[plain]

Counterparts

[flat]; [sharp]

Feature System

Definition

The feature [plain] holds an anomalous status in being the counterpart to two distinctive features, [flat] and [sharp]. Plain segments (vs. [flat] ones) are not characterized by “a downward shift of a set of formants” (Jakobson, Fant, and Halle 1952:31). Articulatorily (“genetically”), they have a wider slit and are not “produced with a decreased back or front orifice of the mouth resonator” (Jakonson & Halle 1956:31). Plain sounds comprise most ordinary consonants and nonrounded vowels, segments that are not [flat]. Thus, plain vowels are neither rounded nor pharyngealized. This [flat/plain] opposition has been termed “orifice variation.”
As opposed to [sharp], plain vowels lack a rise of the second formant, and [plain] is used to characterize non-palatalized consonants. Jakobson & Halle (1956:31-32) define the non-sharp [plain] sounds as lacking “upward shift of some of their upper frequency components” and are made articulatorily with a narrower slit with a “widened back orifice of the mouth resonator.”

Purpose

The feature [plain] is used as the counterpart for non-pharyngealized consonants, which are [flat], and for non-rounded vowels, which are also [plain]. Plain vowels are not rounded, so Turkish /i, ɨ, e, a/ are the [plain] (nonflat); [flat] vowels are rounded, so Turkish round vowels /u, y, o, œ/ are [flat]. Non-pharyngealized consonants are [plain], while pharyngealized consonants are [flat]. The phonological validity of this feature invoked Bantu and Uzbek substitution of Arabic pharyngealized consonants with labialized ones in loanwords, demonstrating their acoustic similarity.

History

This feature was not utilized in Jakobson’s initial formalization of distinctive features (Jakobson 1949, Jakobson & Lotz 1949).

The feature was first introduced by Jakobson, Fant, & Halle (1952:31) as one of several tonality features, along with [grave], [acute], and [sharp]. Tonality features are one type of resonance feature. [flat] has its origin as a term in music, and JFH employ the musical flat symbol ♭ in several of their examples. The counterpart to [flat] is [plain], or non-flat. Likewise, [plain] was the logical term for non-sharp sounds.

Jakobson, Fant, & Halle (1952) claimed that pharyngealized and rounded sounds do not occur in the same language and were thus two variants of a single [flat] vs. [plain] opposition. They further claimed that there was no need for distinct phonetic symbols for rounded [t̼] and pharyngealized [ t̴ ] consonants. The feature [plain] underwent minor rephrasing in Jakobson & Halle (1956, 1957, and 1968). McCawley (1967) refuted the possibility of conflating rounding and pharyngealization by noting that Arabic vowels are pharyngealized adjacent to pharyngealized consonants. The formalization of a rule would require that [flat] refer be interpreted as pharyngealized when applied to a consonant or a front or low vowel, as rounded when applied to a high back vowel, and as rounded and pharyngealized when applied to a high back vowel. This critique eliminated the feature from use in Chomsky & Halle’s (1968) The sound pattern of English.

NOTE: Although Jakobson (1931/1962) used the terms flat, non-flat, grave, and acute (1962:224), Qu (2021:164-165) showed that in the translation from Czech to English, Jakobson took the opportunity to incorporate some anachronistic terms.

References

Bghazhba, X. S. 1964. Bzybskij dialekt abxazskogo jazyka. Tblisi: Nauka.

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

Doak, Ivy Grace. 1997. Coeur D’Alene grammatical relations.Austin: University of Texas dissertation.

Fant, Gunnar. 1983. Feature analysis of Swedish vowels–a revisit. Speech Transmission Laboratory Quarterly Progress and Status Report 2-3. 1-19.

Jakobson, Roman. 1931. Z fonologie spisovné slovenštiny. Slovenská miscellanea, ed. by Josef Jirásek, and František Tichý, 155-163. Bratislava: Universum.

Jakobson, Roman. 1962. Phonemic notes on standard Slovak. Selected writings, vol. I: Phonological studies, 221-230. ‘S-Gravenhage: Mouton.

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. Phonology and phonetics. Fundamentals of Language, by Roman Jakobson, and Morris Halle, 1-51. The Hague: Mouton.

Jakobson, Roman; and Morris Halle. 1957. Phonology in relation to phonetics. Manual of phonetics, ed. by L. Kaiser, 215-251. Amsterdam: North Holland.

Jakobson, Roman; and Morris Halle. 1968. Phonology in relation to phonetics. Manual of phonetics, ed. by Bertil Malmberg, 411-449. Amsterdam: North Holland.

McCawley, James D. 1967. Le rôle d’un système de traits phonologiques dans une théorie du langage. Languages 8, 112-123. English version: The role of a phonological feature system in a theory of language in Phonological theory: Evolution and current practice, ed. by Valerie Becker Makkai, 522-528. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972.

Qu, Changliang. 2021. Roman Jakobson’s forgotten Czech articles on phonology: A case of avoiding anachronism in linguistic historiography. RUS: Revista de Literatura e Cultura Russa 12(19).154-170. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2317-4765.rus.2021.186465

Author

Paul D. Fallon