van Soeren, Daniël Pieter

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   University of GroningenReview of The Production of Consonant Clustersvan Soeren, Daniël PieterPublished in:LinguaDOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2022Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):van Soeren, D. P. (2022). Review of The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology andSound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018). Lingua, 272, [103329].https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 28-12-2022Available online at www.sciencedirect.comwww.elsevier.com/locate/linguaScienceDirectLingua 272 (2022) 103329Book ReviewReview of the Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonologyand Sound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018)Not long ago, functional approaches to phonology were overshadowed by generative approaches, such as Optimal-ity Theory (OT), which aims to identify a set of universal phonological principles innate to the human mind. In this view,the actual production of speech is considered epiphenomenal, a surface realisation resulting from underlying phonolog-ical principles and mental representations (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Although OT has been highly successful informulating descriptive models of sound patterns, it can be argued that these are not explanatory, but rather are for-malised descriptions of possible sound patterns that fail to explain why some patterns are more common than others(Blevins, 2006: 131, 154–155). Later work in OT saw significant changes in the direction of functional explanation.These later, more functional OT approaches (e.g. Steriade, 1997) paid attention to phonetic and perceptual detailand the way sounds were produced in the human vocal tract, which had previously been considered epiphenomenalin OT and other generative approaches. The empirical advantage of this is that hypotheses can be supported with fac-tors known independently from analysis, such as the physiology of the human vocal tract (Diver, 1979/2012).Analytical success has led to more research on the functional motivation of sound patterns (Flemming, 2007). TheProduction of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change, by Recasens (2018) is a wonderfulexample of this; by paying attention to articulatory detail, Recasens reveals the adaptation processes involved in therealisation of consonant clusters. The book considers the articulatory and aerodynamic properties of consonants toexplain manner assimilations and weakening of syllable-final consonants, which have previously received little attentionin the literature. In six chapters and 210 pages, the author presents the culmination of more than twenty years of his ownresearch on different Catalan dialects (e.g. Recasens et al., 1997; Recasens and Espinosa, 2009; Recasens and Mira,2015), evaluates new data, and compares his results to work by other authors on (mostly Romance) languages, includ-ing Spanish and several Italian dialects, as well as English and Tamil.Much of the book is dedicated to testing Recasens’ Degree of Articulatory Constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation,which proposes that consonants differ in the extent to which they are constrained by the requirements on place andmanner of articulation involved in their production. In line with his earlier work (Recasens and Rodríguez, 2016), theauthor argues that, for example, certain coronals, namely [ʎ] [ɲ] [ʃ] [s] and [r], require a more precise tongue configu-ration in their production than other coronals, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and []. It is argued that there is not much variation in the pro-duction of alveolar trill [r] in Catalan, as it requires a lowered and backed tongue configuration and enough lingualtension to generate vibration: thus [r] is highly constrained.1 Likewise, palatals [ʎ] [ɲ] and [ʃ] are more restricted thandento-alveolars, as their production involves not only the front of the tongue but constrains the whole tongue bodyinstead. In contrast, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and [] show much more variation in the place and manner in which they are produced,which suggests that they require less articulatory precision and leave the tongue body freer to adjust to the phoneticcontext. Recasens thus considers these consonants less constrained.In the production of consonant clusters, then, Recasens observes that, when consonants conflict in the place or man-ner of articulation, the articulation of the less constrained consonant is adjusted, because it is freer in its place or mannerrequirements and thus freer to adapt. We are offered an example from Catalan: bany rus ‘Russian bath’, where thesequence /ɲr/ is antagonistic. The raised and fronted lingual configuration of alveolopalatal nasal /ɲ/ conflicts withhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.1033290016-7037/ 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1 Note that OT also uses this term, but Recasens uses the term “constrained” to refer to physiological restrictedness.2 D.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329the need to anticipate the tongue body lowering and backing for alveolar trill /r/. Speakers seem to solve the problem bydepalatalising /ɲ/, and importantly, they do not palatalise /r/ because it is highly constrained by the requirementsinvolved in its production. In other sequences, the tongue body configurations of the first and second consonants ina cluster (henceforth C1 and C2) may be more compatible; in the sequence /nʃ/ the tongue body raising and frontingfor /ʃ/ is freely anticipated because the alveolar nasal /n/ does not need a very precise lingual configuration; it is uncon-strained. With this approach, the book aims to demonstrate why certain adaptations take place more than others, andhow a production-based explanation is more plausible than one in terms of abstract phonological principles (as in gen-erative approaches).After the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents a general outline of the theory, including an explanation of thehypothesis supported in this book – the DAC model of coarticulation – and the adaptation mechanisms involved inthe production of consonant clusters. Three of these are discussed, respectively: coarticulation, assimilation and blend-ing, of which the latter is different from the former two because it does not involve the adaptation of one of the two con-sonants, but rather a “compromise realisation” between the two, typically when both are produced with the samearticulator. At the end of the chapter, the direction of segmental adaptation is discussed. In principle, the direction ofadaptation (C1 influences C2 or vice versa) depends on the consonants involved, but a favouring has been foundfor anticipatory effects (C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) compared to carryover effects (C2 is influenced by C1), a topicI will return to at the end of this review.Chapter 3 focuses on homorganic clusters (when C1 and C2 are both produced by the same articulator) across themorpheme boundary, and tests predictions that are made based