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

The problem of too many features does not arise only in atypical
inventories, but is ubiquitous and affects almost every phonological inventory in
some way. For example, it arises in the most common vowel inventories.
Consider first the most commonly attested vowel system, the five-vowel
inventory /i, e, a, o, u/. 7 If we include only the features [high], [low], [back], and
[round], we already have too many features for the pairwise method to function,
as shown in (2.19).
(2.19) Five-vowel system, features [high], [low], [back], [round]
a. Full specifications
i e a o u
high + – – – +
low – – + – –
back – – + + +
round – – – + +
b. Contrastive specifications according to the pairwise method
i e a o u Minimal pairs
high + – – + {i, e}; {o, u}
low none
back none
round none
7 According to the UPSID data base (Maddieson 1984), 68 of the listed languages (21% of the
sample) have five-vowel systems, by far the highest number. Of these, 31 have the indicated
inventory.
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