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

This kind of reasoning, which I will argue is flawed, would appear to support the
pairwise method. For both features omitted from the specifications in (2.1) are
predictable from the other specifications, and can be filled in by redundancy
rules as shown in (2.10).
(2.10) Contrast by pairwise comparison
a. Contrastive specifications
p b m
[voiced] – +
[nasal] – +
b. Redundancy rules
i. [–voiced] [–nasal] ii. [+nasal] [+voiced]
Let us define logical redundancy as in (2.11).
(2.11) Logical redundancy
If Φ is the set of feature specifications of a member, M, of an
inventory, then the feature specification [F] is logically redundant iff
it is predictable from the other specifications in Φ.
The omitted features in (2.1), repeated in (2.10a), are logically redundant
in the sense of (2.11) because they are predictable from the other features, given
this inventory. Thus, because /p/ is the only [–voiced] member of the inventory,
its feature value [–nasal] is predictable by rule (2.10bi) ; similarly, the value
[+voiced] for /m/ is predictable by rule (2.10bii) because /m/ is the only
[+nasal] phoneme.
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