he voiced/voiceless sounds are classified as being characterized by binary features, because of the two sound possibilities they exhibit. All English segments can be thus classified. English sounds can then be classified as to their places of articulation, of which there are three, viz. labial, coronal, and dorsal.
Stricture is a multivalued feature. It specifies three possibilities, viz. [stop], [fricative], and [approximant]. In the case of the Sibilant, the property of the sound is not articulatory, but acoustic. Nasal and Lateral are binary features. Height and Back refer to any one of four characteristics of vowels. Consonants, on the other hand, are assigned maximum values. As to Syllabic, it is a feature which separates vowels from consonants; thus, [i] and [u] are distinct from [j] and [w]. English consonants are grouped in terms of oppositions, rather than general phonetic properties.
The Chomsky-Halle Phonological Feature System
Distinctive feature theory has been primarily used by generative approaches to linguistics, "where the aim is to provide an account of phonology that can be integrated within a theory of grammar. It is argued that distinctive features are the important facts to take into account when carrying out a phonological analysis, as they reveal more about the way in which the sounds of a language are organized, and more readily permit generalized statements within and between languages, than do descriptions based on phonemes and allophones" (Crystal, 1987, p. 161). It offers the additional advantage over traditional articulatory descriptions that the same set of terms can be used for describing vowels and consonants.
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