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

that the main contrast between the mid vowels is [ATR], it must be decided
whether this feature is confined to the mid vowels, or if it extends to include the
high and low vowels as well. 14 One can find both kinds of analysis: Crosswhite
(2001) assumes that [ATR] is confined to the mid vowels (7.10a), whereas Walker
(2005) and Lloret (2008) assign values of [ATR] to all the vowels (7.10b).
(7.10) Two analyses of Catalan vowels
a. Eastern Catalan (Crosswhite 2001)
[+front] [–front]
[+high] i u
[+ATR] e o
[–ATR] E ç
[+low] a
b. Valencian Catalan (Walker 2005, Lloret 2008)
[+ATR]
[–ATR]
[front] [back]
[high] i u
e o
E ç
[low] a
In the Catalan case we may simply be dealing with one system whose
analysis is in dispute; but there are cases where there is evidence that different
14 Not all authors use a binary [ATR] feature to characterize this system. Jiménez (1998) uses
[RTR] instead of [–ATR]. Wheeler (2005: 56) characterizes /e,o/ as [+close] and /E, ç/ as [–close].
Whatever feature is chosen, questions of scope arise (unless it is limited by definition to certain
types of phonemes; if, for example, [close] is defined to be applicable only to mid vowels).
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