Further readings on this section

Phonetics and Phonology (ENG)



VU

Lesson-33

LINGUISTIC PHONETICS-II

At the end of this section, the students will be able to
• DEFINE and COMMENT on feature hierarchy and problems with linguistic explanations.

Topic-166: Feature Hierarchy

The second way by which we will consider why the linguistic phonetic description is important is by considering a hierarchical organization of linguistic phonetic features. Feature hierarchy is an important concept in phonetics and phonology which is based on the properties and features of sounds. Ina very general sense, a feature maybe tied to a particular articulatory maneuver or acoustic property. For example, the feature bilabial indicates not only that the segment is produced with lips but also that it involves both of them. Such features (in phonetics and phonology) are listed in a hierarchy with nodes in the hierarchy defining evermore specific phonetic properties. For example, sounds are divided in terms of their supra-laryngeal and laryngeal characteristics, and their airstream mechanism. The supra-laryngeal characteristics can be further divided into those for place (of articulation, manner (of articulation, the possibility of nasality, and the possibility of being lateral. Thus, these features are used for classifying speech sounds and describing them formally.

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