[vocalic]
Counterpart
Feature System
Definition
The feature [vocalic] describes phonemes that are interpreted as a voiced sound with air flowing through a free passage in the vocal tract, and they exhibit a “sharply defined formant structure” (Jakobson & Halle 2002).
Purpose
Used alongside [consonantal]/[nonconsonantal] to make accurate binary distinctions among the major groups of phonemes (vowels, consonants, liquids, and glides).
History
In 1949, Jakobson and Lotz introduced the opposition [vowel]/[consonant] with no distinct definition. However, they noted that [r] and [l] create a complex “combining the consonantal characteristics with a vocalic one.” The footnotes of the page state that they may be “vowel-like consonants” (Jakobson & Lotz 1949:427).
Liquids [l] and [r] have a sharply defined formant structure, similar to that of vowels. They may have a rather low intensity, like consonants, but they can also possess intensity as high as or higher than that of adjoining vowels, and “their first formant often has higher frequency than the first formant of close vowels” (Fischer-Jørgensen 1975:156-157).
Because of the discrepancy with liquids, the original opposition was broken up into two sets: [vocalic]/[nonvocalic] and [consonantal]/[nonconsonantal] (Fischer-Jørgensen trends:156). Jakobson and Halle declared: “VOWELS are vocalic and non-consonantal. CONSONANTS are consonantal and non-vocalic. LIQUIDS are vocalic and consonantal (with both free passage and obstruction in the buccal cavity and with the corresponding acoustic effect). GLIDES are non-vocalic and non-consonantal…” (Jakobson & Halle 1971 [2002]:41).
Chomsky and Halle (1968) ultimately disregards the use of [vocalic], favoring [syllabicity] in the phonetic framework (Chomsky & Halle 1968:302).
References
Chomsky, Noam; and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row.
Fischer-Jørgensen, Eli. 1975. Trends in phonological theory: A historical introduction. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.
Jakobson, Roman; and John Lotz. 1949. Notes on the French phonemic pattern. Word 5.151-158. Reprinted in 1962 in Selected writings: Vol. 1: Phonological studies, ed. by Roman Jakobson, 426-434. ’S-Gravenhage: Mouton.
Jakobson, Roman; and Morris Halle. 1971. Fundamentals of language, 2nd revised edn. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Author
Ainsley Graf