Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-rdgjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-07T19:24:42.000Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Simplicity, descriptive adequacy, and binary features

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Heles Contreras
Heles Contreras*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Adherence to the binary principle in phonology conflicts with the simplicity criterion proposed by Halle, in the sense that rules which are intuitively more general are not consistently simpler than less general rules. This, together with the counter-intuitive nature of rules for vowel shift and pitch raising and lowering when formulated in binary terms, suggests the need for abandoning the binary principle. Multivalued features seem to offer a solution to these inadequacies without introducing any additional complications.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 1969 , pp. 1 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Chomsky, Noam. 1962. Explanatory models in linguistics. Logic, methodology and philosophy of science, ed. by Nagel, E., Suppes, P., and Tarski, A., 528–550. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1964. Current issues in linguistic theory. The structure of language, ed. by Fodor, J. A. and Katz, J. J., 50–118. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam, and Halle, Morris. 1965. Some controversial questions in phonological theory. Journal of Linguistics 1.97–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam, and Halle, Morris. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Contreras, Heles. Forthcoming. Vowel fusion in Spanish. To appear in Hispania.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris. 1962a. Phonology in generative grammar. Word 18.54–72. Reprinted in The structure of language, ed. by Fodor, J. A. and Katz, J. J., 334–52. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1964. (Page references are to the reprinting.).Google Scholar
Halle, Morris. 1962b. A descriptive convention for treating assimilation and dissimilation. MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, Quarterly Progress Report 66.295–296.Google Scholar
Heny, Frank. 1967. Non-binary phonological features. UCLA Phonetics Laboratory, Working Papers in Phonetics 7.91–120. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter. 1967. Linguistic phonetics. UCLA Phonetics Laboratory, Working Papers in Phonetics, 6. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Wang, William S-Y. 1967. Phonological features of tone. IJAL 33.93–105.Google Scholar