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What are linguistic sounds made of?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Peter Ladefoged
Peter Ladefoged*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Abstract

Linguistic phonetic aspects of languages can be described in terms of about 17 articulatory parameters, and/or a similar number of acoustic parameters. Descriptions of phonological patterns in languages involve features that are not in a one-to-one relationship with these phonetic parameters, and that cannot account for some linguistic phonetic differences among languages. Speakers and listeners producing and interpreting linguistic events probably use something like the proposed phonetic parameters. There is no necessity for most phonological features to be part of mental representations.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 1980, pp. 485 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by Linguistic Society of America

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