{"id":332,"date":"2025-06-16T16:03:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T16:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=332"},"modified":"2026-06-12T14:54:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:54:01","slug":"back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

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

[nonback]<\/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 [back] describes phonemes that result from retracting the body of the tongue from the neutral position, which is both raised and fronted, approximately English [\u03b5] as in bed<\/em> (Chomsky & Halle 1968:304-305).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The feature [back] helps to \u201ccharacterize the placement of the body of the tongue\u201d (Chomsky & Halle 1968:304). This feature separates uvulars and pharyngeals from other segments, and it describes central and back vowels apart from front vowels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russian has a rule of retraction<\/em> (backing) that occurs between a prefix and stem. When the phoneme \/i\/ follows a hard consonant, such as \/t\u034f\u02e0\/, it retracts to [\u0268]. For example, the underlying \/ot\u034f\u02e0 in\u02e0s\u02e0t\u02e0it\u02e0ut\u02e0a\/ \u2018from the institute\u2019 is realized as [ot\u034f\u02e0 \u0268n\u02e0s\u02e0t\u02e0it\u02e0ut\u02e0a] in speech Rubach 2000:42-44).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The distinctive feature [back] was introduced by Chomsky and Halle (1968) to describe tongue body placement alongside [high<\/strong>] and [low<\/strong>]. They label palatals as [-back] and velars, uvulars, and pharyngeals as [+back] (Chomsky & Halle 1968:304-305).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distinction [+back] has been historically used to describe central vowels as well as back vowels. The difference between central and true back vowels comes down to the assignment of [-round] to true back vowels. Mor\u00e9n-Duollj\u00e1 (2011) argues that [round] is not a vowel-only feature, but rather some other classifier, leaving tongue position as the main feature to describe vowels. This introduces the need for a feature such as [front] in order to handle central and back rounded vowels (Mor\u00e9n-Duollj\u00e1 2011:447-448).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\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

Mor\u00e9n-Duollj\u00e1, Bruce. 2011. Vowel place. The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, vol. 1:  General issues and segmental phonology<\/em>, ed. by Marc van Oostendorp Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, and Keren Rice, 440\u2013464. Malden, MA: Blackwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice, Keren. 2002. Vowel place contrasts. Language universals and variation<\/em>, ed. by Mengistu, Amberber, and Peter Collins, 239-269. Westport, CT: Praeger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubach, Jerzy. 2000. Backness switch in Russian. Phonology<\/em> 17.39-64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Lindau, Mona. 1978. Vowel features. Language. 54(3):541\u2013563. doi:10.2307\/412786 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

van der Hulst, Harry, and Nancy A. Ritter. 2024. The Oxford handbook of vowel harmony<\/em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

[back] Counterpart [nonback] Feature System SPE Features Definition The feature [back] describes phonemes that result from retracting the body of […]<\/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-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","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=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}