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Universität Tübingen Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft Phonetics k Phonology Phonology - Distinctive Features - (Hall, Kapitel 4; Ladefoged, Chapter 11; Clark & Yallop, Appendix 2) Christian Ebert [email protected] 1 Distinctive Features basics the rules so far allow for correct derivations, but they do not adquately describe the involved process example: rule for voice assimilation of plosives in Plains Cree /p t k/ > [b d g] / V __ V „voiceless plosives become voiced between vowels“ but we cannot read off the rule that... ● the involved sounds form a natural class (like „the plosives of the language“) ● it is an assimilation 2 Distinctive Features basics a natural class is a collection of sounds in a language that can be described by a set of shared phonetic features /p t k/ are consonantal, voiceless, obstruent (i.e. non-sonorant), etc. and form a natural class in Plains Cree the assimilation above is about such features: it changes the 'voiceless' into 'voiced' but leaves all other features intact in generative grammar phonological rules are stated w.r.t. to feature bundles and not to single segments 3 Distinctive Features basics features are noted between brackets example: to indicate that a sound is voiced, one attribute the feature [+voice] to it to indicate that a sound is voiceless one would note [-voice] there are many suggestions for feature systems we will stick to the features of Chomsky & Halle (1968) „The Sound Pattern of English“ as in their version of Hall, Chapter 4. in Clark & Yallop, Appendix 2 there are overviews of other feature systems 4 Distinctive Features basics another important feature next to [±voice] concerns the indication of sonorance by [±sonorant] (or [±son] for short) a sonorant sound will be marked for [+son], an obstruent for [−son] hence the natural class of voiceless obstruents can be described by an appropriate combination of features into a feature bundle or feature matrix: [ -son ] [-son, -voice] or -voice the features are written either next to or on top of each other 5 Distinctive Features basics another important feature is [±continuant] ([±cont]), which indicates whether the airflow through the oral cavity is continuous if the air flows continuously over tongues and lips, the sound carries the [+cont] feature, otherwise it is marked as [−cont] with these features the following classes can be described [-son] Non-Sonorants = obstruents = plosives & fricatives e.g. in German [b p d t g k v f S s z C x h ?] [-son, -cont] non-continuant obstruents = plosives e.g. in German [b p d t g k ?] [-son, -cont, voiceless non-continuant obstruents = voiceless plosives -voice] e.g. in German [p t k ?] 6 Distinctive Features basics illustrated with a diagram (w.r.t. German sounds): +son -son a: j e y z c O i o v I @ n d + E m v N b u: w l g t t ? k n n o o e C c c c p S - + i o t v - s f x 7 Distinctive Features basics the features themselves are universal means to describe sounds across languages which class of sound is actually described by a feature bundle depends on the particular language under consideration for instance, the class [-son,-cont,-voice] (voiceless plosives) in Plains Cree comprises only [p t k] (German, in comparison: [p t k ?] since there is no glottal plosive [?] in Plains Cree) therefore we can change the rule for voice assimilation in Plains Cree from above as follows: -son [ ] V __ V -cont > [+voice] / -voice 8 Distinctive Features basics rules with feature matrices are to be read as follows: on all sounds that carry the specified input features, the output features are transformed as specified, if they occur in the given environment all features that are not mentioned in the rule are left unchanged the rule hence describes the desired change: voiceless plosives in Plains Cree are changed into voiced ones between vowels furthermore it is now clear that the input to the rule is a natural class and not an arbitrary collection of sounds 9 Distinctive Features basics a feature, that makes the crucial difference between two phonemes of a language is called distinctive (for this language) stated differently: a feature is distinctive if there are two phonemes that differ only in this feature for instance, [±voice] is distinctive for German since the two phonemes /p/ and /b/ differ only in voicing a feature for aspiration [±aspirated] is not distinctive for German: although aspirated plosives as [p] occur they are allophonic (and not distinctive/contrastive) to [p] but [±aspirated] is distinctive in Hindi, which has the two phonemes /p/ and /p/. 