-
A Method for Projecting Features from Observed Sets of Phonological Classes
- Linguistic Inquiry
- The MIT Press
- Volume 51, Number 4, Fall 2020
- pp. 725-763
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
Given a set of phonological features, we can enumerate a set of phono-logical classes. Here we consider the inverse of this problem: given a set of phonological classes, can we derive a feature system? We show that this is indeed possible, using a collection of algorithms that assign features to a set of input classes and differ in terms of what types of features are permissible. This work bears on theories of both language-specific and universal features, provides testable predictions of the featurizations available to learners, and serves as a useful component in computational models of feature learning.