The Chomsky-Halle attack on taxonomic phonemics fails when applied to the phonemic theory of Zellig Harris. Other linguists sought to define contrast by analysis of phonetic data. For Harris, contrasts are observational primitives, given by the pair test, and associated with phonetic data.
Distinctive features are an alternative representation.
The standard view identifies Harris with taxonomic discovery procedures avoiding questions of meaning. This view is not only factually wrong, it misses entirely what Harris was after and why he went after it as he did. His methods and results follow from fundamental characteristics of language, such as the lack of a separate metalanguage antecedent to language. BA is argued to be the main verb of the periphrastic construction, with an abstract resultative meaning.