ABSTRACT
Distinctive features are capable of capturing the natural classes that can be identified in many languages. The theoretical claim they embody is that distributional generalizations and phonological processes arrange the segments they apply to in groups that possess some feature or feature combination. This chapter suggests that phonetic processes which may initially affect specific segments in one generation become focused in a following generation on a group of segments that are defined by some feature specification. The chapter introduces the distinctive features that will in principle enable us to describe the segments in the world's languages, and to refer to those groups of segments that play a role in their characteristic phonological processes and constraints. The latter consideration will be shown to provide an important motivation for the assumption of distinctive features. The chapter discusses the distinctive features are binary, meaning that they always have either a positive or a negative specification.
