Firth's early phonological views and prosodic analysis: a reply to Coleman (2004)

In a previous issue of this journal, John Coleman (2004) reviewed the written-up version of a poster I presented at the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona (Battaner-Moro 2003, henceforth BM). The aim of the poster was to discuss the evolution of Firthian prosodic analysis. In his review, Coleman derives from it ‘an ignorance or a neglect of Firth's publications prior to 1948' on my part (p. 211). He focusses his criticisms on the following three statements: ‘Firth never did prosodic analysis.’ ‘There is a complete absence of programmatic work in Firth's works.’ ‘Prosodic analysis was developed by the members of the London School and not at all by John Firth.’