on the DAC model. To this end, Recasens uses ultra-sound and acoustic analysis, and electropalatographic data (EPG, used to track contact between the tongue and thepalate during speech) of participants speaking three different Catalan dialects. This, together with a review of experi-mental data from other languages (e.g. Spanish, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Italian) by other authors, provides supportfor the DAC model of coarticulation. Moreover, sequences of unconstrained + unconstrained or constrained + con-strained consonants are discussed. It seems that in the former sequence category, the articulation of both consonantsis often adapted (blending). For constrained + constrained clusters, the example of /sʃ/ and /ʃs/ is discussed; the DACmodel predicts an adaptation of /s/, as /ʃ/ is more constrained than /s/, but this prediction is borne out only in the /sʃ/sequence. For /ʃs/, we observe intermediate realisations (blending), an assimilation of /s/ or no adaptation at all. Theauthor suggests that this might be due to the general favouring of anticipatory effects.Chapter 4 is concerned with heterorganic consonant clusters (clusters produced with different articulators: lips, ton-gue front, and tongue dorsum). As these articulators can move separately, this cluster type may present gestural over-lap. For instance, in the cluster /tk/, during the production of C1 /t/, the tongue dorsum is free to raise in anticipation of C2/k/ before the /t/ stop release. Nevertheless, not all gestures can take place simultaneously, and not in all orders; ourprevious example /tk/ exhibits more overlap than the reverse order /kt/. After a C1 /k/ the tongue needs to repositionfor C2 /t/. The author expects a positive relation between overlap and assimilation; sequences that exhibit more overlap(e.g. /tk/) should assimilate more often than sequences that exhibit less overlap (e.g. /kt/), and this prediction seems tobe borne out by the data. Recasens points out that this could be due to perceptual factors; in the example of /tk/, as aresult of great gestural overlap, the stop burst for /t/ is reduced and there is little motivation from a perceptual perspec-tive to preserve the weak acoustic cue, with a /tk/ > /kk/ assimilation as a result. The strength of this argument is that itconsiders general assimilation processes in light of the observed patterns of gestural overlap.Chapter 5 discusses the articulatory factors involved in consonant weakening and manner assimilation, which arediscussed in five subsections, focussing on stops, lingual fricatives, nasals, laterals, and rhotics, respectively. Assimi-lation is shown to be facilitated when the consonants are produced by the same articulators (homorganicity), as changesin tongue configuration are argued to take place more easily if C1 and C2 have the same place of articulation. Weak-ening, on the other hand, is argued to be related to specific C2 phonetic characteristics. For instance, the shortening ofthe C1 seems to be especially triggered by voicing in the C2, as this voicing causes the intraoral pressure to lower forC1. It affects C1 dentals and alveolars most, as their articulation is already relatively short, with little contact with thepassive receptor. Articulatory reduction may then lead to weakening through lenition, aspiration, rhoticism, vocalisationor deletion, after which the consonant is prone to assimilate completely to the other consonant in the cluster.The DAC model of coarticulation clearly has a strong explanatory potential, and can therefore serve as a solid foun-dation for further work in the field of articulatory phonetics. Its appeal lies in its testable, functional hypothesis and clearpredictions, which are rigorously tested with data from Catalan. The vast body of empirical evidence offered in the bookconvincingly accounts for common sound patterns that are also observed in languages other than Catalan. It may alsoshed light on sound change: the author successfully demonstrates parallels between the observed coarticulation effects(phonetic realisation) and patterns of consonant assimilation (phonetic realisations perceived as a phonemic change).Moreover, the observation that some consonants are freer to adapt to their phonetic context than others may also beuseful to explain sound patterns outside of the scope of the book. Van Soeren, (2023) for instance, uses this insight toD.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329 3explain the observation that near the ends of Spanish words, some coronals, namely /l/ /n/ /ɾ/ /t/ and /d/, occur morefrequently than coronals /ʎ/ /ɲ/ /s/ and /r/.In addition, the book raises interesting issues. The author claims that the general favouring of anticipatory effects(when C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) as compared to carryover effects (when C1 influences C2) “appears to be in sup-port of the notion that the former [anticipatory effects] are planned while the latter [carryover effects] are conditioned to alarge extent by the peripheral properties of the speech production system” (p.188). As the DAC model cannot directlyaccount for this, Recasens suggests to further research articulatory planning and the physiomechanical nature of car-ryover effects. However, it may be that with a more perceptual focus, the DAC would be able to account for the favouringof anticipatory effects as well. Recasens himself discusses in Chapter 4 of his book that perceptual cues are sometimesreduced in coda position, which may explain why C1 assimilates to C2 more often than vice versa.One minor point of critique might be that theoretically, there is a risk that the explanation of the data involves circularreasoning. The fact that some consonants, such as /r/ and /s/ are reluctant to coarticulate or assimilate is explained withthe DAC model; they are more constrained than other consonants that do assimilate. But the reasoning behind this con-straint seems to be based on the very same observations they serve to explain; they are said to be constrained becausethey do not adapt to adjacent consonants. One possible way to break this circle would be a more in-depth discussion asto why constrained consonants require a precise lingual configuration. For instance, /r/ might be constrained to an alve-olar, lowered and backed tongue configuration because an altered configuration would not yield the same acousticeffect. In other words, the integration of perception and acoustics may lead to a more holistic, explanatory theory.In conclusion, The Production of Consonant Clusters is a solid functional account of the coarticulation processesinvolved in the production of consonant clusters, in which the author employs several methodologies, such as EPG,acoustic and ultrasound analysis to investigate homorganic and heterorganic assimilation, coarticulation and blending.The DAC model offers a clear and testable hypothesis, which allows the author to explain common cross-linguistic coar-ticulation patterns in consonant clusters, and sound change resulting from assimilation. I would recommend it to anyoneinterested in articulatory phonetics, and it is essential reading to linguists studying consonant clusters.ReferencesBlevins, J., 2006. A Theoretical Synopsis of Evolutionary Phonology. Theoret. Linguist. 