Razi University

Abstract This study was conducted with the aim of identifying the phonemes and formulating the redundancy rules associated with phonological features in the Laki language spoken in Chehr village. It seeks to describe the phonological system of this variety of Laki and, through the application of redundancy rules, reduce the distinctive features of its phonemes to a minimal and economical set. The data were collected through interviews with 30 native speakers of Chehr village, aged between 30 to 60 years. The speakers were selected predominantly from among illiterate and low-illiterate individuals in order to minimize the influence of the standard language and formal education on the data under investigation. A number of literate speakers were also included to complement and further examine the collected data. Following transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the data were analyzed based on minimal pairs, and the phonemes of the language were identified. Subsequently, drawing on the feature system and the generative phonology approach, the distinctive features of the phonemes were determined, and the redundancy rules governing these features were extracted and formulated. The analysis revealed that it is not necessary to specify all the features present in the phonological matrix in order to describe each phoneme. Some of these features are predictable from the relationships governing the phonological system. Accordingly, by applying redundancy rules, the non-essential features were eliminated from the representation of the phonemes, and each phoneme was represented using the minimal set of distinctive features required to distinguish it from the other phonemes. The findings demonstrate that, in addition to revealing the relationships among phonological features, redundancy rules allow for a more economical description of the phonological system of the Laki language of Chehr village. Thus, following the application of these rules, the phonemes of this language can be represented using the minimum number of distinctive features.