[checked]

Counterpart

Feature System

Definition

The [checked] feature is characterized by an abrupt termination of the sound pattern, “checked” by the compression or closure of the glottis, in particular the sharp termination of the sound (Jakobson, Fant & Halle 1952:21). Thus, the [checked] feature has a higher rate of discharge energy within a reduced interval of time and a lower damping of the sound (Jakobson & Halle 1956: 42).

Purpose

The [checked] sound was considered the primary components of the ejectives, implosives, and clicks (Jakobson & Halle 1956: 42).

History

These features were first introduced by Jakobson, Fant, & Halle (1952:21) as one of several envelope features. The [checked] and [unchecked] sounds were considered to be quite common and said to be found in many native languages of the America’s, Africa, and East Asia. Certain varieties of checked stops, called glottalized, are found in many native languages of America, Africa, the Far East and the Caucasus (Jakobson, Fant & Halle 1952: 21).

[checked] and its counterpart were excluded from The sound pattern of English system of phonological features, and fell out of common use as the SPE features came into prominence. It is largely considered obsolete and is no longer in common usage.
Clements-Halle (1983) proposes the feature [constricted], in reference to the glottis. It is characteristic of the implosives and ejectives, among others. While not the same as [checked]/[unchecked] the [constr] feature takes on some of the utility that this pair once had.

References

Chomsky, Noam & Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.

Halle, Morris; and George N. Clements. 1983. Problem book in phonology: A workbook for courses in introductory linguistics and modern phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jakobson, Roman, Gunnar Fant & Morris Halle. 1952. Preliminaries to speech analysis: the distinctive features and their correlates. (MIT Acoustic Laboratory Technical Report 13). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jakobson, Roman; and Morris Halle. 1956. Fundamentals of Language. The Hague: Mouton.

Author

Michael Boehmcke