PHONETIC CORRELATES OF [CORONAL]

In its most common usage, the feature [coronal] has served to characterize a consonantal articulation made with the tip or blade of the tongue. Drawing on earlier proposals of, most notably, Halle & Stevens (1979), I plan to show that this definition of [coronal] is unsatisfactory as a means of describing all coronal consonants. Rather, [coronal] can be implemented by the tip, blade and/or front of the tongue. By redefining [coronal] in these terms I will show that this feature naturally extends to the articulation of front vowels.