Why is aspiration not a distinctive feature in English?
In this regard, what are the distinctive features in English?
In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that may be analyzed in phonological theory. Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features, and place features.
Similarly, it is asked, what are the functions of distinctive features?
The Singh and Singh (1976) distinctive feature system was used to produce profiles for each subgroup for consonant phonemes in the initial, medial, and final word positions. Distinctive features were used with different degrees of importance causing hierarchial orders among the features.
The central idea behind distinctive feature theory is the notion that contrasts between phonemes can be most elegantly and insightfully described in terms of properties of segments rather than by treating segments as alphabetic atoms.