{"id":555,"date":"2026-06-11T14:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T18:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=555"},"modified":"2026-06-11T14:51:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T18:51:05","slug":"high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=555","title":{"rendered":"High"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

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

[nonhigh] \/ [-high]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

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

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

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

The feature [+high] describes phones produced with a raising of the tongue body above the level that it maintains in the neutral position, which is raised and fronted.\u00a0 Sounds that are [-high] or nonhigh exhibit no such raising.\u00a0 Sounds cannot be [+high] and [+low] simultaneously because the tongue cannot be lowered and raised in unison (Chomsky & Halle 1968:304).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The feature [high] aims to \u201ccharacterize the placement of the body of the tongue\u201d in the oral cavity (Chomsky & Halle 1968:304).\u00a0 Among vowels, it distinguishes high vowels from mid and low vowels, such as \/i\/ and \/e\/ in the English minimal pair weed<\/em> and wed<\/em>.\u00a0 Furthermore, [high] characterizes palatal and velar sounds, which involve a relatively high tongue position, in contrast to consonants articulated with a lower tongue body position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazilian Portuguese distinguishes vowel height in word-final position by raising \/e, o\/ to [i, u] in word-final position (Mateus & Pardal 2000).\u00a0 For example, \/\u02c8lejt\u0283e\/ \u2192 [\u02c8lejt\u0283i] \u2018milk\u2019 exhibits raising of word-final vowel, which can be described by the rule [-high] \u2192 [+high] \/ __#.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Jakobsonian features employed [grave], [compact] and [diffuse] to describe both vowels and consonants.\u00a0 The feature [diffuse] described vowels and consonants in regard to height and anteriority, but also aided in distinguishing [+high] palatals and velars from [-high] uvulars and pharyngeals.\u00a0 Chomsky and Halle (1968) considered this too radical an approach, and thus introduced the distinctive feature [high] to describe tongue body placement in place of [diffuse] (Chomsky & Halle 1968:306-307).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cognominally, [high] can refer to a distinctive feature regarding tone in which a segment\u2019s pitch is meaningfully raised from the speaker\u2019s base pitch\/vocal tone and surrounding syllables.\u00a0 See [high tone].<\/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

Mateus, Maria Helena Mira, and Ernesto d\u2019Andrade Pardal. 2000. The Phonology of Portuguese<\/em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

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

Allon Boettcher<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

[high] Counterpart [nonhigh] \/ [-high] Feature System SPE Features Definition The feature [+high] describes phones produced with a raising of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"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-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":559,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}