Distinctive feature

A phonological property that distinguishes sounds within a language, such as voicing or place of articulation. Distinctive features represent sound contrasts in a compact system of oppositions.

Phoneme: A contrastive sound category in a language that can distinguish words. Distinctive features describe the properties that separate phonemes in a language.
Binary feature: A feature represented by two opposed values, commonly plus and minus. Binary notation represents whether a sound has a specified property.
Voicing: A phonetic property involving vibration of the vocal folds during sound production. Voicing is a common feature distinguishing consonants such as /p/ and /b/.
Jakobsonian distinctive feature theory: A theory that analyzes phonological contrasts through binary oppositions grounded partly in acoustic properties. It established a prominent binary account of distinctive features.
Minimal pair: Two words that differ in one sound and have different meanings. Minimal pairs reveal which sound differences are distinctive.
Natural class: A group of sounds sharing a set of phonological properties. Shared features define classes that phonological processes can target.
Place of articulation: The location in the vocal tract where a constriction helps produce a speech sound. Place features distinguish consonants made at different vocal-tract locations.
SPE feature system: The system of binary phonological features developed by Chomsky and Halle in The Sound Pattern of English. It broadened feature analysis with articulatory definitions and a larger inventory.
Phonological contrast: A difference between speech sounds that can distinguish meaning in a language. A feature counts as distinctive when its values mark such a difference.
Phonological rule: A formal statement describing a regular pattern of sound change within a language. Rules can refer to features rather than list every affected sound.

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