If […] the investigator seeks only enough information to enable one to construct utterances in the language, he will set up phonemes (phonemic segments) or components only to the extent, and in the manner, necessary to distinguish contrasting utterances. He need only determine the phonemic distinctions, and would not have to group complementary segments together, or to state the distribution of each. Morphemic segments would be determined, and the variant members of morphemes would be stated, but morphophonemic symbols to indicate them would not be used except if it is desired to shorten the total description. For that matter, but for the convenience of brevity and clarity, the whole description of the language could begin with a list of morphemic segments, or with a list of morphemes, each with its varying phonemic-segment constitutions in various environments. This would sidestep phonemics and morphophonemics, and disregard the fact that parts of one morpheme are phonetically similar to parts of another. Morphemes with very similar distributions, members of the same sub-class, would not have to be distinguished, even though they differ slightly or greatly in meaning […].
- Harris (1951), a pag.366