Unit 2
Prof. Moiss nton Bittner
Phonetics and Phonology 2
Spring Term 2013
Distinctive Features
Distinctive feature: Any of a set of phonetic properties, as
voicing, place of articulation or manner of articulation,
serving to characterise and distinguish between the
significant sounds or phonemes in a language.
e.g. /p/ has to be defined as an unvoiced bilabial
plosive to account for all the oppositions found with
the other consonants in English.
Hence we can say that
1) voiceless
2) bilabial
3) plosive
are the distinctive features of /p/.
Since the inception of the phonological analysis of
distinctive features in the 1950s, features traditionally
have been specified by assigning them binary values to
signify that the segment being described by the feature
either possesses that phonetic property or it does not.
Therefore, a positive value, [+], denotes the presence of a
feature, while a negative value, [], indicates its absence.
e.g. /p/[-voice, +labial, -nasal, -sonorant ]
/b/ [+voice, +labial, -nasal, -sonorant]
/m/ [+voice, +labial, +nasal, +sonorant]
*ATR: Advanced Tongue Root
Redundancy
Redundancy is an important aspect of phonology
which is captured by the use of distinctive features.
Consider for example the fact that all segments in
English which are [+nasal] are also [+voice]. So to
specify [+voice] for segments like [m] and [n] is
redundant.
The main distinctive feature here is the nasality - the
voicing is secondary and entirely predictable: all nasal
consonants are voiced.
Complementary Distribution
Two sounds are in complementary distribution if they never
occur in the same context.
A good example is provided by the allophones of the /l/
phoneme in BBC English:
Voiceless allophone [ l ] when /l/ occurs after /p/, /t/ or /k/ at the
beginning of a syllable.
Clear l which occurs before vowels.
Dark l which occurs elsewhere (i.e. before consonants or a pause).
These three allophones together account for practically all the
different ways in which the /l/ phoneme is realised.
In conventional phoneme theory, sounds which are in
complementary distribution are likely to belong to
the same phoneme; thus voiceless l, clear l and dark
l in the example given above will be classed as
members of the same phoneme.
The alveolar phoneme /n/ can be realised either as an
alveolar allophone, as in ten, or as a dental allophone,
as in tenth, depending on the following sound, or the
lack of a following sound.
The feature 'aspirated', which we find in [pIt], is
context-bound. [p] and [p] are realisations of the
same phoneme, i.e. allophones that are in
complementary distribution: [p] can never occur
instead of [p] and vice-versa.
However, we can find sounds in English, for example,
which are in complementary distribution with each
other but are still not considered members of the same
phoneme. e.g. [ N ] [ h ]
Free Variation
If two sounds that are different from each other can
occur in the same phonological context and one of
those sounds may be substituted for the other, they are
said to be in free variation.
Free variation in linguistics is the phenomenon of
two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the
same environment without a change in meaning and
without being considered incorrect by native speakers.
Examples
The phoneme /z/ in zeal can be realised as a voiceless, or
devoiced, allophone when whispered, or as a voiced
allophone when pronounced normally.
The phoneme /t/ in butter can be realised as a glottal stop,
[?], by speakers of some non-standard British accents, but
the same speakers may realise the phoneme as [t] when
they aim at a more standard pronunciation.
Vocalic phonemes in free variation include /i:/ and /e/
as the initial sound in the words economics and evolution,
and /i:/ and /aI/ as the initial sound in either.
The various possible realisations of the / r / phoneme:
Post-alveolar approximant [ ] which is the most common
pronunciation in contemporary BBC pronunciation and General
American.
Tap [ ] which was typical of carefully-spoken BBC pronunciation of
fifty years ago.
Labiodental approximant [ ] used by speakers who have difficulty in
articulating tongue-tip versions of / r / and by some older upper-class
English speakers.
Trill [ r ] found in carefully-pronounced Scots accents.
Uvular [ ] of the old traditional form of the Geordie accent on
Tyneside.
References
Roach, Peter. 1991. English Phonetics and Phonology, a practical course. 2nd Edition. Cambridge
university Press.
Roach, Peter. 2002. Little Encyclopaedia of Phonetics.
http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~llsroach/peter/
Skandera, Paul & Burleigh, Peter. 2005. A Manual of English Phonetics and Phonology - Twelve Lessons
with an Integrated Course in Phonetic Transcription. Gunter Narr Verlag Tbingen.
Stanley, Richard . 1967. Redundancy Rules in Phonology.
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/featgeom/stanley67.pdf
Tatham, Mark. 1999. Distinctive Feature Theory. Michigan State University.
https://www.msu.edu/course/asc/232/DF/df-theory.html
English Consonants and Vowels: Distinctive Features.
http://www.benjamins.com/jbp/series/Z/156/workbook/exercise_2.7.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinctive_feature
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_variation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_distribution
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