noun
Technical term in phonology and linguistics; refers to a minimal phonetic property that distinguishes one phoneme from another, such as voicing or place of articulation.
音韻論では、弁別素性を用いて音素を分析する。
In phonology, distinctive features are used to analyze phonemes.
音素 is a phoneme, the abstract unit; 弁別素性 is the set of features that define and distinguish phonemes.
Compound of 弁別 (distinction, discrimination) and 素性 (feature, property). The term is a direct translation of the English linguistic concept 'distinctive feature'.