Editors' Note

Editors' Note for the Proceedings of the 2021 Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP 2021), held at York University in October 2021

Learning phonetically and phonologically natural classes through constraint indexation

Phonological processes tend to be defined over natural classes (Chomsky & Halle 1968), but there are some arbitrary and language-specific aspects to class behaviour (e.g., Mielke 2004). This paper shows that it is possible to implement a procedure of finding language specific natural classes using contrast detection (Dresher 2014, Sanstedt 2018), but in standard OT with domain-general methods. Three toy languages are constructed, based on those in Prickett & Jarosz (2021), in which /e/ raises to [i] in the presence of a high vowel and in which /s/ palatalizes to [ʃ] before [i]. In one language, raising feeds palatalization (transparent); in the second, raising counterfeeds palatalization (opaque); in the third, raising applies transparently, but only in certain morphemes (lexically specific). All three languages are learned with a version of Round’s (2017) learner that learns indexed constraints (Pater 2000) that are attached to specific segments in morphemes rather than entire morphemes (cf. Nazarov 2021). This learner is able to find appropriate natural classes for these data, both phonetic natural classes (=traditional natural classes) and what I call phonologically natural classes (classes defined by having certain phonetic properties and undergoing a range of phonological processes), showing the feasibility of this approach

The Structure and Plasticity of Phonetic Categories Across Languages and Modalities

Speech sounds contrast on many acoustic dimensions. The constellation of acoustic "cues" defining a given sound contrast is language-specific, such that the "same" sounds in different languages are actually realized slightly differently. Furthermore, even within the same language group, speakers and listeners exhibit considerable variability in their use of acoustic cues. This work explores acoustic cue use in stop voicing contrasts across languages (Spanish, English, and Korean) and modalities (production and perception). A first group of experiments target "baseline" cue weights, or how speakers and listeners use multiple acoustic dimensions to define native and foreign sound contrasts in production and perception. A second set of experiments investigates how listeners modify their definitions of these categories in order to accommodate to changes in the input (e.g. a speaker with an "accent"), and in particular, how baseline cue-weighting strategies can influence and direct these adaptation patterns. Along with comparison of cross-linguistic differences in cue use, all of the studies focus on variability within language groups and examine the relationship between perception and production on an individual level. Taken together, the studies provide a detailed comparison of the way speakers and listeners make use of multiple acoustic cues cross-linguistically. The experiments give a comparative picture of the extent of between- and within-language variation in "baseline" cue weights across three languages and provide insight into the processes by which listeners adapt or "tune" their phonetic categories when confronted with changes in what they are hearing. The work highlights the complexity of the perception-production interface, as well as the interplay between language-specific knowledge, general learning mechanisms, and general auditory factors in how listeners use acoustic cues to define and modify their speech sound categories

Korean sibilant perception

Perception stimuli associated with the experiment reported in: Schertz, J., & Kang, Y. (2022). Phonetic cue competition within multiple phonological contrasts: Perception of Seoul Korean sibilants. Korean Linguistics, 18(1), 1-17

The Influence of Heritage Language Experience on Perception and Imitation of Prevoicing

This work tests the effect of heritage language background on imitation and discrimination of prevoicing in word-initial stops. English speakers with heritage languages of Spanish (where prevoicing is obligatorily present) or Cantonese (where prevoicing is obligatorily absent), as well as monolingual English speakers, imitated and discriminated pairs of stimuli differing minimally in prevoicing, both in English (participants’ dominant language) and Hindi (a foreign language), and they also completed a baseline word reading task. Heritage speakers of Spanish were expected to show the highest performance on both imitation and discrimination, given the contrastive status of prevoicing in Spanish. Spanish speakers did indeed show more faithful imitation, but only for Hindi, not English, sounds, suggesting that imitation performance can differ based on language mode. On the other hand, there were no group differences in imitation of prevoicing in English or in discrimination in either language. Imitation was well above chance in all groups, with substantial within-group variability. This variability was predicted by individual discrimination accuracy, and, for Cantonese speakers only, greater prevoicing in baseline productions corresponded with more faithful imitation. Overall, despite an expectation for differences, given previous evidence for the influence of heritage languages on production and perception of English voiced stops, our results point to a lack of cross-language influence on perception and imitation of English prevoicing

The Influence of Heritage Language Experience on Perception and Imitation of Prevoicing

This work tests the effect of heritage language background on imitation and discrimination of prevoicing in word-initial stops. English speakers with heritage languages of Spanish (where prevoicing is obligatorily present) or Cantonese (where prevoicing is obligatorily absent), as well as monolingual English speakers, imitated and discriminated pairs of stimuli differing minimally in prevoicing, both in English (participants’ dominant language) and Hindi (a foreign language), and they also completed a baseline word reading task. Heritage speakers of Spanish were expected to show the highest performance on both imitation and discrimination, given the contrastive status of prevoicing in Spanish. Spanish speakers did indeed show more faithful imitation, but only for Hindi, not English, sounds, suggesting that imitation performance can differ based on language mode. On the other hand, there were no group differences in imitation of prevoicing in English or in discrimination in either language. Imitation was well above chance in all groups, with substantial within-group variability. This variability was predicted by individual discrimination accuracy, and, for Cantonese speakers only, greater prevoicing in baseline productions corresponded with more faithful imitation. Overall, despite an expectation for differences, given previous evidence for the influence of heritage languages on production and perception of English voiced stops, our results point to a lack of cross-language influence on perception and imitation of English prevoicing

Sources of variability in phonetic perception: The joint influence of listener and talker characteristics on perception of the Korean stop contrast

Where there is dialectal variability in production of a sound contrast, listeners from the two dialects may show parallel differences in perception. At the same time, perception is not static and can be influenced by other factors, including listeners’ experience with, and expectations about, different talkers. This work examines perception of the Korean three-way stop phonation contrast by listeners of two dialects of Korean. We examine to what extent listeners’ perception reflects production norms in their local community and, via a reverse matched-guise task, test whether their knowledge of cross-dialectal variability plays an active role in the way they categorize the contrast. While perception appears to reflect production norms on a broad level, we found age-related differences in perception, even for listener groups who showed no sign of a parallel difference in production. Furthermore, listeners showed different response patterns depending on the apparent dialect of the talker. Our results suggest that exposure to dialectal variability and expectations about the talker influence perception