4. Distinctively relevant and redundant features of the phoneme.

The articulatory features which form the invariant of the phoneme are called distinctive or relevant. To extract relevant feature of the phoneme we have to oppose it to some other phoneme in the same phonetic context. If the opposed sounds differ in one articulatory feature and this difference brings about changes in the meaning of the words the contrasting features are called relevant. For example, the words port and court differ in one consonant only, that is the word port has the initial consonant [p], and and the word court begins with [k]. Both sounds are occlusive and fortis, the only difference being that [p] is labial and [k] is backlingual. Therefore it is possible to say that labial and backlingual articulations are relevant in the system of English consonants.

The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant; for instance, it is impossible in English to oppose an aspirated [p] to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meanings. That is why aspiration is a non-distinctive feature of English consonants.

Non-distinctive features of the phoneme may be of two kinds:

1) incidental or redundant (aspiration of voiceless plosives, presence of voice in voiced consonants, length of vowels),

2) indispensable or concomitant (tenseness of English long monophthongs, the checked character of stressed short vowels, lip rounding of back vow-els).

A single opposition remains single if its members differ from each other not only in a distinctive feature alone, but also in distinctively irrelevant features.

Источники:

1. http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~wbarry/Teaching/PhonolTheories/Phonological-Theories02.ppt

2. Vassilyev, V. A. English Phonetics: A theoretical course. – Moscow: Higher School Publishing House, 1970.

3. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Тексты лекций для студентов 3-го курса факультета иностранных языков / О.В. Попова; Бийский пед. гос. ун-т им. В. М. Шукшина. - Бийск: БПГУ им. В. М. Шукшина, 2006.

4. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. для студ. ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз./ М.А. Соколова, К.П. Гинтовт, И.С. Тихонова, Р.М. Тихонова. – М.: ВЛАДОС, 2006.