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

Privative features act differently from equipollent ones with respect to
contrast. For the sake of discussion, let us suppose that the marked values for the
features [voiced] and [nasal] are the positive values in both cases. The full (not
contrastive) specifications of the simple inventory in (2.2) will now look like
(2.29).
(2.29) Full specifications: Privative features
p b m
[voiced] √ √
[nasal] √
In the fullest possible set of specifications, /p/ is completely unmarked and has
no specifications. Looking at the inventory as a whole, the ‘full specifications’ of
(2.29) look like very minimal contrastive specifications. However, these are not
contrastive specifications in the sense of the previous section.
Let us consider what effects contrastive feature ordering has on the
specifications in (2.29). If [voiced] is the first feature, we mark /b/ and /m/ for
this feature and leave /p/ unmarked. The next feature, [nasal], distinguishes
between /b/ and /m/, and marks /m/ as [nasal]. Now we have the
specifications in (2.30a), which are the same as in (2.29). That is, the contrastive
specifications are the same as the full specifications in this ordering of the
features. Proceeding in the other order, we first mark /m/ [nasal] in contrast to
/p/ and /b/, which are unmarked; we then draw a contrast between /p/ and
/b/ by marking /b/ [voiced], deriving the contrastive values in (2.30b). In this
order, one of the full specifications is omitted.
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