PHONO: feature theory (was: vowel harmony)

When the vowel harmony discussion got on to comparing languages in
terms of the features applied to their phoneme inventories, it
reminded me of something that's been bugging me for a while.

Question 1: in standard feature theory, is a phoneme uniquely
associated with a particular set of features *no matter which language
it's in*?

Question 1a: is it meaningful to speak of 'the same phoneme' cross-
linguistically anyway?

Question 2: how do you decide which value of a feature is unmarked?

ObC - Telona's consonant inventory is ruthlessly feature-symmetrical,
and I've had the devil's own job trying to get it to fit my personal
aesthetic given this constraint. If I could make up my own features,
it would make things a *lot* easier. :))

cheers,
Jonathan.

[reply to jonathan underscore knibb at hotmail dot com]
--
'O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages...'
Auden/Britten, 'Hymn to St. Cecilia'

Replies