Editing The Sound Pattern of English (section)

==Overview==
''The Sound Pattern of English'' has had substantial influence on subsequent work. Derivatives of the theory have made modifications by changing the inventory of segmental features, considering some to be absent rather than having a positive or negative value, or adding complexity to the linear, segmental structure assumed by Chomsky and Halle. Its treatment of phonology as rules that operate on features, as well as its particular feature scheme, survive in various altered forms in many current theories of phonology. Some major successor theories include [[autosegmental phonology]], [[Paul Kiparsky|lexical phonology]] and [[optimality theory]].

Chomsky and Halle represent speech sounds as bundles of plus-or-minus valued features (e.g. vocalic, high, back, anterior, nasal, etc.) The phonological component of each lexical entry is considered to be a linear sequence of these feature bundles. A number of context-sensitive rules transform the underlying form of a sequence of words into the final [[phonetic form]] that is uttered by the speaker. These rules are allowed access to the tree structure that the syntax is said to output. This access allows rules that apply, for example, only at the end of a word, or only at the end of a noun phrase.

The influence of SPE has led to rules of the form given in SPE, <nowiki>A→B / [precontext _ postcontext]</nowiki>, often being called "SPE-style rules" or "SPE-type rules".<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/linguisticglossary/PDF-HO/SPE-type%20rule.pdf | title=SPE-type Rule | website=digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk | publisher=[[Hong Kong Baptist University]]}}</ref>