Phonological features phonologically active phonetic properties phonetic properties that must be grammatically specified thus necessary in distinguishing words or in describing sound alternations that accompany word formation note citation speech not connected speech What phonetic properties are phonologically active First answer refers to distinguishing words lexical contrast The pair bill vs pill is evidence that aspiration or voicing is phonologically active in English broad phonetic transcription attending only to contrastive properties is a type of phonological analysis of language Focus only on lexical contrast is too shallow cursory to permit an insightful analysis of language sound systems nasal place assimilation in intolerant n t illogical l l impossible m p inconsiderate k Alternation of the form of the prefix n suggests that there is a phonologically active property called place of articulation that should be referenced in a statement of the linguistic generalization Instead of n becomes bilabial before bilabials and n becomes lateral before laterals and n becomes velar before velars we say n takes the same place of articulation as the following consonant this is evidence that the grammar of English should include the concept place of articulation Note it could have been different So far we have been focussed on sound patterns and features of sounds looking only at lexical contrast Implicitly we have assumed that phonetic properties should be organized in groups like place of articulation without giving any evidence that this type of organization is actually needed in descriptions of language sound patterns We haven t justified the natural classes of speech sounds that the IPA chart assumes except to note that phonetically certain sounds share certain properties e g rounded vowels Lip rounding is a phonetic property of some vowels u o y etc Is this a phonological property How to find out look for alternations that refer to vowel rounding Consider an example from Turkish gloss rope hand girl face stamp stalk village end Nom sg ip el k z jyz pul sap k j son Gen sg ipin elin k z n jyzyn pulun sap n k jyn sonun Nom pl ipler eller k zlar jyzler pullar saplar k jler sonlar Gen pl iplerin ellerin k zlar n jyzlerin pullar n saplar n k jlerin sonlar n Clements George N and Engin Sezer 1982 Vowel and consonant disharmony in Turkish In Harry van der Hulst and Norval Smith eds The Structure of Phonological Representations Part II Dordrecht Foris Publications Gen sg suffix has a round vowel yn or un gloss rope hand girl face stamp stalk village end Nom sg ip el k z jyz pul sap k j son Gen sg ipin elin k z n jyzyn pulun sap n k jyn sonun Nom pl ipler eller k zlar jyzler pullar saplar k jler sonlar Gen pl iplerin ellerin k zlar n jyzlerin pullar n saplar n k jlerin sonlar n Clements George N and Engin Sezer 1982 Vowel and consonant disharmony in Turkish In Harry van der Hulst and Norval Smith eds The Structure of Phonological Representations Part II Dordrecht Foris Publications When the noun stem has a round vowel gloss rope hand girl face stamp stalk village end Nom sg ip el k z jyz pul sap k j son Gen sg ipin elin k z n jyzyn pulun sap n k jyn sonun Nom pl ipler eller k zlar jyzler pullar saplar k jler sonlar Gen pl iplerin ellerin k zlar n jyzlerin pullar n saplar n k jlerin sonlar n Clements George N and Engin Sezer 1982 Vowel and consonant disharmony in Turkish In Harry van der Hulst and Norval Smith eds The Structure of Phonological Representations Part II Dordrecht Foris Publications Here we discovered a phonologically active feature by observing a grammatically significant phonetic alternation the Genitive Singular su x could be either produced with an unrounded vowel in or n or it could be produced with a rounded vowel un or yn The set of vowels that is associated with the rounded versions of the su x are y u and o These vowels constitute a natural class in Turkish the round vowels Phonologically active properties of vowels in Turkish aka the vowel feature specifications for Turkish high back round i i y u e a o When is the Gen sg su x in and when is it n When is the Gen sg su x yn and when is it un What feature is suggested by this pattern gloss rope hand girl face stamp stalk village end Nom sg ip el k z jyz pul sap k j son Gen sg ipin elin k z n jyzyn pulun sap n k jyn sonun Nom pl ipler eller k zlar jyzler pullar saplar k jler sonlar Gen pl iplerin ellerin k zlar n jyzlerin pullar n saplar n k jlerin sonlar n Clements George N and Engin Sezer 1982 Vowel and consonant disharmony in Turkish In Harry van der Hulst and Norval Smith eds The Structure of Phonological Representations Part II Dordrecht Foris Publications