32 (2), 117–165.Diver, W., 2012. Phonology as human behavior. In: Huffman, A., Davis, J. (Eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior.The Linguistic Essays of William Diver. Brill Publishers, Leiden/Boston, pp. 293–321, Original work published in 1979..Flemming, E., 2007. Speech Perception and Phonological Contrast. In: Pisoni, Remez (Eds.), The Handbook of SpeechPerception. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden/Oxford/Carlton, pp. 156–181.Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. Optimality Theory. Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Rutgers Center for CognitiveScience, New Brunswick, NJ.Recasens, D., Pallarès, M.D., Fontdevila, J., 1997. A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints. J. Acoust.Soc. Am. 102 (1), 544–561.Recasens, D., Espinosa, A., 2009. An articulatory investigation of lingual coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness forconsonants and vowels in Catalan. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125 (4), 2288–2298.Recasens, D., Mira, M., 2015. Place and manner assimilation in Catalan consonant clusters. J. Int. Phonet. Assoc. 45 (2), 115–147.Recasens, D., Rodríguez, C., 2016. A study on coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness for front lingual consonants andvowels using ultrasound. J. Phonet. 59, 58–75.Recasens, D., 2018. The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change. De Gruyter Mouton,Berlin/Boston.Steriade, D., 1997. Phonetics in Phonology: The Case of Laryngeal Neutralization. UCLA Work. Pap. Linguist..Van Soeren, D.P., 2023. The Role of Word Recognition Factors and Lexical Stress in the Distribution of Consonants in Spanish,English and Dutch. J. Linguist.. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000081, In press.D.P. van SoerenRijksuniversiteit Groningen, the NetherlandsReceived 9 March 2022; accepted in revised form 26 March 2022;E-mail address: d.p.van.soeren@rug

Review of The Production of Consonant Clusters:Implications for Phonology and Sound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018)

Proceedings - University of Groningen

   University of GroningenReview of The Production of Consonant Clustersvan Soeren, Daniël PieterPublished in:LinguaDOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2022Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):van Soeren, D. P. (2022). Review of The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology andSound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018). Lingua, 272, Article 103329.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 31-10-2023Available online at www.sciencedirect.comwww.elsevier.com/locate/linguaScienceDirectLingua 272 (2022) 103329Book ReviewReview of the Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonologyand Sound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018)Not long ago, functional approaches to phonology were overshadowed by generative approaches, such as Optimal-ity Theory (OT), which aims to identify a set of universal phonological principles innate to the human mind. In this view,the actual production of speech is considered epiphenomenal, a surface realisation resulting from underlying phonolog-ical principles and mental representations (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Although OT has been highly successful informulating descriptive models of sound patterns, it can be argued that these are not explanatory, but rather are for-malised descriptions of possible sound patterns that fail to explain why some patterns are more common than others(Blevins, 2006: 131, 154–155). Later work in OT saw significant changes in the direction of functional explanation.These later, more functional OT approaches (e.g. Steriade, 1997) paid attention to phonetic and perceptual detailand the way sounds were produced in the human vocal tract, which had previously been considered epiphenomenalin OT and other generative approaches. The empirical advantage of this is that hypotheses can be supported with fac-tors known independently from analysis, such as the physiology of the human vocal tract (Diver, 1979/2012).Analytical success has led to more research on the functional motivation of sound patterns (Flemming, 2007). TheProduction of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change, by Recasens (2018) is a wonderfulexample of this; by paying attention to articulatory detail, Recasens reveals the adaptation processes involved in therealisation of consonant clusters. The book considers the articulatory and aerodynamic properties of consonants toexplain manner assimilations and weakening of syllable-final consonants, which have previously received little attentionin the literature. In six chapters and 210 pages, the author presents the culmination of more than twenty years of his ownresearch on different Catalan dialects (e.g. Recasens et al., 1997; Recasens and Espinosa, 2009; Recasens and Mira,2015), evaluates new data, and compares his results to work by other authors on (mostly Romance) languages, includ-ing Spanish and several Italian dialects, as well as English and Tamil.Much of the book is dedicated to testing Recasens’ Degree of Articulatory Constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation,which proposes that consonants differ in the extent to which they are constrained by the requirements on place andmanner of articulation involved in their production. In line with his earlier work (Recasens and Rodríguez, 2016), theauthor argues that, for example, certain coronals, namely [ʎ] [ɲ] [ʃ] [s] and [r], require a more precise tongue configu-ration in their production than other coronals, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and []. It is argued that there is not much variation in the pro-duction of alveolar trill [r] in Catalan, as it requires a lowered and backed tongue configuration and enough lingualtension to generate vibration: thus [r] is highly constrained.1 Likewise, palatals [ʎ] [ɲ] and [ʃ] are more restricted thandento-alveolars, as their production involves not only the front of the tongue but constrains the whole tongue bodyinstead. In contrast, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and [] show much more variation in the place and manner in which they are produced,which suggests that they require less articulatory precision and leave the tongue body freer to adjust to the phoneticcontext. Recasens thus considers these consonants less constrained.In the production of consonant clusters, then, Recasens observes that, when consonants conflict in the place or man-ner of articulation, the articulation of the less constrained consonant is adjusted, because it is freer in its place or mannerrequirements and thus freer to adapt. We are offered an example from Catalan: bany rus ‘Russian bath’, where thesequence /ɲr/ is antagonistic. The raised and fronted lingual configuration of alveolopalatal nasal /ɲ/ conflicts withhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.1033290016-7037/ 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1 Note that OT also uses this term, but Recasens uses the term “constrained” to refer to physiological restrictedness.2 D.