{"id":447,"date":"2025-06-17T23:24:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T03:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=447"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:50:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T14:50:27","slug":"acute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=447","title":{"rendered":"Acute"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

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

[grave]<\/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

The feature [acute] is formed by a contracted buccal resonator and expanded labial and pharyngeal orifices (Jakobson & Lotz 1949).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acoustically, the [acute] feature is defined by the predominance of the upper register formant of the spectrum over the lower, especially to the detriment or elimination of the latter (Jakobson, Fant, & Halle 1952:29).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The feature [grave]<\/a> is used to distinguish between the front and back vowel sounds, with front vowels being higher pitched and therefore [acute], and back vowels generally having lower pitches, and thus being [grave].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among consonants, the gravity feature distinguishes ‘peripheral’ consonants which are [grave], from ‘central’ consonants which are [acute]. Peripheral consonants are those which are articulated at the peripheries of the oral tract, namely labials and velars; central consonants include dentals, alveolars and palatals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, evidence for a natural class of \u2018grave\u2019 consonants was sparse as the feature united largely unrelated groups of sounds, such as back vowels and peripheral consonants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

First introduced <\/strong>by Jakobson and Lotz (1949:427-431), in the first Jakobsonian Feature System<\/a>, which defined the distinctive features of the thirty-six French phonemes. Jakobson and Lotz note within the paper that only vocalic, or mixed vowels, actually occur, indicating that this proposed distinctive feature actually lacked a true distinctiveness (1949:429).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both [grave] and [acute] were still used in Jakobson, Fant, & Halle (1952:29) despite the omission of some of their original contemporaries, indicating the continued desire to find distinction in phonemic sound based on the position of formants in the register.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feature [acute] and its counterpart were excluded from The Sound Pattern of English<\/em> system of phonological features, and fell out of common use as the SPE<\/em> features came into prominence. It is largely considered obsolete and is no longer in common usage. Features previously described by [acute] were subsumed into the [back] <\/a>feature in the SPE<\/em> feature system<\/a> (Chomsky & Halle 1968:306).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

Jakobson, Roman. 1931. Z fonologie spisovn\u00e9 sloven\u0161tiny. Slovensk\u00e1 miscellanea,<\/em> ed. by Josef Jir\u00e1sek, and Franti\u0161ek Tich\u00fd, 155-163. Bratislava: Universum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson, Roman. 1962. Phonemic notes on standard Slovak. Selected writings, vol. I: Phonological studies<\/em>, 221-230. ‘S-Gravenhage: Mouton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson, Roman & John Lotz. 1949. Notes on the French phonemic pattern. Word 5.151-158. Reprinted in Jakobson (1962: 426-434).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qu, Changliang. 2021. Roman Jakobson\u2019s forgotten Czech articles on phonology: A case of avoiding anachronism in linguistic historiography.\u00a0RUS: Revista de Literatura e Cultura Russa\u00a0<\/em>12(19).154-170.\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.11606\/issn.2317-4765.rus.2021.186465<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Hyman, Larry M. 1973. The feature [grave] in phonological theory. Journal of Phonetics<\/em>, pp 1.329-337.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ku\u010dera, Henry. 1967. Distinctive features, simplicity, and descriptive adequacy. To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 11 October, 1966 Volumes I-III<\/em>, pp.1114-1126: The Hague: Mouton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Michael Boehmcke.
Note by Paul Fallon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

[acute] Counterpart [grave] Feature System Jakobsonian Features Definition The feature [acute] is formed by a contracted buccal resonator and expanded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","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-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":686,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}