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

7.3.4. Feature hierarchies and phonological patterning
Given that feature hierarchies have always been a part of phonology and are here
to stay, it is worth reflecting on their significance. Notice that in all the examples
reviewed in this section, the issue is not the phonetic description of the phonemes.
I assume that Siglitun and I`jo` l, j, etc. are phonetically similar enough that they
can be depicted with the same symbols/l/, /j/, and so on. Any further phonetic
details that may distinguish them are not in any case provided in the phoneme
charts, and it is unlikely that phonetic details are what account for their different
placements in the charts. The same is true of the Catalan vowels and Nilotic
dental and alveolar consonants. No one disputes that Catalan i and u are
phonetically [ATR], or that Nilotic n is phonetically alveolar; the question in each
case is whether they function phonologically as though they are specified for these
features. It follows from the Contrastivist Hypothesis that this amounts to asking
whether they are contrastively specified for the features in question.
7.3.5. Feature hierarchies: Summary
I mentioned at the outset of this section that contrastive hierarchy theory claims
that features are ordered, and that this ordering determines the contrastive
specifications for a language. I argued in Chapter 2 and throughout that feature
ordering is the best way to determine contrastive specifications. One might think
that having to order the features just for purposes of determining contrast is an
unacceptable cost, for it imposes on learners and analysts the burden of arriving
at the correct feature ordering. What I have tried to show in this section is that
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