Distinctive Features - Speech Resource Pages - Macquarie University
Distinctive Features - Speech Resource Pages - Macquarie University
Distinctive Features - Speech Resource Pages - Macquarie University
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unaspirated sounds are produced without this gesture." (HC) [+spread]<br />
refers to aspirated consonants, breathy voiced or murmured consonants,<br />
voiceless vowels, voiceless approximants. [-spread] refers to all other<br />
sounds. It should be stressed that during the occlusion of both voiceless<br />
aspirated and voiceless unaspirated (0 VOT) stops the glottis is open. The<br />
difference is during the period following release where, for aspirated stops,<br />
the glottis stays open much longer than for unaspirated stops.<br />
19. constricted glottis / non-constricted glottis [constr]: "Constricted<br />
or glottalized sounds are produced with the vocal cords drawn together,<br />
preventing normal vocal cord vibration; nonconstricted (nonglottalized)<br />
sounds are produced without such a gesture." (HC) [+constr] refers to<br />
ejectives, implosives, glottalized or laryngealised consonants, glottalized or<br />
laryngealised vowels. [-constr] refers to all other sounds.<br />
20. voiced / voiceless [voice]: "Voiced sounds are produced with a<br />
laryngeal configuration permitting periodic vibration of the vocal cords;<br />
voiceless sounds lack such periodic vibration." (HC) [+voice] refers to all<br />
voiced sounds. [-voice] refers to all voiceless sounds.<br />
6. Australian English Vowel <strong>Features</strong><br />
a) Australian English Monophthong Vowels<br />
When Chomsky and Halle were using their system of <strong>Distinctive</strong> <strong>Features</strong> to<br />
analyse American English vowels, they argued that it was necessary to define<br />
three levels of height:-<br />
1. high [+high] [-low]<br />
2. mid [-high] [-low]<br />
3. low [-high] [+low]<br />
but only two levels of fronting:-<br />
1. front [-back]<br />
2. back [+back]<br />
Whilst its not impossible to describe Australian English vowels in terms of [high,<br />
low, back, round, tense] so that all monophthongs are provided with a unique<br />
featural specification the resulting system doesn't match the phonetics of<br />
Australian English vowels. In each category, front, central and back there are<br />
several vowels. To call both the central and the back vowels [+back] doesn't<br />
capture this pattern satisfactorily. For example, the vowel /ʉː/ has been moving<br />
forward over several decades and for most speakers its a high, central, rounded<br />
vowel. For some speakers it has moved even further forward (half way between<br />
central and front), but isn't yet a front rounded vowel. It makes a lot of sense to<br />
regard this as a high rounded vowel that isn't explicitly front or back (i.e. [-front,<br />
-back]).<br />
So now we can define three degree of vowel fronting:-<br />
1. front [+front, -back]<br />
2. central [-front, -back]<br />
3. back [-front, +back]<br />
As stated (and justified) in the previous section, we don't use a length feature<br />
(e.g. [long]) to indicate the distinction between long and short monophthongs.<br />
We can instead refer to long vowels (and diphthongs) as tense and short vowels