Distinctive Features

Abstract

Distinctive feature theory is an effort to identify the phonetic dimensions that are important for lexical contrasts and phonological patterns in human languages. The set of features and its explanatory role have both expanded over the years, with features being used to define not only the contrasts but the groupings of sounds involved in rules and phonotactic restrictions, as well as the changes involved in rules. Distinctive features have been used to account for a wide range of phonological phenomena, and this chapter overviews the incremental steps by which the feature model has changed, along with some of the evidence for these steps. An important point is that many of the steps involve non‐obvious connections, something that is harder to see in hindsight. Recognizing that these steps are not obvious is important in order to see the insights that have been made in the history of distinctive feature theory, and to see that these claims are associated with differing degrees of evidence, despite often being assumed to be correct.