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329the need to anticipate the tongue body lowering and backing for alveolar trill /r/. Speakers seem to solve the problem bydepalatalising /ɲ/, and importantly, they do not palatalise /r/ because it is highly constrained by the requirementsinvolved in its production. In other sequences, the tongue body configurations of the first and second consonants ina cluster (henceforth C1 and C2) may be more compatible; in the sequence /nʃ/ the tongue body raising and frontingfor /ʃ/ is freely anticipated because the alveolar nasal /n/ does not need a very precise lingual configuration; it is uncon-strained. With this approach, the book aims to demonstrate why certain adaptations take place more than others, andhow a production-based explanation is more plausible than one in terms of abstract phonological principles (as in gen-erative approaches).After the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents a general outline of the theory, including an explanation of thehypothesis supported in this book – the DAC model of coarticulation – and the adaptation mechanisms involved inthe production of consonant clusters. Three of these are discussed, respectively: coarticulation, assimilation and blend-ing, of which the latter is different from the former two because it does not involve the adaptation of one of the two con-sonants, but rather a “compromise realisation” between the two, typically when both are produced with the samearticulator. At the end of the chapter, the direction of segmental adaptation is discussed. In principle, the direction ofadaptation (C1 influences C2 or vice versa) depends on the consonants involved, but a favouring has been foundfor anticipatory effects (C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) compared to carryover effects (C2 is influenced by C1), a topicI will return to at the end of this review.Chapter 3 focuses on homorganic clusters (when C1 and C2 are both produced by the same articulator) across themorpheme boundary, and tests predictions that are made based on the DAC model. To this end, Recasens uses ultra-sound and acoustic analysis, and electropalatographic data (EPG, used to track contact between the tongue and thepalate during speech) of participants speaking three different Catalan dialects. This, together with a review of experi-mental data from other languages (e.g. Spanish, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Italian) by other authors, provides supportfor the DAC model of coarticulation. Moreover, sequences of unconstrained + unconstrained or constrained + con-strained consonants are discussed. It seems that in the former sequence category, the articulation of both consonantsis often adapted (blending). For constrained + constrained clusters, the example of /sʃ/ and /ʃs/ is discussed; the DACmodel predicts an adaptation of /s/, as /ʃ/ is more constrained than /s/, but this prediction is borne out only in the /sʃ/sequence. For /ʃs/, we observe intermediate realisations (blending), an assimilation of /s/ or no adaptation at all. Theauthor suggests that this might be due to the general favouring of anticipatory effects.Chapter 4 is concerned with heterorganic consonant clusters (clusters produced with different articulators: lips, ton-gue front, and tongue dorsum). As these articulators can move separately, this cluster type may present gestural over-lap. For instance, in the cluster /tk/, during the production of C1 /t/, the tongue dorsum is free to raise in anticipation of C2/k/ before the /t/ stop release. Nevertheless, not all gestures can take place simultaneously, and not in all orders; ourprevious example /tk/ exhibits more overlap than the reverse order /kt/. After a C1 /k/ the tongue needs to repositionfor C2 /t/. The author expects a positive relation between overlap and assimilation; sequences that exhibit more overlap(e.g. /tk/) should assimilate more often than sequences that exhibit less overlap (e.g. /kt/), and this prediction seems tobe borne out by the data. Recasens points out that this could be due to perceptual factors; in the example of /tk/, as aresult of great gestural overlap, the stop burst for /t/ is reduced and there is little motivation from a perceptual perspec-tive to preserve the weak acoustic cue, with a /tk/ > /kk/ assimilation as a result. The strength of this argument is that itconsiders general assimilation processes in light of the observed patterns of gestural overlap.Chapter 5 discusses the articulatory factors involved in consonant weakening and manner assimilation, which arediscussed in five subsections, focussing on stops, lingual fricatives, nasals, laterals, and rhotics, respectively. Assimi-lation is shown to be facilitated when the consonants are produced by the same articulators (homorganicity), as changesin tongue configuration are argued to take place more easily if C1 and C2 have the same place of articulation. Weak-ening, on the other hand, is argued to be related to specific C2 phonetic characteristics. For instance, the shortening ofthe C1 seems to be especially triggered by voicing in the C2, as this voicing causes the intraoral pressure to lower forC1. It affects C1 dentals and alveolars most, as their articulation is already relatively short, with little contact with thepassive receptor. Articulatory reduction may then lead to weakening through lenition, aspiration, rhoticism, vocalisationor deletion, after which the consonant is prone to assimilate completely to the other consonant in the cluster.The DAC model of coarticulation clearly has a strong explanatory potential, and can therefore serve as a solid foun-dation for further work in the field of articulatory phonetics. Its appeal lies in its testable, functional hypothesis and clearpredictions, which are rigorously tested with data from Catalan. The vast body of empirical evidence offered in the bookconvincingly accounts for common sound patterns that are also observed in languages other than Catalan. It may alsoshed light on sound change: the author successfully demonstrates parallels between the observed coarticulation effects(phonetic realisation) and patterns of consonant assimilation (phonetic realisations perceived as a phonemic change).Moreover, the observation that some consonants are freer to adapt to their phonetic context than others may also beuseful to explain sound patterns outside of the scope of the book. Van Soeren, (2023) for instance, uses this insight toD.