earticle

영어

With the development of the feature theories new features have been developed since SPE. Accordingly inconsistent explanation has made phonology field confused particularly in Feature Geometry which explains phonological process in terms of hierarchy of distinctive features. In this paper we focuse on the 'coronal' feature which is one of problematic features in expanding phonological feature theories. 'Coronal' can be defined as produced with the blade of the tongue. It has been recognized that coronal place of articulation are dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, retroflex and palatal. These places of articulation lie from the entire span that can be touched by the tip of the tongue and blade of the tongue, which is called 'coronal ' . After we investigate the role of tongue in articulation, we need to change this 'coronal' place feature into unary articulator based on the recent model of Feature Geometry including Clements, Sagey and Yip. Thus we propose the feature 'apical', 'laminal' and 'dorsal' for tongue articulation to replace the feature 'coronal', taking advantage of phonetic terms for economy and coherence. As the result of this proposal, we can explain the OCP in English plural and past endings with consistency and intuition as well as we make the feature 'anterior' redundant in Feature Geometry.