Norwegian retroflexion : licensing by cue or prosody?

A common topic in recent literature on phonology is the question of whether phonological processes and segments are licensed by prosodic position or by perceptual cues. The former is the traditional view, as represented by e.g. Lombardi (1995) and Beckman (1998), and holds that segments occur in specific prosodic positions such as the coda. In a licensing by cue approach, as represented by Steriade (1995, 1999), on the other hand, segments are assumed to occur in those positions only where their perceptual cues are prominent, independent of the prosodic position. In positions where the cues are not salient, neutralization occurs

Variation in the perception of an L2 contrast : a combined phonetic and phonological account

The present study argues that variation across listeners in the perception of a non-native contrast is due to two factors: the listener-specic weighting of auditory dimensions and the listener-specic construction of new segmental representations. The interaction of both factors is shown to take place in the perception grammar, which can be modelled within an OT framework. These points are illustrated with the acquisition of the Dutch three-member labiodental contrast [V v f] by German learners of Dutch, focussing on four types of learners from the perception study by Hamann and Sennema (2005a)

Postalveolar fricatives in Slavic languages as retroflexes

The present study poses the question on what phonetic and phonological grounds postalveolar fricatives in Polish can be analyzed as retroflex and whether postalveolar fricatives in other Slavic languages are retroflex as well. Velarization and incompatibility with front vowels are introduced as articulatory criteria for retroflexion, based on crosslinguistic data. According to these criteria, Polish and Russian have retroflex fricatives, whereas Bulgarian and Czech do not. In a phonological representation of these Slavic retroflexes, the necessity of perceptual features is shown. Lastly, it is illustrated that palatalization of retroflex fricatives both in Slavic languages and more generally causes a phonetic and phonological change to a non-retroflex sound

The diachronic emergence of retroflex segments in three languages

The present study shows that though retroflex segments can be considered articulatorily marked, there are perceptual reasons why languages introduce this class into their phoneme inventory. This observation is illustrated with the diachronic developments of retroflexes in Norwegian (North- Germanic), Nyawaygi (Australian) and Minto-Nenana (Athapaskan). The developments in these three languages are modelled in a perceptually oriented phonological theory, since traditional articulatorily-based features cannot deal with such processes

German glide formation functionally viewed

Glide formation, a process whereby an underlying high front vowel is realized as a palatal glide, is shown to occur only in unstressed prevocalic position in German, and to be blocked by specific surface restrictions such as *ji and *“j. Traditional descriptions of glide formation (including derivational as well as Optimality theoretic approaches) refer to the syllable in order to capture its conditions. The present study illustrates that glide formation (plus the distribution of long and short tense /i/) in German can better be captured in a Functional Phonology account (Boersma 1998) which makes reference to stress instead of the syllable and thus overcomes problems of former approaches

Retroflexion and retraction revised

Arguing against Bhat’s (1974) claim that retroflexion cannot be correlated with retraction, the present article illustrates that retroflexes are always retracted, though retraction is not claimed to be a sufficient criterion for retroflexion. The cooccurrence of retraction with retroflexion is shown to make two further implications; first, that non-velarized retroflexes do not exist, and second, that secondary palatalization of retroflexes is phonetically impossible. The process of palatalization is shown to trigger a change in the primary place of articulation to non-retroflex. Phonologically, retraction has to be represented by the feature specification [+back] for all retroflex segments

Retroflexion and retraction revised

Arguing against Bhat’s (1974) claim that retroflexion cannot be correlated with retraction, the present article illustrates that retroflexes are always retracted, though retraction is not claimed to be a sufficient criterion for retroflexion. The cooccurrence of retraction with retroflexion is shown to make two further implications; first, that non-velarized retroflexes do not exist, and second, that secondary palatalization of retroflexes is phonetically impossible. The process of palatalization is shown to trigger a change in the primary place of articulation to non-retroflex. Phonologically, retraction has to be represented by the feature specification [+back] for all retroflex segments

The evolution of auditory contrast

This paper reconciles the standpoint that language users do not aim at improving their sound systems with the observation that languages seem to improve their sound systems. Computer simulations of inventories of sibilants show that Optimality-Theoretic learners who optimize their perception grammars automatically introduce a so-called prototype effect, i.e. the phenomenon that the learner’s preferred auditory realization of a certain phonological category is more peripheral than the average auditory realization of this category in her language environment. In production, however, this prototype effect is counteracted by an articulatory effect that limits the auditory form to something that is not too difficult to pronounce. If the prototype effect and the articulatory effect are of a different size, the learner must end up with an auditorily different sound system from that of her language environment. The computer simulations show that, independently of the initial auditory sound system, a stable equilibrium is reached within a small number of generations. In this stable state, the dispersion of the sibilants of the language strikes an optimal balance between articulatory ease and auditory contrast. The important point is that this is derived within a model without any goal-oriented elements such as dispersion constraints

Perceptual and acoustic cues of Polish coronal fricatives

On the basis of perceptual experiments we show that alveolo-palatal fricatives and palatalized post-alveolars are two separate sounds which are distinguished not only by Polish native speakers but also by German ones. This claim is partly attested by centre of gravity measurements of the two sibilants. In this paper we revise the claim made by Halle & Stevens [1] and Maddieson & Ladefoged [2] that the Polish alveolo-palatal fricatives [˛, ¸] are palatalized postalveolars [SJ, ZJ]. On the basis of perceptual experiments we show that alveolo-palatal fricatives and palatalized post-alveolars are two separate sounds which are distinguished not only by Polish native speakers but also by German ones. This claim is partly attested by centre of gravity measurements of the two sibilants

Acoustic differences between German and Dutch labiodentals

The present article is a follow-up study of the investigation of labiodentals in German and Dutch by Hamann & Sennema (2005), where we looked at the perception of the Dutch labiodental three-way contrast by German listeners without any knowledge of Dutch and German learners of Dutch