Some electrophysiological support for phonological distinctive features

Abstract

Among researchers who agree on the existence of phonological distinctive features, there is no general consensus as to the articulatory, psychological, and/or acoustic characteristics comprising elemental phonemes. To date, little evidence has been presented describing the electrophysiological reality of these phonological distinctive features. The lack of agreement among distinctive feature theorists as to the acoustic, articulatory, or psychological reality of phonological distinctive features, in the absence of hard physical evidence to support distinctive feature theory, has led some researchers to question the basic constructs of these theories [LaRiviere et al. (1974); Walsh (1973)]. This study investigated the physiologic reality of phonological distinctive features by using an orienting response paradigm to obtain unique evoked potential responses for target phonemes that varied from a contextual phoneme by at least one distinctive feature. The results of the analyses supported the existence of phonemic distinctive feature representation at the cortical level and provides substantial evidence that there are unique corresponding electrophysiological representations of distinctive features that may be differentiated one from another.