic (?) Contrast in Shona

Abstract

Although the Western world of science continues to be dominated by the black-and-white (or ‘binary’) laws of logic, the binary faith has always faced doubt. (Un)fortunately, logical positivism has remained the working philosophy of linguistic science. This article argues that Linguistics needs to consider going ‘fuzzy’ in its logic to handle the fuzzy edges of languages like Shona. The argument of the article (which is an observation in search of a ‘fuzzy’ theory) takes the form of a brief consideration of {-/i/-}/{-/u/-} as an example of linguistic phenomena which clearly defy the application of phonological, morphological, or semantic theories as autonomous