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329 3explain the observation that near the ends of Spanish words, some coronals, namely /l/ /n/ /ɾ/ /t/ and /d/, occur morefrequently than coronals /ʎ/ /ɲ/ /s/ and /r/.In addition, the book raises interesting issues. The author claims that the general favouring of anticipatory effects(when C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) as compared to carryover effects (when C1 influences C2) “appears to be in sup-port of the notion that the former [anticipatory effects] are planned while the latter [carryover effects] are conditioned to alarge extent by the peripheral properties of the speech production system” (p.188). As the DAC model cannot directlyaccount for this, Recasens suggests to further research articulatory planning and the physiomechanical nature of car-ryover effects. However, it may be that with a more perceptual focus, the DAC would be able to account for the favouringof anticipatory effects as well. Recasens himself discusses in Chapter 4 of his book that perceptual cues are sometimesreduced in coda position, which may explain why C1 assimilates to C2 more often than vice versa.One minor point of critique might be that theoretically, there is a risk that the explanation of the data involves circularreasoning. The fact that some consonants, such as /r/ and /s/ are reluctant to coarticulate or assimilate is explained withthe DAC model; they are more constrained than other consonants that do assimilate. But the reasoning behind this con-straint seems to be based on the very same observations they serve to explain; they are said to be constrained becausethey do not adapt to adjacent consonants. One possible way to break this circle would be a more in-depth discussion asto why constrained consonants require a precise lingual configuration. For instance, /r/ might be constrained to an alve-olar, lowered and backed tongue configuration because an altered configuration would not yield the same acousticeffect. In other words, the integration of perception and acoustics may lead to a more holistic, explanatory theory.In conclusion, The Production of Consonant Clusters is a solid functional account of the coarticulation processesinvolved in the production of consonant clusters, in which the author employs several methodologies, such as EPG,acoustic and ultrasound analysis to investigate homorganic and heterorganic assimilation, coarticulation and blending.The DAC model offers a clear and testable hypothesis, which allows the author to explain common cross-linguistic coar-ticulation patterns in consonant clusters, and sound change resulting from assimilation. I would recommend it to anyoneinterested in articulatory phonetics, and it is essential reading to linguists studying consonant clusters.ReferencesBlevins, J., 2006. A Theoretical Synopsis of Evolutionary Phonology. Theoret. Linguist. 32 (2), 117–165.Diver, W., 2012. Phonology as human behavior. In: Huffman, A., Davis, J. (Eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior.The Linguistic Essays of William Diver. Brill Publishers, Leiden/Boston, pp. 293–321, Original work published in 1979..Flemming, E., 2007. Speech Perception and Phonological Contrast. In: Pisoni, Remez (Eds.), The Handbook of SpeechPerception. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden/Oxford/Carlton, pp. 156–181.Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. Optimality Theory. Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Rutgers Center for CognitiveScience, New Brunswick, NJ.Recasens, D., Pallarès, M.D., Fontdevila, J., 1997. A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints. J. Acoust.Soc. Am. 102 (1), 544–561.Recasens, D., Espinosa, A., 2009. An articulatory investigation of lingual coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness forconsonants and vowels in Catalan. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125 (4), 2288–2298.Recasens, D., Mira, M., 2015. Place and manner assimilation in Catalan consonant clusters. J. Int. Phonet. Assoc. 45 (2), 115–147.Recasens, D., Rodríguez, C., 2016. A study on coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness for front lingual consonants andvowels using ultrasound. J. Phonet. 59, 58–75.Recasens, D., 2018. The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change. De Gruyter Mouton,Berlin/Boston.Steriade, D., 1997. Phonetics in Phonology: The Case of Laryngeal Neutralization. UCLA Work. Pap. Linguist..Van Soeren, D.P., 2023. The Role of Word Recognition Factors and Lexical Stress in the Distribution of Consonants in Spanish,English and Dutch. J. Linguist.. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000081, In press.D.P. van SoerenRijksuniversiteit Groningen, the NetherlandsReceived 9 March 2022; accepted in revised form 26 March 2022;E-mail address: d.p.van.soeren@rug

   University of GroningenReview of The Production of Consonant Clustersvan Soeren, Daniël PieterPublished in:LinguaDOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2022Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):van Soeren, D. P. (2022). Review of The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology andSound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018). Lingua, 272, Article 103329.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 11-09-2023Available online at www.sciencedirect.comwww.elsevier.com/locate/linguaScienceDirectLingua 272 (2022) 103329Book ReviewReview of the Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonologyand Sound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018)Not long ago, functional approaches to phonology were overshadowed by generative approaches, such as Optimal-ity Theory (OT), which aims to identify a set of universal phonological principles innate to the human mind. In this view,the actual production of speech is considered epiphenomenal, a surface realisation resulting from underlying phonolog-ical principles and mental representations (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Although OT has been highly successful informulating descriptive models of sound patterns, it can be argued that these are not explanatory, but rather are for-malised descriptions of possible sound patterns that fail to explain why some patterns are more common than others(Blevins, 2006: 131, 154–155). Later work in OT saw significant changes in the direction of functional explanation.These later, more functional OT approaches (e.g. Steriade, 1997) paid attention to phonetic and perceptual detailand the way sounds were produced in the human vocal tract, which had previously been considered epiphenomenalin OT and other generative approaches. The empirical advantage of this is that hypotheses can be supported with fac-tors known independently from analysis, such as the physiology of the human vocal tract (Diver, 1979/2012).Analytical success has led to more research on the functional motivation of sound patterns (Flemming, 2007). TheProduction of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change, by Recasens (2018) is a wonderfulexample of this; by paying attention to articulatory detail, Recasens reveals the adaptation processes involved in therealisation of consonant clusters. The book considers the articulatory and aerodynamic properties of consonants toexplain manner assimilations and weakening of syllable-final consonants, which have previously received little attentionin the literature. In six chapters and 210 pages, the author presents the culmination of more than twenty years of his ownresearch on different Catalan dialects (e.g. Recasens et al., 1997; Recasens and Espinosa, 2009; Recasens and Mira,2015), evaluates new data, and compares his results to work by other authors on (mostly Romance) languages, includ-ing Spanish and several Italian dialects, as well as English and Tamil.Much of the book is dedicated