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4.5: Natural Classes

  • Page ID
    9654
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    It’s possible to describe an individual speech segment in terms of its phonetic features. It’s also possible to group sounds that share features into natural classes. Natural classes of sounds tend to behave similarly because they have features in common. We can distinguish obstruents, sonorants, glides, and vowels using the major class features, and distinguish in more detail within these major classes using features for place and manner of articulation.
    Thumbnail for the embedded element "4.4 Natural Classes"

    A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: ecampusontario.pressbooks.pu...guistics/?p=90

    Check Yourself

    1. In the set of segments listed below, which segment must be excluded to make the remaining segments constitute a natural class?

    • [i]
    • [e]
    • [æ]
    • [o]
    • [u]

    2. In the following set of segments, which segment must be excluded to make the remaining segments constitute a natural class?

    • [p].
    • [f].
    • [t].
    • [k]

    3. This set of segments constitutes a natural class: [i ɛ æ]. Which segment could you add to the set while still preserving the natural class?

    • [ɪ].
    • [ɔ].
    • [ə].
    Answers

    This page titled 4.5: Natural Classes is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Catherine Anderson (eCampusOntario) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

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