PIKE, KENNETH L(EE)

born June 9, 1912, Woodstock, Conn., U.S. U.S. linguist and anthropologist known for his studies of the aboriginal languages of Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, New Guinea, Java, Ghana, Nigeria, Australia, Nepal, and the Philippines. He was also the originator of tagmemics. Tagmemics is an outgrowth of Bloomfieldian immediate constituent analysis and of Pike's own general theory of human behaviour, described in his Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, 3 vol. (195460; 2nd ed. 1967). The tagmeme is a unit comprising a function (for example, a subject) and a class of items fulfilling that function (e.g., nouns). It is most suitable in describing languages (such as the Central and South American languages to which it has mostly been applied) in which a number of different classes can fulfill the same function or in which the same class can fulfill many functions. Tagmemics is also known as string constituent analysis and differs, in part, from Bloomfieldian linguistics in that semantic as well as syntactic function is used in identifying tagmemes. Pike later applied tagmemics to matrix of field theory and English rhetoric. From 1955 to 1977 Pike held the post of professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he received his Ph.D. in 1942. In addition to his work in tagmemics, Pike has done research in phonology and is the author of Intonation of American English (1945); co-editor of Tone Systems of Tibeto-Burman Languages of Nepal, Parts IIV (1970); and co-author of Grammatical Analysis (1977) and Songs of Fun and Faith (1977). Selections from his work were published in Selected Writings in 1972.