to testing Recasens’ Degree of Articulatory Constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation,which proposes that consonants differ in the extent to which they are constrained by the requirements on place andmanner of articulation involved in their production. In line with his earlier work (Recasens and Rodríguez, 2016), theauthor argues that, for example, certain coronals, namely [ʎ] [ɲ] [ʃ] [s] and [r], require a more precise tongue configu-ration in their production than other coronals, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and []. It is argued that there is not much variation in the pro-duction of alveolar trill [r] in Catalan, as it requires a lowered and backed tongue configuration and enough lingualtension to generate vibration: thus [r] is highly constrained.1 Likewise, palatals [ʎ] [ɲ] and [ʃ] are more restricted thandento-alveolars, as their production involves not only the front of the tongue but constrains the whole tongue bodyinstead. In contrast, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and [] show much more variation in the place and manner in which they are produced,which suggests that they require less articulatory precision and leave the tongue body freer to adjust to the phoneticcontext. Recasens thus considers these consonants less constrained.In the production of consonant clusters, then, Recasens observes that, when consonants conflict in the place or man-ner of articulation, the articulation of the less constrained consonant is adjusted, because it is freer in its place or mannerrequirements and thus freer to adapt. We are offered an example from Catalan: bany rus ‘Russian bath’, where thesequence /ɲr/ is antagonistic. The raised and fronted lingual configuration of alveolopalatal nasal /ɲ/ conflicts withhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.1033290016-7037/ 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1 Note that OT also uses this term, but Recasens uses the term “constrained” to refer to physiological restrictedness.2 D.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329the need to anticipate the tongue body lowering and backing for alveolar trill /r/. Speakers seem to solve the problem bydepalatalising /ɲ/, and importantly, they do not palatalise /r/ because it is highly constrained by the requirementsinvolved in its production. In other sequences, the tongue body configurations of the first and second consonants ina cluster (henceforth C1 and C2) may be more compatible; in the sequence /nʃ/ the tongue body raising and frontingfor /ʃ/ is freely anticipated because the alveolar nasal /n/ does not need a very precise lingual configuration; it is uncon-strained. With this approach, the book aims to demonstrate why certain adaptations take place more than others, andhow a production-based explanation is more plausible than one in terms of abstract phonological principles (as in gen-erative approaches).After the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents a general outline of the theory, including an explanation of thehypothesis supported in this book – the DAC model of coarticulation – and the adaptation mechanisms involved inthe production of consonant clusters. Three of these are discussed, respectively: coarticulation, assimilation and blend-ing, of which the latter is different from the former two because it does not involve the adaptation of one of the two con-sonants, but rather a “compromise realisation” between the two, typically when both are produced with the samearticulator. At the end of the chapter, the direction of segmental adaptation is discussed. In principle, the direction ofadaptation (C1 influences C2 or vice versa) depends on the consonants involved, but a favouring has been foundfor anticipatory effects (C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) compared to carryover effects (C2 is influenced by C1), a topicI will return to at the end of this review.Chapter 3 focuses on homorganic clusters (when C1 and C2 are both produced by the same articulator) across themorpheme boundary, and tests predictions that are made based on the DAC model. To this end, Recasens uses ultra-sound and acoustic analysis, and electropalatographic data (EPG, used to track contact between the tongue and thepalate during speech) of participants speaking three different Catalan dialects. This, together with a review of experi-mental data from other languages (e.g. Spanish, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Italian) by other authors, provides supportfor the DAC model of coarticulation. Moreover, sequences of unconstrained + unconstrained or constrained + con-strained consonants are discussed. It seems that in the former sequence category, the articulation of both consonantsis often adapted (blending). For constrained + constrained clusters, the example of /sʃ/ and /ʃs/ is discussed; the DACmodel predicts an adaptation of /s/, as /ʃ/ is more constrained than /s/, but this prediction is borne out only in the /sʃ/sequence. For /ʃs/, we observe intermediate realisations (blending), an assimilation of /s/ or no adaptation at all. Theauthor suggests that this might be due to the general favouring of anticipatory effects.Chapter 4 is concerned with heterorganic consonant clusters (clusters produced with different articulators: lips, ton-gue front, and tongue dorsum). As these articulators can move separately, this cluster type may present gestural over-lap. For instance, in the cluster /tk/, during the production of C1 /t/, the tongue dorsum is free to raise in anticipation of C2/k/ before the /t/ stop release. Nevertheless, not all gestures can take place simultaneously, and not in all orders; ourprevious example /tk/ exhibits more overlap than the reverse order /kt/. After a C1 /k/ the tongue needs to repositionfor C2 /t/. The author expects a positive relation between overlap and assimilation; sequences that exhibit more overlap(e.g. /tk/) should assimilate more often than sequences that exhibit less overlap (e.g. /kt/), and this prediction seems tobe borne out by the data. Recasens points out that this could be due to perceptual factors; in the example of /tk/, as aresult of great gestural overlap, the stop burst for /t/ is reduced and there is little motivation from a perceptual perspec-tive to preserve the weak acoustic cue, with a /tk/ > /kk/ assimilation as a result. The strength of this argument is that itconsiders general assimilation processes in light of the observed patterns of gestural overlap.Chapter 5 discusses the articulatory factors involved in consonant weakening and manner assimilation, which arediscussed in five subsections, focussing on stops, lingual fricatives, nasals, laterals, and rhotics, respectively. Assimi-lation is shown to be facilitated when the consonants are produced by the same articulators (homorganicity), as changesin tongue configuration are argued to take place more easily if C1 and C2 have the same place of articulation. Weak-ening, on the other hand, is argued to be related to specific C2 phonetic characteristics. For instance, the shortening ofthe C1 seems to be especially triggered by voicing in the C2, as this voicing causes the intraoral pressure to lower