Distinctive Features - Speech Resource Pages - Macquarie University

More documents

Recommendations

Info

have argued: for example [f] and [x] are related acoustically but not articulatorily and they participated in the sound change by which the pronunciation of 'gh' spellings in English changed from a velar to a labiodental fricative e.g. 'laugh', [lɑx]→[lɑf]). Many of the features are defined loosely in phonetic terms. This is perhaps to be expected. Phonology has established highly abstract representations to explain sound alternations (i.e. to factor out what are considered redundant or predictable aspects of a word's pronunciation) and this abstraction is partly opposed to the principle in phonetics of describing in articulatory and acoustic terms the characteristics of speech sound production that are shared by linguistic communities. Nevertheless, if phonology is to be related to how words are actually pronounced, the features are required to have at least some phonetic basis to them. e) An overview of commonly used distinctive features The features described in Halle & Clements (1983) have been commonly used in the phonology literature in their analyses of the sound patterns of various languages. They incorporate many insights of the original features devised by Jakobson (1941) but are mostly based on those of the Sound Pattern of English, taking into account some modifications suggested by Halle & Stevens (1971). Most of these are also discussed below. i. Major class features Four features [syll], [cons], [son], [cont] (syllabic, consonantal, sonorant, continuant) are used to divide up speech sounds into major classes, as follows. Note that [syll] means "syllabic" (syllable nucleus), [cons] means "consonantal", [son] means "sonorant" (periodic low frequency energy), [cont] means "continuant" (continuous airflow through oral cavity), and [delrel] means delayed release (release is not "delayed", but there is a longer aspiration phase than oral stops - nb. voice onset is what's actually delayed). syll cons son cont delrel vowels + - + + 0 oral stops - + - - - affricates - + - - + nasal stops - + + - 0 fricatives - + - + 0 liquids - + + + 0 semivowels - - + + 0 Note that the approximants have been divided into liquids (eg. in English /r, l/) and semi-vowels (eg. in English /w, j/). In this, and most other distinctive feature sets derived from Chomsky and Halle. Semi-vowels (being [-syll, -cons]) form a class of sounds intermediate between vowels ([+syll]) and consonants ([+cons]). The approximants can be defined as a class by the features [-syll, +son, +cont] and can be further sub-divided into liquids and semi-vowels using the [cons] feature. Note that "0" means irrelevant feature for these classes of sounds (there's nothing to release). We also have a feature [nasal] which, as its name suggests, separates nasal from oral sounds. In the above table, [nasal] would have been redundant as the nasal
stops are already defined uniquely as [-syll, +cons, +son, -cont] (ie. as sonorant stops). However. the feature [nasal] is required to define nasal stops, nasalised vowels and nasalised approximants as a single natural class. ii. Source features These are related to the source (vocal fold vibration that sustains voiced sounds or a turbulent airstream that sustains many voiceless sounds). The feature [voice] is self-explanatory (with or without vocal fold vibration). The feature [spread glottis] is used to distinguish aspirated from unaspirated stops (aspirated stops are initially produced with the vocal folds drawn apart). We can therefore make the following distinctions: voiced spread glottis p - - b + - pʰ - + The [strident] feature is used by Halle and Clements for those fricatives produced with high-intensity fricative noise: supposedly labiodentals, alveolars, palatoalveolars, and uvulars are [+strident]. There seems to be little acoustic phonetic basis to the claim that labiodentals and alveolars pattern acoustically (as opposed to dentals). In this course, we will use Ladefoged's feature [sibilant] which is defined by Ladefoged (1971) in acoustic terms as including those fricatives with 'large amounts of acoustic energy at high frequencies' i.e. [s ʃ z ʒ]. The English affricates would therefore also be [+sibilant]: cont sibilant oral stops - - affricates - + sibilant fricatives + + non-sibilant fricatives + - This may be an oversimplification, however, as the alveolar oral stops might also be described as sibilant, so sibilant isn't sufficient to separate oral stops and affricates (and we still need spread glottis). iii. Vowel features There are four dimensions to consider: vowel height, backness, rounding, and tensity. Vowel height is classified using the [high] and [low] features. Palatal and velar consonants are also [+high, -low] and, with the use of the [back] feature, a relationship can be established between high vowels and their corresponding glides: high low back syllabic i + - - + j + - - - u + - + + w + - + - (NB: [u] is presumed to be a back vowel here as in cardinal vowel 8).
Page 1 and 2: Topics Distinctive Features © Robe
Page 3 and 4: d) Gradual Oppositions The members
Page 5: We could refer to all these phoneme
Page 9 and 10: iv. Place of articulation The [ant]
Page 11 and 12: produced without such a gesture." [
Page 13 and 14: as lax. Instead we use the [tense]
Page 15 and 16: distinct tense vowel. All other cen
Page 17 and 18: Australian English diphthongs can b
Page 19 and 20: 7. English Consonant Features (an o
Page 21 and 22: 9. Articulatory Features In more re
Page 23: 20. Jakobson, R., Fant, C.G.M. and

Distinctive Features - Speech Resource Pages - Macquarie University

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?