What is it about?
Based on Korean evidence, the author proposes that we have to admit some semantic features and some semantic conditioning in phonology if we want to capture generalizations underlying certain phonological phenomena. The reason is that certain semantic features which are predictable from phonetic features may acquire a classificatory function through grammaticalization because of various sound changes that affect the original phonetic values of different segments.
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Why is it important?
The distinctive features adopted by most phonologists in the years preceding this publication include articulatory and acoustic features. Therefore, this article proposes a novel analysis and a new kind of feature that takes meaning as legitimate agent in explaining certain phonological phenomena.
Perspectives
Phonologists prefer finding phonetic reasons to explain phonological phenomena, but often these get lost through sound change, and semantic features, which used to be secondary features, have become more prominent. I believe this analysis captures native speaker's intuition synchronically.
Dr Young-Key Kim-Renaud
George Washington University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Semantic Features in Phonology, Korean Linguistics, January 1978, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/kl.1.01ykk.
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