PhonoApps

How to Featurize!

Featurize! is an interactive tool designed to identify natural classes of IPA segment combinations. It runs online, but could be saved onto your computer, whereupon online access is no longer required. Featurize! comes with its own IPA table and feature table. Users have the option of customizing their tables, with no restriction as to the nature or number of units, or uploading their own. The software is easy to operate and is meant to be of use to all members of the public with an interest in phonology, regardless of qualification. The target audience is beginning to intermediate phonology students.

To save Featurize! onto your device for offline access, simply right click on the page and select “Save as…”. The program will be saved as an html file and will be accessible offline thereafter. Any customization performed on the saved version will be kept automatically. To receive a default version of Featurize!, simply download the program again.

How it Works

Featurize! uses characters from the International Phonetic Alphabet and a list of phonetic features to describe them, though the software can be edited to include any conceivable segments and features. For each feature, a segment is marked as “+”, if it has that feature, “−”, if it doesn’t, or “0”, if the distinction does not apply. For example, the segment “n” is marked as [+sonorant], [−labial] and [0tense]. In terms of feature theory, binary features are marked as “+”, “−“ or “0” and privative features as either “+” or “0”.

If given a combination of segments, Featurize! will find their natural class, the list of all features and values shared by the segments selected and no other segments. Because the list can be cumbersome, Featurize! will also provide the shortest descriptions (not necessarily unique as there may be ties) by omitting any redundant features, the absence of which would not change the answer. If the combination of segments does not form a natural class, that is they do not share features to the exclusion of all other segments, Featurize! will provide the closure of the set, which is the smallest possible natural class that contains all of the selected segments.

In terms of set theory, consider each feature to define the sets [+feature] and [−feature], the natural classes are the intersections of these sets (note that [+featA −featB] refers to [+featA]∩[−feat]), with the list of intersecting sets forming the class’s description. The shortest description is simply the smallest number of set intersections that contain the same members. The closure of a set of segments is the intersection of all classes containing the set, and is thus the smallest class containing it.

The default feature set in Featurize! is adopted from Jason Riggle’s Phonological Feature Chart v. 12.12. The main modifications refer to additional segments that we chose to include (such as the labiodental flap), and additional features to disambiguate some segments (such as the feature [front] to distinguish mid central vowels from front central vowels).

How to Customize

The customizable feature table decides which segment receives which feature, and can be edited in CSV format using the marked textbox. The columns of the table represent different segments, while the rows different features, with the first row and column consisting of headers. The intersection of a segment column and feature row should contain + if the segment has that feature, - if the segment does not, or 0 if the distinction does not apply. By substituting one of these three values into a cell, users have the option of changing the feature affinity of segments. Altering the number of features is as easy as deleting or adding a row to the table. Users also have the option of creating their own tables from scratch and simply pasting them into the textbox.

Featurize! will ignore any row (and the feature it defines) containing a number of cells different that that of the header row. Therefore, it is important to count cells carefully. Featurize! will revert to the default table if the header row, defining for segment names, is empty or contains duplicate entries. This will also happen if the feature table does not contain any valid rows defining features. Duplicates in the first column, that is, features with identical names, are permitted (but should be avoided) and will be treated as different features with the same name.

The customizable IPA chart beneath the feature table contains the in the order they are displayed in. This window must contain all the segments in the feature table to work (they are displayed in table order otherwise). Characters in the IPA chart must be separated by spaces and could be organized into groups by line breaks.

How to Cite

Steel, George and Peter Jurgec (2017). Featurize!: An online tool for natural classes and phonological features. Toronto: University of Toronto.

This version of Featurize! was developed by George Steel and Peter Jurgec.

The following students have also contributed to the development of Featurize!: