Tab. 7: [-anterior] coronals (palatals) and their features
Dorsals
Dorsal consonants are articulated by moving the body of the tongue, also known as the dorsum, to a passive articulator; see Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996). ←37 | 38→The dorsum of the tongue can contact a broad region of the roof of the mouth, from the hard palate to the uvula. Velar voiceless [k]; and voiced stop [g] plus the velar nasal [ŋ] are typical dorsals. In addition, labiovelars combine two places of articulation, [labial] and [dorsal], and can be voiceless [kp] or voiced [gb]; see the examples in (5) after Tab. 8 and Tab. 9, which show the dorsals and the labiovelar dorsals, respectively.
Tab. 8: Dorsals and their features
Tab. 9: Labiovelar dorsals and their features
Laryngeals
Fròʔò also has laryngeal consonants. The glottal stop [ʔ] and the fricative [h]; use the glottis/vocal folds as their first articulator, for which laryngeal distinctive features are needed: [spread glottis] ([s.g.]) and [constricted glottis] ([c.g.]). The glottal stop [ʔ] makes a constriction of the airflow during its production, drawing together the vocal cords. The aspirated [h], during the production of which the vocal cords are drawn together, is accounted for by [s.g.] (Tab. 10).
Tab. 10: Laryngeals and their features
←38 | 39→
Table 11 sums up the features of the consonantal segments of the language. It also shows which features are binary and which are privative. In the preceding tables, all features were indicated as binary for clarity of presentation, but in fact, many features do not need to be specified as binary. The vertical column on the left of the table gives the features, and the two first horizontal lines above the table show the segments themselves. The top line shows the [-voiced] consonants and the second line shows the [+voiced] ones. Only stops need to be specified for [±voiced]. Fricatives are always voiceless and all other consonants are sonorants and thus voiced. As an example, the feature [nasal] is privative; see Ewen and van der Hulst (2001:55) for discussion.
Tab. 11: Consonants of Fròʔò and their distinctive features
A list of all vowels of Fròʔò is provided in (1) above. As explained in Section 2.3.1, the primary distinction between vowels and consonants is achieved by the major class features [±consonantal] and [±vocalic]. All vowels are [-consonantal] and [+vocalic]. The feature [sonorant] is redundant for vowels, because [+vocalic] implies [+sonorant]. Further distinctions among vowels are achieved by additional features specialized for vowels.
A first feature specialized for vowels is [±high]. This feature and [±low] are responsible for distinctions along the vertical dimension. During the production of the [+high] segments, the dorsum is raised towards the roof of the mouth and the produced vowels are [i]; and [u]. These vowels contrast with [-high] vowels [e, o, ɛ, ɔ, a].
←39 | 40→
The feature [±low] distinguishes between [+low] and [-low] vowels. Only [a]; and its nasal counterpart are [+low]; all other vowels are [-low].
The feature [±back] is responsible for distinctions along the horizontal dimension, separating front from back vowels. The [-back] segments are [i];, [e], and [ɛ]; and the [+back] segments are [u], [o], [ɔ], and [a]. During the articulation of the [+back] vocalic segments, the body of the tongue is in the back of the oral cavity.
Vowels can also be produced with lowering of the velum. The position of the velum is responsible for the distinction between oral and nasal vowels. The distinction is accounted for with the feature [nasal], which specifies nasality. Oral vowels lack this feature. This implies that the feature [nasal] is privative.
The last feature needed in the vocalic system of Fròʔò is [±ATR] (or [±tense]). [+ATR] or ‘Advanced Tongue Root’ qualifies the position of the tongue root during the articulation of tense vowels. The other value, [-ATR] or ‘Retracted Tongue Root’, is used for lax vowels. This feature distinguishes the [+ATR] segments [i, u, e, o, a] from the [-ART] segments [ɛ, ɔ]. Note that the segment [a]; combines as well with the [-ATR] and the [+ATR] vowels. Tab. 12 gives a survey of all features used to distinguish vowels in Fròʔò, and some examples are provided in (6).
Tab. 12: Vowels of Fròʔò and their distinctive features
←40 | 41→
In Chomsky and Halle’s (1968) linear model for distinctive features, speech sounds are described as bundles of features listed in a feature matrix. But some questions arose around their model because of the intrinsic difficulty of feature matrices to account for the naturalness and simplicity of rules, or to show in a simple way the assimilation of features (see for instance Clements & Hume (1995), McCarthy (1988) and Gussenhoven & Jacobs (2013:185–197) for discussions).
This section proposes a feature-geometric organization of the distinctive features of the consonants and vowels of Fròʔò. The feature geometry framework represents distinctive features as a structured hierarchy rather than as a matrix. A segment is identified by a +/- dichotomy of a series of (binary) features. This theory has grown out of autosegmental phonology, a framework of phonological analysis first proposed by Goldsmith (1976). A central idea of autosegmental analysis is that a large part of phonological generalizations can be interpreted as a restructuring or reorganization of the autosegments