Distinctive feature

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In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that distinguishes one sound from another within a language. For example, the feature [voice] distinguishes the two bilabial plosives: [p] and [b]. There are many different ways of defining and arranging features into feature systems: some deal with only one language while others are developed to apply to all languages. [1]

Contents

Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features, and place features. These feature categories in turn are further specified on the basis of the phonetic properties of the segments in question. [2]

Since the inception of the phonological analysis of distinctive features in the 1950s, features traditionally have been specified by binary values to signify whether a segment is described by the feature; a positive value, [+], denotes the presence of a feature, while a negative value, [−], indicates its absence. In addition, a phoneme may be unmarked with respect to a feature. It is also possible for certain phonemes to have different features across languages. For example, [l] could be classified as a continuant or not in a given language depending on how it patterns with other consonants. [3] After the first distinctive feature theory was created by Jakobson in 1941, it was assumed that the distinctive features are binary and this theory about distinctive features being binary was formally adopted in "Sound Pattern of English" by Chomsky and Halle in 1968. Jakobson saw the binary approach as the best way to make the phoneme inventory shorter and the phonological oppositions are naturally binary. [4]

In recent developments[ when? ] to the theory of distinctive features, phonologists have proposed the existence of single-valued features. These features, called univalent or privative features , can only describe the classes of segments that are said to possess those features, and not the classes that are without them. [5]

List

Euler diagram showing a typical classification of sounds (in IPA) and their manners of articulation and distinctive features IPA-euler-manners-features.svg
Euler diagram showing a typical classification of sounds (in IPA) and their manners of articulation and distinctive features

This section lists and describes distinctive features in linguistics. [6]

Major class

Major class features: The features that represent the major classes of sounds.

  1. [+/− syllabic] [7] Syllabic segments may function as the nucleus of a syllable, while their counterparts, the [−syll] segments, may not. Except in the case of syllabic consonants, [+syllabic] designates all vowels, while [−syllabic] designates all consonants (including glides).
  2. [+/− consonantal] [8] Consonantal segments are produced with an audible constriction in the vocal tract, such as obstruents, nasals, liquids, and trills. Vowels, glides and laryngeal segments are not consonantal.
  3. [+/− approximant] Approximant segments include vowels, glides, and liquids while excluding nasals and obstruents.
  4. [+/− sonorant] [8] This feature describes the type of oral constriction that can occur in the vocal tract. [+son] designates the vowels and sonorant consonants (namely glides, liquids, and nasals) that are produced without an imbalance of air pressure in the vocal tract that might cause turbulence. [−son] describes the obstruents, articulated with a noticeable turbulence caused by an imbalance of air pressure in the vocal tract.

Laryngeal

Laryngeal features: The features that specify the glottal states of sounds.

  1. [+/− voice] [7] This feature indicates whether vibration of the vocal folds occurs with the articulation of the segment.
  2. [+/− spread glottis] [7] Used to indicate the aspiration of a segment, this feature denotes the openness of the glottis. For [+sg], the vocal folds are spread apart widely enough for friction to occur; for [−sg], there is not the same friction-inducing spreading.
  3. [+/− constricted glottis] [7] The constricted glottis feature denotes the degree of closure of the glottis. [+cg] implies that the vocal folds are held closely together, enough so that air cannot pass through momentarily, while [−cg] implies the opposite.

Manner

Manner features: The features that specify the manner of articulation.

  1. [+/− continuant] [8] This feature describes the passage of air through the vocal tract. [+cont] segments are produced without any significant obstruction in the tract, allowing air to pass through in a continuous stream. [−cont] segments, on the other hand, have such an obstruction, and so occlude the air flow at some point of articulation.
  2. [+/− nasal] [8] This feature describes the position of the velum. [+nas] segments are produced by lowering the velum so that air can pass through the nasal tract. [−nas] segments conversely are produced with a raised velum, blocking the passage of air from the nasal tract and shunting it to the oral tract.
  3. [+/− strident] [7] The strident feature applies to obstruents only and refers to a type of friction that is noisier than usual. This is caused by high energy white noise.
  4. [+/− lateral] [7] This feature designates the shape and positioning of the tongue with respect to the oral tract. [+lat] segments are produced as the center of the tongue rises to contact the roof of the mouth, thereby blocking air from flowing centrally through the oral tract and instead forcing more lateral flow along the lowered side(s) of the tongue.
  5. [+/− delayed release] [7] This feature distinguishes stops from affricates. Affricates are designated [+del rel]

Place

Place features: The features that specify the place of articulation.

