Lip spreading, not lip rounding

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of detecting classificatory features of phonemes. Unlike phonetic characteristics of phoneme realisations, which are explored instrumentally, phonological features should be discovered by means of functional analysis. Due to their role as exponents of meaningful units, phonemes are grouped according to their morphophonological behaviour. Here, detecting phonological features is illustrated by the analysis of the vocalic systems of Russian, Latvian and Finnish. The ‘lip rounding’ feature traditionally used in descriptions of these languages has no functional grounds and should be considered as an incorrect substitution of an articulatory characteristic for a phonological feature. However, apart from ‘height’ and ‘backness’, another feature should be postulated. For this feature the articulatory-based term ‘lip spreading’ is proposed. In Russian, the spread vowels /e/, /i/, /ɨ/ are distinguished due to their sensibility (primarily in morphophonological alternations) to the correlative feature of softness-hardness of the preceding consonant. Non-spread vowels /a/, /o/, /u/ are indifferent to the softness-hardness of the preceding consonant. Thus, /a/ is grouped not with /e/, /i/, /ɨ/ (as non-rounded in traditional models), but with /o/ and /u/ (no separate group of these two “rounded” phonemes, /o/ and /u/, exists). In Latvian, the spread phonemes /i/, /e/, /i:/, /e:/, /i͡e/ determine the choice of the closed vowels /e/ and /ē/ (instead of open /æ/ and /æ:/) in the preceding syllable. It is worthwhile to differentiate front vowels (according to lip spreading), not the back ones (according to lip rounding). In Finnish, the distinguishing of spread /i/ and /e/ is based on their relation with the fundamental peculiarity of the exponent of a word form, vowel harmony. These phonemes themselves do not participate in harmony alternation and they determine front vocalism of affixes only when other, non-spread phonemes are lacking.