The contrastive hierarchy in phonology 2009 Dresher.pdf - CUNY ...

classify them according to their function in that language. Their function is
distinctive or oppositional when they contribute to the identification, at one
point of the spoken chain, of one sign as opposed to all the other signs which
could have figured at that point if the message had been a different one.’
(Martinet 1964: 53).
Martinet begins his analysis of the French consonants by looking at all the
consonants ‘which appear or may appear before -ouche’ (1964: 64). 13 Grouping
together segments characterized by a relevant feature, Martinet arrives at the sets
in (3.25). He puts the names of the features in quotation marks to emphasize that
these are not intended as exhaustive phonetic descriptions, but rather as
phonological contrastive categories. 14
13 The idea is to ground the contrastive set by an objective criterion, by limiting the comparison
set to segments that can occur in this one context. However, the contextual criterion is loosened
almost to the point of circularity when it includes not only those consonants which actually
appear in a given context but also those that ‘may appear,’ in the absence of any further criterion
as to what may appear in a given context.
14 Hiss is the translator’s rendering of Martinet’s term ‘sifflant,’ and hush translates ‘chuintant.’ I
use current IPA symbols in place of some of Martinet’s.
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