10 Distinctive Features feature systems a system of features must provide all distinctive features that are necessary to describe the distinctive sounds of the worlds languages in the following we will focus on the system of Chomsky & Halle (1968) in its variant given by Hall (2000) as above, most features are binary, i.e. they have either the value + or - furthermore there are privative features, which are either present or absent; the presence of other features may in turn depend on the the presence of these privative features 11 Distinctive Features feature systems features can be classified according to four categories: major class features capture large classes of segments, such as sonorants, etc. laryngeal features capture aspects pertaining to the glottis/vocal folds manner of articulation features describe different types of constrictions place of articulation features describe articulator & tongue position 12 Distinctive Features major class features [±consonantal] ([±cons]) [+cons] are sounds that are produced with a major constriction in the oral cavity [+cons]: plosives such as /p b/, fricatives such as /f v/, affricates such as /tþs/, nasals such as /m n/, laterals such as /l/, trills such as /r/, flaps & taps such as /4/, approximants such as /£ ²/ [-cons]: vowels and glides such as /j w/, laryngeal sounds such as /h ?/ (here the constriction is located in the larynx and not the oral cavity) 13 Distinctive Features major class features [±sonorant] ([±son]) the articulatory difference is that the air pressure before and behind the constriction of [+son] segments is roughly the same, while it is different in the case of[-son] segments, since here an increase in air pressure is caused by the constriction this feature distinguishes sonorants ([+son]) from obstruents ([-son]) [-son]: plosives, affricates, fricatives, laryngeal sounds [+son]: nasals, laterals, glides, vowels [+son] sounds are produced with a vocal tract configuration in which spontaneous voicing is possible 14 Distinctive Features major class features [±syllabic] ([±syl]) the feature [±syllabic] indicates whether the segment can function as a syllable peak [+syllabic]: vowels [-syllabic]: consonants and semi-vowels/glides 15 Distinctive Features major class features the major class features can already distinguish important classes of segments obstruents nasals liquids laryngeals vowels glides [±cons] + + + - - - [±son] - + + - + + [±syllabic] - - - - + - (according to this definition, lateral and central approximants /l/ and /£ ²/ are liquids, but not rhotic trills as /r ³/) 16 Distinctive Features laryngeal features [±voice] this feature indicates whether the sound is articulated with vibrating vocal folds ([+voice]) or not ([-voice]) [+voice]: vowels, glides, sonorant consonats such as /m n l r/ and voiced obstruents such as /b d g v z/ [-voice] are voiceless obstruents such as /p t k f s/ in German [±voice] is distinctive only for obstruents; sonorants are always [+voice] in other languages there are also [-voice] sonorants such as /lß/ in Toda: [kalß] ('pearl') vs. [kal] ('to study') 17 Distinctive Features laryngeal features [±spread] alternatively: [±aspirated] ([±asp]) indicates whether the glottis, i.e. the vocal folds are spread [+spread]: aspirated sounds such as /p t/, the fricative /h/ [±constricted] ([±constr]) indicates whether the vocal folds are constricted, such that the glottis is (nearly) closed [+constriced]: ejectives, implosives, the glottal stop /?/ laryngealised sounds 18 Distinctive Features manner of articulation features [±continuant] ([±cont]) [+cont] sounds allow for a continuous airflow through the oral cavity [+cont]: fricatives, glides, vowels [-cont]: plosives, affricates, nasals (airflow is through the nose!) this feature distinguishes plosives ([-son,-cont]) from fricatives ([-son,+cont]) 19 Distinctive Features manner of articulation features [±nasal] ([±nas]) [+nasal] sounds are articulated with a lowered velum [+nasal]: nasal consonants and nasal vowels, all other sounds are [-nasal] [±lateral] ([±lat]) [+lateral] sounds are articulated with a central constriction of the oral cavity by the tongue, which is lowered at the sides [+lateral]: /l ¢ K ¡/ 20 Distinctive Features manner of articulation features [±strident] sibilant sounds with a high degree of 'noisiness' (in particular at high frequencies) note that this is rather an auditive than articulatory motivated feature [+strident]: /s z S Z tþs tþS dþZ/ [-strident]: /T D C x/ 21 Distinctive Features manner of articulation features with these additional features one arrives at a more fine-grained classification of segments consonants [+cons] obstruents sonorants [-son] [+son] plosive fricative liquides nasals [-cont] [+cont] [-nas] [+nas] laterale trills [+lat] [-lat] 22 Distinctive Features place of articulation features place of articulation aspects of articulation cannot be adequately described by binary features for instance, one may use a binary feature [±labial] to distinguish labial from non-labial sounds so this would define two natural classes: the [+labial] sounds („the labials“) and the [-labial] sounds („the non-labials“) the problem is, that in no known language „the non-labials“ play any distinguished role, for instance as input to any process hence there is no phonological evidence for such a class 23 Distinctive Features place of articulation features for this reason one better uses privative features privative features are present or absent, but they do not have the values + or - and hence they do not define two classes but only one privative features are noted with small caps e.g.
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