区别性特征及多余特征

区别性特征的创立是现代音系学开创性的发展，音位不再被看成是音系分析的最小单位，而是一系列区别性特征的集合，区别性特征被用于描写语音的自然类并对其规则进行概括，由于有些特征可以根据其它区别性特征预测，这些被称为多余特征的信息可以在描写语音时省掉，多余特征的值可以运用多余特征规则来赋予。

Distinctive Features and Redundant Features

It is one of the important claims of phonological theory that all speech sounds are not indivisible wholes but can be decomposed into sets of distinctive features. A classification system for sounds and the notion of a natural class can be obtained by using features. Since certain properties of sounds are predicable from some other features, it is redundant to specify them and they can be extracted .