{"id":413,"date":"2025-06-17T20:05:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T00:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=413"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:02:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T17:02:28","slug":"segment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=413","title":{"rendered":"segment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

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

[-segment]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

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

SPE<\/em> Feature System<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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

Fully specified [+segment] matrices are dubbed a “unit”. Matrices with [+segment] that are not fully specified are dubbed archi-segments. Boundaries (syllable, morpheme, word) are specified as [-segment].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The purpose of this feature was to distinguish a phonological segment ([+segment]) from a phonological boundary ([-segment]). Fully specified [+segment] matrices are dubbed a “unit”. Segments that are not fully specified are dubbed archi-segments, drawing on the Praguian School notion of archiphoneme (Trubetzkoy 1939).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Although the feature is defined fairly early in The sound pattern of English<\/em> (Chomsky & Halle 1968:64), it is not included in Chapter Seven, which defines the phonetic framework and segmental phonological features. Not many, if any, works make use of this feature.<\/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

Trubetzkoy, Nikolai S. 1939. Grundz\u00fcge der Phonologie<\/em>. Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague 7. Trans. 1969 by Christiane Baltaxe, Principles of phonology<\/em>. Berkeley: University of California Press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

None<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Paul D. Fallon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

[segment] Counterpart [-segment] Feature System SPE Feature System Definition Fully specified [+segment] matrices are dubbed a “unit”. Matrices with [+segment] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}