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

short back (or central) low vowel is less retracted than its long counterpart. 18
Further, the non-low vowels contrast in roundness as well as in backness. Nor is
it clear at the phonetic level that the number of front-back contrasts should be
limited to two categories: representing the vowel [a] as [central] rather than
[back] appears to be closer to phonetic reality.
Thus, the phonemic analysis in (8.44a) cannot be read off the surface
phonetics, nor is the surface the appropriate level at which to seek these
contrastive dimensions. Rather, the analysis in (8.44a) reflects a contrastive
hierarchy in which [low], [back], and [high] are ordered ahead of [long], which
is ordered ahead of all other features, which are noncontrastive, as shown in
(8.45). 19
(8.45) Lithuanian contrastive hierarchy: [low], [back], [high] > [long]
qp
[–back] [+back]
wo qp
[–low] [+low] [–low] [+low]
ei ty wo ty
[+high] [–high] [–lng] [+lng] [+high] [–high] [–lng] [+lng]
ty g ty ty
[–lng] [+lng] /e˘/ [–lng] [+lng] [–lng] [+lng]
g g g g g g
/i/ /i˘/ /Q/ /Q˘/ /u/ /u˘/ (/o/) /o˘/ /A/ /A˘/
18 It is quite common for vowel length (quantity) contrasts to become obscured and ultimately
reanalyzed as quality contrasts; see Kabak 2004 on Turkic and Korean, and Rohany Rahbar 2008
on Persian.
19 Since the unpaired vowel /e:/ functions as a long vowel, it is necessary to stipulate that
Lithuanian vowels with no contrastive value for length are [+long] by default.
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