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In
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...
, a feature is any characteristic used to classify a phoneme or word. These are often binary or unary conditions which act as constraints in various forms of linguistic analysis.


In phonology

In
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, segments are categorized into natural classes on the basis of their
distinctive feature In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that distinguishes one sound from another within a language. For example, the feature oicedistinguishes the two bilabial plosives: and There are many diffe ...
s. Each feature is a quality or characteristic of the natural class, such as voice or manner. A unique combination of features defines a
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
. Examples of
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
or distinctive features are: voice ">/- voice ATR ">Advanced_tongue_root.html" ;"title="/- ATR (binary features) and [ coronal consonant">CORONAL ">Advanced tongue root">ATR (binary features) and [ coronal consonant">CORONAL (a unary feature; also a place of articulation">place Place may refer to: Geography * Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population ** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government * "Place", a type of street or road name ** Ofte ...
feature). Surface representations can be expressed as the result of rules acting on the features of the underlying representation. These rules are formulated in terms of transformations on features.


In morphology and syntax

In morphology (linguistics), morphology and syntax, words are often organized into
lexical categories In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech ( abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are a ...
or word classes, such as "noun", "verb", "adjective", and so on. These word classes have
grammatical feature In linguistics, a feature is any characteristic used to classify a phoneme or word. These are often binary or unary conditions which act as constraints in various forms of linguistic analysis. In phonology In phonology, segments are categorize ...
s (also called ''categories'' or ''inflectional categories''), which can have one of a set of potential values (also called the ''property'', ''meaning'', or ''feature'' of the category).Kibort, Anna & Corbett, Greville G
Grammatical Features - Feature Inventory
/ref> For example, consider the
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would n ...
in English. Pronouns are a ''lexical category''. Pronouns have the
person A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
''feature'', which can have a ''value'' of "first", "second", or "third". English pronouns also have the
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers ...
''feature'', which can have a value of either "singular" or "plural". As a result, we can describe the English pronoun "they" as a pronoun with erson:3and umber:plural Third person singular pronouns in English also have a
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...
feature: "she" is ender:feminine "he" ender:masculineand "it ender:neuter Different lexical categories realise or are specified for different grammatical features: for example, verbs in English are specified for tense, aspect and mood features, as well as person and number. The features that a category realises can also differ from language to language. There is often a correspondence between morphological and syntactic features, in that certain features, such as
person A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
, are relevant to both morphology and syntax; these are known as ''morphosyntactic features''. Other types of grammatical features, by contrast, may be relevant to semantics (''morphosemantic features''), such as tense, aspect and mood, or may only be relevant to morphology (''morphological features''). Inflectional class (a word's membership of a particular
verb class In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''brea ...
or
noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...
) is a purely morphological feature, because it is only relevant to the morphological realisation of the word. In formal models of grammar, features can be represented as attribute-value pairs. For example, in Lexical functional grammar, syntactic features are represented alongside grammatical functions at the level of functional structure (f-structure), which takes the form of an attribute-value matrix.


In semantics

In
semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and compu ...
, words are categorized into
semantic class A semantic class contains words that share a semantic feature. For example within nouns there are two sub classes, concrete nouns and abstract nouns. The concrete nouns include people, plants, animals, materials and objects while the abstract noun ...
es. Intersecting semantic classes share the same
semantic feature A semantic feature is a component of the concept associated with a lexical item ('female' + 'performer' = 'actress'). More generally, it can also be a component of the concept associated with any grammatical unit, whether composed or not ('female' + ...
s. Semantic features can include ±humanand ±animate These features may in some instances be realised morphologically, in which case they may also be called ''morphosemantic'' features.


See also

*
Areal feature In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted ...
*
Distinctive feature In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that distinguishes one sound from another within a language. For example, the feature oicedistinguishes the two bilabial plosives: and There are many diffe ...
*
Featural writing system In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols (such as letters) are not arbitrary but encode distinctive feature, phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by Geoffrey Sampson to descr ...
*
Markedness In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
*
Semantic feature A semantic feature is a component of the concept associated with a lexical item ('female' + 'performer' = 'actress'). More generally, it can also be a component of the concept associated with any grammatical unit, whether composed or not ('female' + ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feature (Linguistics) Syntactic theories Generative syntax Syntax