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

dissociation from the Contrastivist Hypothesis, to its ultimate disappearance
from phonological theory in the 1960s.
4.2. The dichotomous scale
Jakobson, Fant and Halle (1952) propose that the distinctive features into which
the phonological systems of all the world’s languages can be analyzed are drawn
from twelve binary oppositions (4.1).
(4.1) Universal set of distinctive features (Jakobson, Fant and Halle 1952)
1. vocalic/non-vocalic 2. consonantal/non-consonantal
3. interrupted/continuant 4. checked/unchecked
5. strident/mellow 6. voiced/unvoiced
7. compact/diffuse 8. grave/acute
9. flat/plain 10. sharp/plain
11. tense/lax 12. nasal/oral
They propose that listeners identify phonemes by distinguishing them
from every other phoneme in the system. These distinctions are effected by
making a series of binary choices that correspond to the oppositions active in the
language. ‘The dichotomous scale is the pivotal principle of the linguistic
structure. The code imposes it upon the sound.’ (1952: 9) There is no clear
statement as to whether there is a universal hierarchical ordering of the features,
and if so, what it is. But it is possible to infer from their discussion that they
believe that there are some universal patterns and some tendencies for features
to be ordered in a certain way. They write (1952: 40–41) that there are ‘laws of
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