  1. [+/− round]: [+round] are produced with lip rounding, while [−round] are not.
  1. [+/− anterior]: Anterior segments are articulated with the tip or blade of the tongue at or in front of the alveolar ridge. Dental consonants are [+ant], postalveolar and retroflex ones are [−ant].
  2. [+/− distributed]: For [+dist] segments the tongue is extended for some distance in the mouth. In other words, laminal dental and postalveolar consonants are marked as [+dist], while apical alveolar and retroflex consonants are [−dist].
  1. [+/− high]: [+high] segments raise the dorsum close to the palate. [−high] segments do not.
  2. [+/− low]: [+low] segments bunch the dorsum to a position low in the mouth.
  3. [+/− back]: [+back] segments are produced with the tongue dorsum bunched and retracted slightly to the back of the mouth. [−back] segments are bunched and extended slightly forward.
  4. [+/− tense]: This feature (mainly) applies to the position of the root of the tongue when articulating vowels. [+tense] vowels have an advanced tongue root. In fact, this feature is often referred to as advanced tongue root (ATR), although there is a debate on whether tense and ATR are the same or different features.
  1. [+/− advanced tongue root]: [+ATR] segments advance the root of the tongue.
  2. [+/− retracted tongue root]: [+RTR] segments bunch the root of the tongue towards the pharyngeal wall and activate the pharyngeal constrictor muscles

Vowel space

Vowels are distinguished by

  1. [+/− back] (back vowels)
  2. [+/− high] (close vowels)
  3. [+/− low] (low vowels)
  4. [+/− tense] (tense vowels)

However, laryngoscopic studies suggest these features[ citation needed ]

  1. [+/− front] (front vowels)
  2. [+/− raised] (raised vowels)
  3. [+/− retracted] (retracted vowels)
  4. [+/− round] (round vowels)

Jakobsonian system

This system is given by Jakobson & Halle (1971 , 3.6, 3.7).

Sonority

Protensity

Tonality

Other uses

The concept of a distinctive feature matrix to distinguish similar elements is identified with phonology, but there have been at least two efforts to use a distinctive feature matrix in related fields. Close to phonology, and clearly acknowledging its debt to phonology, distinctive features have been used to describe and differentiate handshapes in fingerspelling in American Sign Language. [9] Distinctive features have also been used to distinguish proverbs from other types of language such as slogans, clichés, and aphorisms. [10]

Analogous feature systems are also used throughout Natural Language Processing (NLP). For example, part-of-speech tagging divides words into categories. These include "major" categories such as Noun vs. Verb, but also other dimensions such as person and number, plurality, tense, and others. Some mnemonics for part-of-speech tags conjoin multiple features, such as "NN" for singular noun, vs. "NNS" for plural noun, vs. "NNS$" for plural possessive noun (see Brown Corpus). Others provide more explicit separation of features, even formalizing them via markup such as the Text Encoding Initiative's feature structures. Modern statistical NLP uses vectors of very many features, although many of those features are not formally "distinctive" in the sense described here.

See also

Related Research Articles

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like and semivowels like and, as well as lateral approximants like.

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue;, pronounced in the throat;, [v], and, pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and, which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German ; or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh. This turbulent airflow is called frication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manner of articulation</span> Configuration and interaction of the articulators when making a speech sound

In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is stricture, that is, how closely the speech organs approach one another. Others include those involved in the r-like sounds, and the sibilancy of fricatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phonetics</span> Branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human language

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines based on the research questions involved such as how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech, how various movements affect the properties of the resulting sound, or how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information. Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of phonetics is the phone—a speech sound in a language which differs from the phonological unit of phoneme; the phoneme is an abstract categorization of phones, and it is also defined as the smallest unit that discerns meaning between sounds in any given language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Place of articulation</span> Place in the mouth consonants are articulated

In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articulator. Active articulators are organs capable of voluntary movement which create the constriction, while passive articulators are so called because they are normally fixed and are the parts with which an active articulator makes contact. Along with the manner of articulation and phonation, the place of articulation gives the consonant its distinctive sound.

In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.

