In linguistics, phi features are the semantic features of person, number, and gender, as encoded in such words as nouns and pronouns (which are said to consist only of phi-features, containing no lexical head). Several other features are included in the set of phi-features, such as the categorical features ±N (nominal) and ±V (verbal), which can be used to describe lexical categories and case features.
When written, the symbol φ is used to represent 'phi'.
Famous quotes containing the words phi and/or features:
“Adolescents have the right to be themselves. The fact that you were the belle of the ball, the captain of the lacrosse team, the president of your senior class, Phi Beta Kappa, or a political activist doesn’t mean that your teenager will be or should be the same....Likewise, the fact that you were a wallflower, uncoordinated, and a C student shouldn’t mean that you push your child to be everything you were not.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times—the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie—seem attractive by comparison.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)