Hierarchical Phonological Features of Cotabato Manobo

Abstract

Excerpt

This presentation of the phonological features of Cotabato Manobo¹ is based on Kenneth L. Pike’s approach as presented in Part II of Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior², in which Pike makes explicit the fact that phonological structures of language are hierarchically ordered. Phonological, lexical and grammatical structures comprise respectively the phonological, lexical and grammatical hierarchies of language.

In this presentation, only those structures which form the levels of the phonological hierarchy will be dealt with. Description will begin at the top level of the hierarchy – utterance – to the most minimal contrastive unit, the phoneme.