{"id":322,"date":"2025-06-16T15:50:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T15:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=322"},"modified":"2025-06-18T08:04:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T12:04:31","slug":"coronal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=322","title":{"rendered":"Coronal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

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

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

\n

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

SPE <\/em>Features<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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

The feature [coronal] describes phonemes that are produced using the front part of the tongue (i.e., the tongue tip and tongue blade). This includes sounds articulated at the denti-alveolar region and sounds articulated just behind the alveolar ridge (Hall 1997:4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The feature [coronal] creates a natural class of six subplaces of articulation: interdental, dental, alveolar, retroflex, palatoalveolar, and alveopalatal (Hall 1997:5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The feature [coronal] was originally conceptualized by Jakobson and Lotz (1949) as the opposition [grave<\/a>] vs. [acute<\/a>]. The feature [acute] was defined as \u201cthe upper formant is prevalent and has in addition a greater perceptibility because of the specific sensitivity of the ear\u201d (Jakobson & Lotz 1949:429).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, Jakobson, Fant, and Halle (1952) discussed the production of [grave] vs. [acute] sounds. They said that \u201cacuteness originates in a smaller and more defined cavity\u201d than phonemes with gravity. \u201cHence gravity characterizes labial consonants as against dentals, as well as velars vs. palatals\u201d (Jakobson et al. 1952:30).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition [grave]\/[acute] was replaced by [coronal]\/[noncoronal<\/a>] in 1968 by Chomsky and Halle. They defined [coronal] as being \u201cproduced with the blade of a tongue raised from its neutral position.\u201d This would include dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, liquids articulated with the blade of the tongue, and retroflex vowels, excluding uvulars, labials, glides, nonretroflex vowels, and consonants articulated with the body of the tongue (Chomsky & Halle 1968:304). Along with [anterior<\/strong>], [coronal] helps to classify the four major places of consonants: bilabial, coronal, postalveolar, and velar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been controversy in the field as to whether or not palatals should be considered [coronal], though the majority of phonologists now agree that palatals are [coronal] because in many languages, they pattern with the alveolars, which are [coronal] (Hall 1997:6). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feature [coronal] is now usually considered privative, and the absence of coronality is unmarked entirely (Hall 1997:23). Clements (1985) introduced this idea, claiming [-coronal] as unmarked and [+coronal] as marked. The feature [coronal] under the V-place in feature geometry system can be used to describe vowels (Hume 1992:124).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Hall, T. Alan. 1997. Phonology of Coronals<\/em>. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hume, Elizabeth Valerie. 1992. Front vowels, coronal consonants and their interaction in nonlinear phonology.<\/em> Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. <\/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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Paradis, Carole and Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Prune (eds.). 1991. The special status of coronals: Internal and external evidence. <\/em>(Phonetics and Phonology, 2). San Diego: Academic Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarthy, John and Alison Taub. 1992. The special status of coronals: Internal and external evidence. Phonetics and Phonology <\/em>2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarthy, J. J. 1988. Feature geometry and dependency: A review. Phonetica <\/em>43.84-108.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

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

[coronal] Counterpart [noncoronal] Feature System SPE Features Definition The feature [coronal] describes phonemes that are produced using the front part […]<\/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-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","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=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}