On the grapheme and the Croatian alphabet

Razlažu se pojmovi koje valja pridružiti gramatološkim terminima grafem, graf i alograf te metoda njihove uspostave. Zagovara se čvrsta veza gramatologije i fonologije, upravo grafemike pojedinog alfabetskog pis­ma i fonemike jezika koji se njime bilježi, odnosno stajalište da grafema u pojedinom alfabetskom pismovnom sustavu ima onoliko koliko u jeziku koji se njime bilježi ima fonema. Grafem se tumači kao apstraktna jedinica, razred uspostavljen uopćavanjem grafova s istom osnovnom službom, što je u jezikoslovlju na razini odredaba već učinjeno, ali u konkretnim raščlambama nije provedeno ili nije provedeno dosljedno. Pojmovlje i nazivlje potom je primijenjeno na opis hrvatske latinice i njezine abecede. U skladu s lučenjem pojmova predlaže se nova notacija — izlomljenim zagradama bilježe se grafovi, ne grafemi, npr. graf 〈a〉, 〈a〉, 〈A〉, a grafem se bilježi dvostrukim izlomljenim zagradama, npr. grafem 〈〈a〉〉.The terms grapheme, graph and allograph are well-known both in grammatology and in phonology. The paper outlines the concepts that should be associated with them and the method of their establishment. It advocates a close relationship between grammatology and phonology, precisely between graphemics of a specific alphabetic script and phonemics of a language written in it. The paper puts forward a position according to which the number of graphemes in a specific alphabetic script is equal to the number of phonemes in a language written by that script. In the paper the grapheme is interpreted as an abstract unit, a class of realised graphs with the same basic function, something already done in linguistics at the level of definitions, but not done or not done consistently in the available analyses of specific alphabetic scripts. Afterwards, the established concepts and the terminology are applied to the description of the Croatian Latin script and its alphabet (Cr. abeceda). In accordance with concept distinctions, a new notation is proposed — graphs are enclosed in angle brackets (thus far generally used to denote graphemes), whereas graphemes are enclosed in double angle beckets, e.g. grapheme 〈〈a〉〉 is realised by its allographs 〈a〉, 〈a〉, 〈A〉, A〉, etc