forC1. It affects C1 dentals and alveolars most, as their articulation is already relatively short, with little contact with thepassive receptor. Articulatory reduction may then lead to weakening through lenition, aspiration, rhoticism, vocalisationor deletion, after which the consonant is prone to assimilate completely to the other consonant in the cluster.The DAC model of coarticulation clearly has a strong explanatory potential, and can therefore serve as a solid foun-dation for further work in the field of articulatory phonetics. Its appeal lies in its testable, functional hypothesis and clearpredictions, which are rigorously tested with data from Catalan. The vast body of empirical evidence offered in the bookconvincingly accounts for common sound patterns that are also observed in languages other than Catalan. It may alsoshed light on sound change: the author successfully demonstrates parallels between the observed coarticulation effects(phonetic realisation) and patterns of consonant assimilation (phonetic realisations perceived as a phonemic change).Moreover, the observation that some consonants are freer to adapt to their phonetic context than others may also beuseful to explain sound patterns outside of the scope of the book. Van Soeren, (2023) for instance, uses this insight toD.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329 3explain the observation that near the ends of Spanish words, some coronals, namely /l/ /n/ /ɾ/ /t/ and /d/, occur morefrequently than coronals /ʎ/ /ɲ/ /s/ and /r/.In addition, the book raises interesting issues. The author claims that the general favouring of anticipatory effects(when C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) as compared to carryover effects (when C1 influences C2) “appears to be in sup-port of the notion that the former [anticipatory effects] are planned while the latter [carryover effects] are conditioned to alarge extent by the peripheral properties of the speech production system” (p.188). As the DAC model cannot directlyaccount for this, Recasens suggests to further research articulatory planning and the physiomechanical nature of car-ryover effects. However, it may be that with a more perceptual focus, the DAC would be able to account for the favouringof anticipatory effects as well. Recasens himself discusses in Chapter 4 of his book that perceptual cues are sometimesreduced in coda position, which may explain why C1 assimilates to C2 more often than vice versa.One minor point of critique might be that theoretically, there is a risk that the explanation of the data involves circularreasoning. The fact that some consonants, such as /r/ and /s/ are reluctant to coarticulate or assimilate is explained withthe DAC model; they are more constrained than other consonants that do assimilate. But the reasoning behind this con-straint seems to be based on the very same observations they serve to explain; they are said to be constrained becausethey do not adapt to adjacent consonants. One possible way to break this circle would be a more in-depth discussion asto why constrained consonants require a precise lingual configuration. For instance, /r/ might be constrained to an alve-olar, lowered and backed tongue configuration because an altered configuration would not yield the same acousticeffect. In other words, the integration of perception and acoustics may lead to a more holistic, explanatory theory.In conclusion, The Production of Consonant Clusters is a solid functional account of the coarticulation processesinvolved in the production of consonant clusters, in which the author employs several methodologies, such as EPG,acoustic and ultrasound analysis to investigate homorganic and heterorganic assimilation, coarticulation and blending.The DAC model offers a clear and testable hypothesis, which allows the author to explain common cross-linguistic coar-ticulation patterns in consonant clusters, and sound change resulting from assimilation. I would recommend it to anyoneinterested in articulatory phonetics, and it is essential reading to linguists studying consonant clusters.ReferencesBlevins, J., 2006. A Theoretical Synopsis of Evolutionary Phonology. Theoret. Linguist. 32 (2), 117–165.Diver, W., 2012. Phonology as human behavior. In: Huffman, A., Davis, J. (Eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior.The Linguistic Essays of William Diver. Brill Publishers, Leiden/Boston, pp. 293–321, Original work published in 1979..Flemming, E., 2007. Speech Perception and Phonological Contrast. In: Pisoni, Remez (Eds.), The Handbook of SpeechPerception. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden/Oxford/Carlton, pp. 156–181.Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. Optimality Theory. Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Rutgers Center for CognitiveScience, New Brunswick, NJ.Recasens, D., Pallarès, M.D., Fontdevila, J., 1997. A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints. J. Acoust.Soc. Am. 102 (1), 544–561.Recasens, D., Espinosa, A., 2009. An articulatory investigation of lingual coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness forconsonants and vowels in Catalan. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125 (4), 2288–2298.Recasens, D., Mira, M., 2015. Place and manner assimilation in Catalan consonant clusters. J. Int. Phonet. Assoc. 45 (2), 115–147.Recasens, D., Rodríguez, C., 2016. A study on coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness for front lingual consonants andvowels using ultrasound. J. Phonet. 59, 58–75.Recasens, D., 2018. The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change. De Gruyter Mouton,Berlin/Boston.Steriade, D., 1997. Phonetics in Phonology: The Case of Laryngeal Neutralization. UCLA Work. Pap. Linguist..Van Soeren, D.P., 2023. The Role of Word Recognition Factors and Lexical Stress in the Distribution of Consonants in Spanish,English and Dutch. J. Linguist.. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000081, In press.D.P. van SoerenRijksuniversiteit Groningen, the NetherlandsReceived 9 March 2022; accepted in revised form 26 March 2022;E-mail address: d.p.van.soeren@rug

ARTS repository - University of Groningen

