Features Phonetic features The perception of natural speech sounds is based on phonetic features, the smallest units of distinction between any two phonemes.  We use features such as voicing to differentiate between the words /kejm/ ‘came’ and /gejm/ ‘game’.  The only distinguishing feature between these 2 sounds is that the vocal cords not do vibrate for during the articulation of /k/, and do … [Read more...]

When studying phonology, it is fundamental to understand phonemes in terms of the features that they bear and share. Doing so allows us to group phonemes together into natural classes, which gives insight into how classes of sounds pattern together when undergoing various phonological processes. Natural classes are groups of phonemes that share one or a set of phonological features. Binary … [Read more...]