{"id":541,"date":"2026-06-17T09:07:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T13:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=541"},"modified":"2026-06-17T09:07:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T13:07:42","slug":"secondary-consonantal-source-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=541","title":{"rendered":"Secondary Consonantal Source Features"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Secondary Consonantal Source Features\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

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

Fundamental Source Features<\/a>, Resonance Features<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

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

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

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

Secondary Consonantal Source features are a class of features that include two types: (1) two features from the primary source: (a) Envelope Features, and (b) Stridency; and (2) Voicing due to a supplementary source (Jakobson, Fant, and Halle 1952: 21).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Envelope Features refer to the \u201ctemporal envelope of sound intensity\u201d\u2013the speech power average over 0.02 seconds as a function of time, with smooth and rough envelopes. The Envelope features include [Interrupted\/Continuant], which distinguishes stops from fricatives, and [Checked\/Unchecked], which distinguishes ejectives and other sounds with compression or closure of the glottis from nonglottalized sounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feature Strident (vs. Mellow) characterizes sibilants and was used to mark most affricates. The feature Voiced superimposes a harmonic sound source on the noise source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

After distinguishing the major classes of vowel and consonant through the Fundamental Source Features, the Secondary Consonantal Source features provide additional information on the acoustic characteristics of sounds, characteristics that result from envelope features, stridency, and voicing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fully specified sample of sounds for the Secondary Consonantal Source Features<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/td>a<\/td>\u0283<\/td>t\u0283<\/td>k<\/td>k\u02bc<\/td>\u0261<\/td><\/tr>
Continuant<\/td>+<\/td>+<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td><\/tr>
Checked<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>+<\/td>\u2013<\/td><\/tr>
Strident<\/td>\u2013<\/td>+<\/td>+<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td><\/tr>
Voiced<\/td>+<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>\u2013<\/td>+<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

The term \u201csecondary consonantal source features\u201d was introduced by Jakobson, Fant, and Halle (1952:21). Jakobson & Halle (1956) later grouped as Sonority Features the major class features Vocalic and Consonantal, and included Secondary Consonantal Source Features Continuant, Checked, Strident\/Mellow, and Voiced, along with Compact\/Diffuse, Tense\/Lax, and Nasal as the nine sonority features. Preliminaries<\/em> opposed Secondary Consonantal Features (Interrupted\/Continuant, Checked\/Unchecked, Strident\/Mellow, and Voiced\/Unvoiced) to Fundamental Source Features (Vocalic and Consonantal) and to Resonance Features (Compact\/Diffuse, Grave\/Acute, Flat\/Plain, Sharp\/Plain, Tense\/Lax, and Nasal\/Oral).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the shift towards an articulatory description as primary in Chomsky & Halle (1968), there was little to hold Secondary Consonantal Source Features together as a classificatory group and the classification became obsolete.<\/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

Jakobson, Roman; C. Gunnar M. Fant; and Morris Halle. 1952. Preliminaries to speech analysis: The distinctive features and their correlates<\/em>. M.I.T. Acoustics Laboratory Technical report<\/em> No. 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson, Roman and Morris Halle. 1956. Phonology and phonetics. Part I of Fundamentals of Language<\/em> (Janua Linguarum, 1), 1-51. \u2019S-Gravenhage: Mouton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

<\/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":"

Secondary Consonantal Source Features\u00a0 Counterpart Fundamental Source Features, Resonance Features Feature System Jakobsonian Features Definition Secondary Consonantal Source features are […]<\/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":"default","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-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","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=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}