In linguistics, distinctive features are the elements which distinguish one phoneme or allophone from one another. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. ... In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ... In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

For consonants, the features that distinguish one from another fall into several distinct classes: A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ...

• One is the manner of articulation, such as whether the flow of air is stopped (a stop consonant), passes through the nose (a nasal consonant), is made turbulent (a fricative), or is barely affected at all (an approximant).
• A second is the place of articulation. This includes both the active speech organ and the place where it acts. The active organ may be the lips (for labial consonants), the flexible front of the tongue (coronal consonants), the mid body of the tongue (dorsal consonants), the throat or root of the tongue (radical consonants), or none at all in the case of the laryngeal consonants. Combined with the place of contact, this results in dozens of possibilities. There are in addition several secondary articulations that combine with these.
• Phonation and voice onset time describe the activity of the vocal cords. Full cord vibration is called voiced, the absence of vibration is called voiceless, and there are degress of vocal-cord tension on either side of voiced. If voicing is delayed beyond the end of a consonant, the consonant is said to be aspirated.
• Gemination, or length (single vs. double consonants).
• The airstream mechanism, or how the air is moved through the vocal tract. For most consonants, the air is expelled by the diaphragm; these are called pulmonic egressive consonants. Click consonants are an example of a different mechanism.

For vowels, the features can be classified under: In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, and other speech organs involved in making a sound make contact. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Places of articulation (passive & active): 1. ... Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ... Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... Dorsal consonants are articulated with the back of the tongue against either the hard palate, or the flexible velum just behind it, or even against the uvula. ... Radical consonants are articulated with the root (base) of the tongue in the throat. ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... Secondary articulation refers to co-articulated consonants (consonants produced simultaneously at two places of articulation) where the two articulations are not of the same manner. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is the length of time that passes between when a stop consonant is released and when voicing, vibration of the vocal cords, begins. ... Laryngoscopic view of the vocal folds. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... In phonetics, initiation is the action by which an air-flow is created through the vocal tract. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... Clicks are stops produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

• The shape of the resonant cavity in the mouth, theoretically divided up into degrees of vowel backness, vowel height, rounding or compression of the lips, and rhoticization;
• Phonation;
• Nasalization;
• Length;
• Advanced tongue root.

Many linguists add a category of tenseness, but it is not clear if this is only phonological or theoretical, or if it has a physical phonetic correlate. In phonetics, vowel backness is the position of the tongue relative to the back of the mouth in a vowel sound. ... In phonetics, vowel height refers to the position of the tongue relative to the roof of the mouth in a vowel sound. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Spectrogram of a regular vowel and its rhotacized counterpart. ... A nasal vowel is a vowel that produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through the mouth and the nose. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the duration of a vowel sound. ... In phonetics, advanced tongue root, abbreviated ATR or +ATR, or expanded, is the expansion of the pharyngeal cavity by moving the base of the tongue forward, and often lowering the larynx, during the pronunciation of a vowel. ... Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. ...

For tones, the basic elements are pitch (whether it is high or low, etc.), contour (whether it is level, rising, or falling, etc.), length, and phonation. There are overlaps with the categories of the vowels, because some features may be associated with vowels in one language, but with tone in another. The word tone is used in several different fields with different meanings. ...

In sign languages, signs are distinguished by handshape, palm orientation, location, and movement. However, it is not known whether these correlate to the features or segments of oral languages, or whether they can be profitably described as a combination of both. A sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses manual communication instead of sound to convey meaning - simultaneously combining handshapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speakers thoughts. ... In linguistics (and phonetics), segment is used primarily “to refer to any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech” (after A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics, David Crystal, 2003, pp. ...

In some linguistic theories, all features are defined to be binary. In such conceptions, a high vowel may be said to have a feature height but not low ("+high, −low"), a low vowel the feature low but not height ("−high, +low"), and a mid vowel neither ("−high, −low"), with the combination "+high, +low" not being considered sensible. A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ... A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ...