{"id":275,"date":"2025-06-13T14:33:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T14:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=275"},"modified":"2025-06-17T23:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T03:02:11","slug":"interrupted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=275","title":{"rendered":"Interrupted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[interrupted]<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Counterpart<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

[continuant]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Feature System<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jakobsonian Features<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Definition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sounds that are considered [interrupted] have an abrupt onset and are characterized by a \u201csharp wave front preceded by a period of complete silence, for which, under certain conditions, a mere vibration of the vocal bands may be substituted.\u201d Jakobson, Fant, and Halle (1952:21) state that [interrupted] sounds can also have one interruption (flap) or multiple, recurrent interruptions (trill).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purpose<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The feature [interrupted] was introduced to distinguish stops from fricatives and the [continuant<\/a>] liquid [l] from interrupted liquid [r].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1949, Jakobson and Lotz introduced the opposition [continuous<\/strong>]\/[intercepted<\/strong>]. The [intercepted] phonemes are characterized as phonemes that \u201cinclude a complete obstruction of the passageway\u201d in production (Jakobson & Lotz 1949:430). The feature [intercepted] is not used again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cherry, Halle, and Jakobson (1953), present the idea that identifying distinctive features \u201cmay be regarded as questions to be answered yes or no.\u201d They use [continuant] as the feature, and the presence of it is marked as [+continuant] and the absence of it would be marked as [-continuant], instead of [interrupted] (Cherry et al. 1953:37). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson, Fant, and Halle (1952) introduce [interrupted] in opposition to [continuant], and it describes stops, trills, and flaps. Jakobson, Fant, and Halle note that this opposition is found in most languages, and that there are usually significantly more [interrupted] sounds than [continuant] sounds. They also note that in a great number of East Asian languages, liquids are not divided into [interrupted] and [continuant]. The liquid phoneme can be represented by either [r] or [l] (Jakobson, Fant, & Halle 1952:21-22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson and Halle (1971) refer to the opposite of [continuant] as [abrupt<\/strong>]. Other works, such as Halle (1962), use [-continuant] in favor of [interrupted].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson and Halle conceive [continuant] in opposition to [noncontinuant<\/strong>]\/[stop<\/strong>]. [interrupted] is omitted as a feature, but interruption in the trilled [r] is noted. Despite this, the trilled [r] is ultimately declared a [continuant] sound, and they note that \u201cthe trill is thus a secondary effect of narrowing the cavity without actually blocking the flow of air\u201d (Chomsky & Halle 1968:317-318).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, [interrupted] is understood as [-continuant].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cherry, E. Colin; Morris Halle; and Roman Jakobson. 1953. Toward the logical description of languages in their phonemic aspect. Language <\/em>29.34-46.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chomsky, Noam; and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English<\/em>. New York: Harper and Row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halle, Morris. 1962. Phonology in generative grammar. Word<\/em> 18.54-72.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson, Roman; and John Lotz. 1949. Notes on the French phonemic pattern. Word<\/em> 5.151-158. Reprinted in 1962 in Selected writings: Vol. 1: Phonological studies<\/em>, ed. by Roman Jakobson, 426-434. \u2019S-Gravenhage: Mouton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson, Roman; Gunnar Fant; and Morris Halle. 1952. Preliminaries to speech analysis: The distinctive features and their correlates.<\/em> (MIT Acoustic Laboratory Technical Report 13). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jakobson, Roman; and Morris Halle. 1971. Fundamentals of language<\/em>, 2nd<\/sup> revised edn. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kaisse, Ellen. 2011. The stricture features. The Blackwell companion to phonology, vol. 1: General issues and segmental phonology<\/em>, ed. by Marc van Oostendorp et al., 288-310. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ainsley Graf<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[interrupted] Counterpart [continuant] Feature System Jakobsonian Features Definition Sounds that are considered [interrupted] have an abrupt onset and are characterized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"disabled","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}