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

elations among features. This is not to say that any feature hierarchy is equally
likely, or even permitted. It is possible to create rather unnatural-looking
phoneme inventories by ordering the features in unusual ways. For example, the
chart in (7.9) is wrong as a description of the Siglitun inventory, and probably
wrong for any language with a comparable set of consonant phonemes. What is
unusual are the relative scopes of place features and manner features. Such
examples show that there are limits to the extent that the feature hierarchy can
vary cross linguistically, though it is not clear what these limits are.
(7.9) Siglitun consonants: unusual feature hierarchy
Labial Coronal Velar Uvular
Oral stops p t k
Nasal stops m n N
Fricatives v ƒ {
Stridents s
Voiced laterals l
Voiceless laterals ¬
Glides j
7.3.3. Feature scope ambiguities
Finally, it is impossible to escape having to make decisions about the scope of a
feature. Such decisions are not always thought of as involving feature ordering,
but they do, because the relative scope of features can be expressed in terms of
ordering. Deciding on the scope of a feature is particularly important when there
are asymmetries in a phoneme inventory.
Eastern and Valencian Catalan, for example, have seven stressed vowels
/i, e, E, a, ç, o, u/. Analysts agree that /i, u/ are high and /a/ is low; assuming
q
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