15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)

Barcelona, Spain
August 3-9, 2003


Patterns of Phonetic Contrast: Towards a Unified Explanatory Framework (Discussion Paper)

Björn Lindblom

Stockholms Universitet, Sweden

Stevens makes a convincing case for the non-monotonic nature of the relation between articulation and acoustics and between acoustics and perception. This part of the QT rests on a strong theoretical basis and solid experimental evidence. A second part of the theory claims that the stable regions of the phonetic space correspond to, and define, the universal set of distinctive features as derived from linguists' descriptive analyses of numerous languages. This part of the framework casts a wider net and is the main focus of the present commentary.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Lindblom, Björn (2003): "Patterns of phonetic contrast: towards a unified explanatory framework (discussion paper)", In ICPhS-15, 39-42.