Phonological features and laryngeal features

If there is one point of agreement within phonetic and phonological theory, it is that the segments which compose speech are not indivisible primitive units of speech. Instead, the general view is that segments are the simultaneous realization of smaller units, known as features. Features play a significant role in defining sound change and sound patterns. At the phonetic level, there are potentially gradient and potentially imperceptible phonetic features; at the phonological level, there are distinctive features which are typically privative (single-valued) or binary-valued, and which define contrasts which are typically perceptible to all human newborns (Werker and Pegg 1992). These distinctive features are the basis of all attested phonological contrasts. Two primary arguments exist for distinctive features. One argument is that they correspond quite closely to innate perceptual categories demonstrated in newborns and young children (9.1). Another argument is that they allow the statement of what appear to be significant generalizations across sound patterns.

In this chapter, characteristic patterns of laryngeal feature distribution are investigated. Laryngeal features are those which characterize the state of the larynx or vocal folds, and the acoustic and perceptual features associated with these states.