Distinctive Features - Speech Resource Pages - Macquarie University

produced without such a gesture." [+low] refers to low vowels, pharyngeal
consonants, pharyngealised consonants.
11. back / non-back [back]: "Back sounds are produced with the tongue
body relatively retracted; nonback or front sounds are produced with the
tongue body relatively advanced." (HC) [+back] refers to Velars, uvulars,
pharyngeals, velarised consonants, pharyngealised consonants, central
vowels, central semi-vowels, back vowels, back semi-vowels. [-back] refers
to all other sounds.
12. front / non-front [front]: This is an additional vowel feature added to
assist in the description of the vowel systems of languages such as
Australian English. To describe the central vowels of Australian English its
necessary to define them as [-back, -front].
13. continuant / stop [cont]: "Continuants are formed with a vocal tract
configuration allowing the airstream to flow through the midsaggital region
of the oral tract: stops are produced with a sustained occlusion in this
region." (HC) For some reason it has been traditional to include lateral
consonants as stops in distinctive feature theory. Since laterals can have
approximant, fricative or stop (click) stricture there seems to be no
justification in including all laterals with the stops, and in this course
laterals are not necessarily stops (as is the case for the lateral clicks) but
can also be continuants (as is the case for the lateral approximants and
fricatives. [+cont] refers to vowels, approximants, fricatives. [-cont] refers
to nasal stops, oral stops.
14. lateral / central [lat]: "Lateral sounds, the most familiar of which is [l],
are produced with the tongue placed in such a way as to prevent the
airstream from flowing outward through the centre of the mouth, while
allowing it to pass over one or both sides of the tongue; central sounds do
not invoke such a constriction." (HC) [+lat] refers to lateral approximants,
lateral fricatives, lateral clicks. [-lat] refers to all other sounds.
15. nasal / oral [nas]: "Nasal sounds are produced by lowering the velum
and allowing the air to pass outward through the nose; oral sounds are
produced with the velum raised to prevent the passage of air through the
nose." (HC) [+nas] refers to nasal stops, nasalised consonants, nasalised
vowels. [-nas] refers to all other sounds.
16. tense / lax [tense]: The traditional definition of this feature claims that
[+tense] vowels involve a greater degree of constriction then [-tense] (lax)
vowels. Tense vowels need not be any different to lax vowels in terms of
constriction (e.g. the tense/lax pair /ɐː,ɐ/ in Australian English are produced
with the same tongue position but differ in duration). The tense/lax
distinction in vowels seems to be related to some kind of strong/weak
distinction. In some languages this is realised as a distinction between
more peripheral vowels (closer to the four corners of the vowel
quadrilateral) and less peripheral vowels (vowels that are either more
centred, more mid, or both more centred and more mid). In other
languages, a long/short durational distinction is what is often the main
acoustic distinction between tense and lax vowels. Note, however, that
short vowels are more likely to be produced with under-realised targets
(more mid-central) during connected speech than are long vowels because
the long vowels have more time to reach their targets. [+tense] refers to
tense vowels or long vowels. [-tense] refers to lax vowels or short vowels.
17. sibilant / non-sibilant [sib]: Sibilants are those fricatives with large
amounts of acoustic energy at high frequencies. [+sib] refers to [s ʃ z ʒ].
[-sib] refers to all other sounds.
18. spread glottis / non-spread glottis [spread]: "Spread or aspirated
sounds are produced with the vocal cords drawn apart producing a
nonperiodic (noise) component in the acoustic signal; nonspread or