Distinctive Features - Speech Resource Pages - Macquarie University

8. Possible Objections to Distinctive Features
Distinctive features are based on binary features. This was a choice made early
in their development and is based on Trubetzkoy's privative (binary) distinctions.
The choice was made because it simplified the writing of phonological rules. You
should note, however, that Trubetzkoy also allowed for gradual distinctions. This
type of feature has been taken up by phoneticians (e.g. Ladefoged, 1971, used a
single feature for height with up to four levels for the same feature). It also
seems desirable to represent consonant place of articulation as an "equipollent"
(see Trubetzkoy, above) continuum of independent features only one of which
may be selected for a simple articulation (e.g. alveolar for /d/). For complex
articulations, two or more such features might be selected (e.g. labial plus velar
for /w/).
The nature of some of the features (e.g. distributed) seem quite arbitrary and
motivated by the need to disambiguate unseparated vowel or consonant pairs.
Sometimes these feature choices are not supported by phonetic research and
their sole strength is their usefulness in the writing of rules.
The motivation to develop a system that optimises the expression of rules begs
the question - what justifies the belief that humans use rules of this kind? If we
can't prove that humans use phonological rules (particularly rules of the kind
used in this kind of phonology) then we can't use the need to write simpler rules
as a justification for binary features.
Another problem is the way in which distinctive features are related to the
articulatory or acoustic properties of a sound. Initially it seemed that a feature
should be described in terms of acoustic and/or articulatory correlates. The idea
was that such properties were only physical correlates of an internal cognitive
entity (i.e. distinctive features exist only in the brain). Further, acoustic
correlates were dropped from many descriptions of distinctive features (e.g.
Chomsky and Halle, 1968). The notion of distinctive feature became increasingly
abstract as their description moved away from Jakobson's idea that the features
should be clearly defined in terms of their physiological and acoustic correlates.
Moving away from such externally measurable correlates might be argued to be
justified on the grounds that physical and mental reality are not identical, but
doing so also moves away from the possibility of hypothesis falsifiability, the
basis of modern science. "Falsifiability (or refutability or testability) is the logical
possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical
experiment" (Wikipedia).
The above issues bring us to the question of psychological reality. Do human
brains use distinctive features, or more generally features of any kind, in the
specification (and production and perception) of phonemes? If we do, then do we
use the features that have been described above (or similar sets of features)?
Sometimes phonological proof has resembled the strategies of formal logic
whereby proof may consist of providing a logically internally consistent system of
rules and features. Do human brains use rules in normal speech cognition?