Articulator-Bound Features

Counterpart

Feature System

Feature Geometry

Definition

Articulator-bound features are those features that are dependent upon the six major articulators, the anatomical structures involved in production of speech. The articulators include the glottis, the soft palate, the lips, tongue blade, tongue body, and tongue root (Halle 1992). The articulator-bound features, along with their articulators, include

Soft Palate feature: [Nasal]

Glottis features: [stiff vocal cords], [slack vocal cords], [spread glottis], and [constricted glottis]

Tongue Root features: [advanced tongue root], [constricted pharynx]

Dorsal (Tongue Body) features: [high], [low], [back]

Coronal (Tongue Blade) features: [anterior], [distributed], [lower incisor cavity]

Labial (Lip) feature: [rounded]

Purpose

To distinguish the set of features which are dependent upon a single articulator from those that are not. The idea draws on the insight that the articulators play a fundamental role in the organization of phonological features within the segment. Halle (1992:211) notes the significance that six of the seven groups of articulators being actualized by a single articulator. This represents a convergence of two independent lines of inquiry: the study of the articulatory implementation of features and of the patterned behavior of features based on phonological rules.

History

Growing out of Halle (1983, 1988), Sagey (1986) and early models of feature geometry, Halle developed his Articulator-based feature theory, concisely presented in Halle (1992, 2003).

References

Halle, Morris. 1983. On distinctive features and their articulatory implementation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1.91-105.

Halle, Morris. 1988. The immanent form of phonemes. Giving birth to cognitive science: A Festschrift for George A. Miller, ed. by William Hurst, 167-183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Halle, Morris. 1992. Phonological features. Oxford international encyclopedia of linguistics, vol. 3, ed. by William Bright, 207-212. New York: Oxford University Press.

Halle, Morris. 2003. Phonological features. Oxford international encyclopedia of linguistics, vol. 3, ed. by William Frawley, 314-320. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sagey, Elizabeth. 1986. The representation of features and relations in nonlinear phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation. Published in 1991 by Garland Press.

Author

Paul D. Fallon