feature (n.)

A term used in LINGUISTICS and PHONETICS to refer to any typical or noticeable property of spoken or written LANGUAGE. Features are classified in terms of the various LEVELS of linguistic analysis, e.g. ‘PHONETIC/PHONOLOGICAL/ GRAMMATICAL/SYNTACTIC features’ or in terms of dimensions of DESCRIPTION, e.g. ‘ACOUSTIC/ARTICULATORY/AUDITORY features’. At the most general level, features may be classified as linguistic (or ‘intralinguistic’) as opposed to ‘non-linguistic’ (EXTRALINGUISTIC or METALINGUISTIC). At the most specific level, certain types of feature may be set up as the minimal UNITS of a theory, as in distinctive feature theories of phonology. The term is sometimes abbreviated as F, as in some models of NON-LINEAR PHONOLOGY.

In GENERATIVE grammatical analysis, the term has come to be associated with the way in which words are classified in the LEXICON in terms of their grammatical properties, such as [animate], [common], [masculine], [countable]. Such features are usually considered to be BINARY, as were phonological features, and analyzed as [+animate], [−animate], etc. SEMANTIC features, likewise, can be handled in binary terms, as in the analysis of spinster as [+human], [+adult], [+never married] and [+female] (or perhaps, [−male]). Non-binary (‘unary’ and ‘multi-valued’) features are also recognized. Features are sometimes referred to as COMPONENTS, especially in semantic analysis. In later grammatical theories, especially in PHRASE-STRUCTURE grammars, grammatical CATEGORIES are defined in terms of feature specifications – ordered pairs containing a feature and a feature VALUE – which RULES can access. As part of its method, this approach requires a statement of feature-co-occurrence restrictions (FCRs) and feature-specification defaults. Later semantic theory has also developed the notion of feature in several directions, notably in the use of feature structures which represent TYPES of lexical information organized HIERARCHICALLY. Features (e.g. ‘cause’, ‘change’, ‘force’ as part of the REPRESENTATION of push) are here seen as MODAL OPERATORS that label arcs between the NODES in a LATTICE framework. In the MINIMALIST PROGRAMME, features figure prominently, a distinction being drawn between semantic, phonological, and morphosyntactic features, the latter being further divided into ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ features, or ‘interpretable’ and ‘uninterpretable’ features. The approach also recognizes a distinction between formal and substantive (i.e. containing semantic content) features.