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Phonological features and their phonetic correlates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Peter Ladefoged
Affiliation:
(University of California, Los Angeles)

Extract

There is nothing very new about the idea that speech sounds can be classified in terms of a limited number of features. Phonetic taxonomies have existed from the times of the earliest grammarians; and traditional consonant charts can be viewed as attempts to classify sounds in terms of features of place and manner of production. But with the development of the Prague school of phonology (Trubetzkoy, 1939) and the subsequent work of Jakobson and his collaborators (Jakobson, 1962; Jakobson, Fant and Halle, 1951; Jakobson and Halle, 1956) the discussion of the distinctive features of speech came to have more importance. As a result of the more recent work of Chomsky and Halle (1968), the role of distinctive features within phonological theory has become even more crucial. This paper will review the nature of phonological features in general, and will suggest a particular set of features which it might be appropriate to use in phonological descriptions of languages.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1972

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