A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (length). They are usually voiced and are closely involved in prosodic variation such as tone, intonation and stress.

The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics that studies articulation and ways that humans produce speech. Articulatory phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures. Generally, articulatory phonetics is concerned with the transformation of aerodynamic energy into acoustic energy. Aerodynamic energy refers to the airflow through the vocal tract. Its potential form is air pressure; its kinetic form is the actual dynamic airflow. Acoustic energy is variation in the air pressure that can be represented as sound waves, which are then perceived by the human auditory system as sound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palatal click</span> Consonantal sound

The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound than those consonants. The tongue makes an extremely broad contact across the roof of the mouth, making correlation with the places of articulation of non-clicks difficult, but Ladefoged & Traill (1984:18) find that the primary place of articulation is the palate, and say that "there is no doubt that should be described as a palatal sound".

A voiced postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term voiced postalveolar fricative only for the sound, but it also describes the voiced postalveolar non-sibilant fricative, for which there are significant perceptual differences.

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the active articulator and passive articulator. Standard Spanish ⟨rr⟩ as in perro, for example, is an alveolar trill.

In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are semivowels like and, nasal consonants like and, and liquid consonants like and. This set of sounds contrasts with the obstruents.

Doubly articulated consonants are consonants with two simultaneous primary places of articulation of the same manner. They are a subset of co-articulated consonants. They are to be distinguished from co-articulated consonants with secondary articulation; that is, a second articulation not of the same manner. An example of a doubly articulated consonant is the voiceless labial-velar plosive, which is a and a pronounced simultaneously. On the other hand, the voiceless labialized velar plosive has only a single stop articulation, velar, with a simultaneous approximant-like rounding of the lips. In some dialects of Arabic, the voiceless velar fricative has a simultaneous uvular trill, but this is not considered double articulation either.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced retroflex implosive</span> Consonantal sound

The voiced retroflex implosive is a type of consonantal sound. It is not known to be phonemically distinct from alveolar in any language. Sindhi has an implosive that varies between dental and retroflex articulation, while Oromo, Saraiki and Ngad'a have but not.

The phonological system of the Polish language is similar in many ways to those of other Slavic languages, although there are some characteristic features found in only a few other languages of the family, such as contrasting postalveolar and alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates. The vowel system is relatively simple, with just six oral monophthongs and arguably two nasals in traditional speech, while the consonant system is much more complex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retroflex click</span> Family of click consonants

The retroflex clicks are a family of click consonants known only from the Central !Kung language or dialect of Namibia. They are sub-apical retroflex and should not be confused with the more widespread postalveolar clicks, which are sometimes mistakenly called "retroflex" due to their concave tongue shape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiceless alveolar nasal</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨n̥⟩ in IPA

The voiceless alveolar nasal is a type of consonant in some languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent the sound are ⟨n̥⟩ and ⟨n̊⟩, combinations of the letter for the voiced alveolar nasal and a diacritic indicating voicelessness above or below the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n_0.

A voiceless retroflex implosive is an extremely rare consonantal sound, used in very few spoken languages. There is no official symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, but ⟨ᶑ̊⟩ or ⟨ʈʼ↓⟩ may be used, or the old convention ⟨𝼉⟩.

References

  1. ↑ Ladefoged, Peter (2012). Vowels and consonants. Sandra Ferrari Disner (3 ed.). Malden, MA. pp. 195–196. ISBN   978-1-4443-3429-6. OCLC   740281727.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ↑ Gussenhoven & Jacobs 2017, p. 64-65.
  3. ↑ Gussenhoven & Jacobs 2017, p. 72-73.
  4. ↑ Administration. "Distinctive features". Macquarie University. Retrieved 2021-05-19.
  5. ↑ Gussenhoven & Jacobs 2017, p. 65.
  6. ↑ Gussenhoven & Jacobs 2017, pp. 66–81.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Arnaudova, Olga. "Overview of Distinctive Features". University of Ottawa. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Distinctive Features of English Phonemes Definitions". Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences . Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  9. ↑ Godsave, Bruce. 1974. An investigation of the feasibility of using a particular distinctive feature matrix for recording and categorizing fingerspelling errors. University of Cincinnati, doctoral dissertation.
  10. ↑ p. 73. Norrick, Neal. 1985. How Proverbs Mean: Semantic Studies in English Proverbs. de Gruyter.

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