Feature system issues

[stannam]

1. [h] is under uncategorized (as mentioned in issue #584)

2. In SPE, [ɹ] is a mid front vowel.

3. compared to the list of SPE features in Mielke (2008), a number of features are missing in ipa2spe.feature.

4. due to 3., [m] and [m̩] (syllabic m) are identical in features. (c.f., other syllabic consonants are not specified in the feature file)

[stannam]

list of features missing in ipa2spe.feature, but present in Mielke (2008, p. 50). The Sound Pattern of English is open-access here, but I haven't checked if they all appear in SPE itself.

[consonantal]
[syllabic]
[covered]
[delayed release of secondary closure]

[consonantal] and [syllabic] are in boldface as they seem to be critical for categorization.

Currently, we use [voc] as a determinant of vowel/consonant (instead of [consonantal]). Due to the lack of [syllabic], [m] and [m̩] are identical in features.

Do we want to add those missing features?

[kchall]

Hmm, [consonantal] should definitely be in there, as it's part of the 'original' set of features in chapter 7. It's defined on p. 302 as "Consonantal sounds are produced with a radical obstruction in the midsagittal region of the vocal tract; nonconsonantal sounds are produced without such an obstruction." Here's a table of their original major class features:

They do suggest in chapter 8 (p. 354) that [vocalic] should be replaced with [syllabic], as in the following table, to specifically handle syllabic consonants:

I think I'm inclined to simply have BOTH [vocalic] and [syllabic] in there, since PCT is much more about descriptive features than it is about analytical features.

Will this take care of all the above issues? What about [h]?

[stannam]

[h] will still be uncategorized, unless we add another column for 'glottal'.

Note: SPE classifies [h] as a glide, not fricative.

[kchall]

If you mean a column in the actual consonant inventory chart, that's fine, and yes, fine to put it in as a glide, as that's what SPE does (as with glottal stop). I don't want to add a [glottal] feature though. The place features for [h] (p. 307) are: [-ant, -cor, -high, +low, -back].

[stannam]

• Add columns for [consonantal] and [syllabic] in whatever2spe.feature files.

[stannam]

• [h] and [ɹ] should end up uncategorized in the current categorization.
  • [h] is [-consonantal], thus should NOT be one of the consonants.
  • [ɹ] is tricky. Currently, our SPE rows (manners) are stop, nasal, fricative, and lateral. I am not sure where to place [ɹ].
    • It seems the SPE book regards both [l] and [ɹ] as 'liquids' so my thought is to replace the lateral row with liquids.
• There are some discrepancies between our feature system and the SPE book: In the book, [l] is [+vocalic], [ɹ] is [+lat], unlike our system.

[kchall]

@stannam can you find a page reference for [ɹ] being [+lat]?

[stannam]

@kchall Oooops.. Sorry, I think I was not fully awake then. I meant [+continuant], and when I checked now both [l] and [ɹ] are [+cont]! The book even mentioned that '[l] [...] must be distinguished from [r] by the feature of "laterality."' (p. 318, Ch. 7)

[stannam]

• In SPE, [l] should be [ + vocalic].
• In ipa2hayes, [ɹ] and [ɹ̥] are currently [-consonantal] which seems to be a mistake. Need to be changed into [+cons].
• For both hayes and SPE systems: add a row for 'Approximant.' (cf. the standard IPA consonant chart.)
  • in SPE, change 'lateral' into 'lateral approximant'
  • SPE doesn't seem to assume the [approximant] feature: not in the list on page 299.
• In SPE, [h] should be excluded from vowels. Two solutions:
  • The default features for vowels should be [-consonantal, +voice] (the solution discussed during the meeting today), or
  • [h] should be unspecified of [low] [high] and [back], following the Hayes system. (cf. Currently [h] is [-back, -high, +low])
    • When I quickly checked the book (Section 4.2 in Chapter 7), [h] was not considered (see the table below) in terms of those features. I believe there should be reasons that we initially gave those values in PCT, so I'll look into other parts of the SPE book and Mielke (2008). See p.307 as Kathleen wrote above: [h] is [-ant, -cor, -high, +low, -back]. (from p. 305)

[stannam]

cf. Phonological_CorpusTools_Public/other/example_corpus_in_different_transcription_systems.xlsx

[stannam]

• Minor changes to the existing features/transcriptions

  • Hayes
    • Make sure [ɹ] is [+consonantal] in other transcription-to-hayes files than ipa2hayes.
    • Match the inventory chart to Table 4.7 in Hayes (2008: 95)
  • SPE
    • Change a row name in the SPE inventory chart: approximant --> liquid

• Create master feature files for the SPE and Hayes systems, respectively.

  • A master feature file has each transcription as a column, as well as the feature columns, and PCT should refer to each transcription column.
  • Need to create the master feature, change the way PCT downloads and processes feature files. (No longer need to download individual 'transcription2feature' once the user downloads the super-feature.