[segment]

Definition

Fully specified [+segment] matrices are dubbed a “unit”. Matrices with [+segment] that are not fully specified are dubbed archi-segments. Boundaries (syllable, morpheme, word) are specified as [-segment].

Purpose

The purpose of this feature was to distinguish a phonological segment ([+segment]) from a phonological boundary ([-segment]). Fully specified [+segment] matrices are dubbed a “unit”. Segments that are not fully specified are dubbed archi-segments, drawing on the Praguian School notion of archiphoneme (Trubetzkoy 1939).

History

Although the feature is defined fairly early in The sound pattern of English (Chomsky & Halle 1968:64), it is not included in Chapter Seven, which defines the phonetic framework and segmental phonological features. Not many, if any, works make use of this feature.

References

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

Trubetzkoy, Nikolai S. 1939. Grundzüge der Phonologie. Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague 7. Trans. 1969 by Christiane Baltaxe, Principles of phonology. Berkeley: University of California Press. 

Further Reading

None

Author

Paul D. Fallon