   University of GroningenReview of The Production of Consonant Clustersvan Soeren, Daniël PieterPublished in:LinguaDOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2022Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):van Soeren, D. P. (2022). Review of The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology andSound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018). Lingua, 272, [103329].https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 13-02-2023Available online at www.sciencedirect.comwww.elsevier.com/locate/linguaScienceDirectLingua 272 (2022) 103329Book ReviewReview of the Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonologyand Sound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018)Not long ago, functional approaches to phonology were overshadowed by generative approaches, such as Optimal-ity Theory (OT), which aims to identify a set of universal phonological principles innate to the human mind. In this view,the actual production of speech is considered epiphenomenal, a surface realisation resulting from underlying phonolog-ical principles and mental representations (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Although OT has been highly successful informulating descriptive models of sound patterns, it can be argued that these are not explanatory, but rather are for-malised descriptions of possible sound patterns that fail to explain why some patterns are more common than others(Blevins, 2006: 131, 154–155). Later work in OT saw significant changes in the direction of functional explanation.These later, more functional OT approaches (e.g. Steriade, 1997) paid attention to phonetic and perceptual detailand the way sounds were produced in the human vocal tract, which had previously been considered epiphenomenalin OT and other generative approaches. The empirical advantage of this is that hypotheses can be supported with fac-tors known independently from analysis, such as the physiology of the human vocal tract (Diver, 1979/2012).Analytical success has led to more research on the functional motivation of sound patterns (Flemming, 2007). TheProduction of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change, by Recasens (2018) is a wonderfulexample of this; by paying attention to articulatory detail, Recasens reveals the adaptation processes involved in therealisation of consonant clusters. The book considers the articulatory and aerodynamic properties of consonants toexplain manner assimilations and weakening of syllable-final consonants, which have previously received little attentionin the literature. In six chapters and 210 pages, the author presents the culmination of more than twenty years of his ownresearch on different Catalan dialects (e.g. Recasens et al., 1997; Recasens and Espinosa, 2009; Recasens and Mira,2015), evaluates new data, and compares his results to work by other authors on (mostly Romance) languages, includ-ing Spanish and several Italian dialects, as well as English and Tamil.Much of the book is dedicated to testing Recasens’ Degree of Articulatory Constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation,which proposes that consonants differ in the extent to which they are constrained by the requirements on place andmanner of articulation involved in their production. In line with his earlier work (Recasens and Rodríguez, 2016), theauthor argues that, for example, certain coronals, namely [ʎ] [ɲ] [ʃ] [s] and [r], require a more precise tongue configu-ration in their production than other coronals, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and []. It is argued that there is not much variation in the pro-duction of alveolar trill [r] in Catalan, as it requires a lowered and backed tongue configuration and enough lingualtension to generate vibration: thus [r] is highly constrained.1 Likewise, palatals [ʎ] [ɲ] and [ʃ] are more restricted thandento-alveolars, as their production involves not only the front of the tongue but constrains the whole tongue bodyinstead. In contrast, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and [] show much more variation in the place and manner in which they are produced,which suggests that they require less articulatory precision and leave the tongue body freer to adjust to the phoneticcontext. Recasens thus considers these consonants less constrained.In the production of consonant clusters, then, Recasens observes that, when consonants conflict in the place or man-ner of articulation, the articulation of the less constrained consonant is adjusted, because it is freer in its place or mannerrequirements and thus freer to adapt. We are offered an example from Catalan: bany rus ‘Russian bath’, where thesequence /ɲr/ is antagonistic. The raised and fronted lingual configuration of alveolopalatal nasal /ɲ/ conflicts withhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.1033290016-7037/ 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1 Note that OT also uses this term, but Recasens uses the term “constrained” to refer to physiological restrictedness.2 D.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329the need to anticipate the tongue body lowering and backing for alveolar trill /r/. Speakers seem to solve the problem bydepalatalising /ɲ/, and importantly, they do not palatalise /r/ because it is highly constrained by the requirementsinvolved in its production. In other sequences, the tongue body configurations of the first and second consonants ina cluster (henceforth C1 and C2) may be more compatible; in the sequence /nʃ/ the tongue body raising and frontingfor /ʃ/ is freely anticipated because the alveolar nasal /n/ does not need a very precise lingual configuration; it is uncon-strained. With this approach, the book aims to demonstrate why certain adaptations take place more than others, andhow a production-based explanation is more plausible than one in terms of abstract phonological principles (as in gen-erative approaches).After the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents a general outline of the theory, including an explanation of thehypothesis supported in this book – the DAC model of coarticulation – and the adaptation mechanisms involved inthe production of consonant clusters. Three of these are discussed, respectively: coarticulation, assimilation and blend-ing, of which the latter is different from the former two because it does not involve the adaptation of one of the two con-sonants, but rather a “compromise realisation” between the two, typically when both are produced with the samearticulator. At the end of the chapter, the direction of segmental adaptation is discussed. In principle, the direction ofadaptation (C1 influences C2 or vice versa) depends on the consonants involved, but a favouring has been foundfor anticipatory effects (C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) compared to carryover effects (C2 is influenced by C1), a topicI will return to at the end of this review.Chapter 3 focuses on homorganic clusters (when C1 and C2 are both produced by the same articulator) across themorpheme boundary, and tests predictions that are made based on the DAC model. To this end, Recasens uses ultra-sound and acoustic analysis, and electropalatographic data (EPG, used to track contact between the tongue and thepalate during speech) of participants speaking three different Catalan dialects. This, together with a review of experi-mental data from other languages (e.g. Spanish, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Italian) by other authors, provides supportfor the DAC model of coarticulation. Moreover, sequences of unconstrained + unconstrained or constrained + con-strained consonants are discussed. It seems that in the former sequence category, the articulation of both consonantsis often adapted (blending). For constrained + constrained clusters, the example of /sʃ/ and /ʃs/ is discussed; the DACmodel predicts an adaptation of /s/, as /ʃ/ is more constrained than /s/, but this prediction is borne out only in the /sʃ/sequence. For /ʃs/, we observe intermediate realisations (blending), an assimilation of /s/ or no adaptation at all. Theauthor suggests that this might be due to the general favouring of anticipatory effects.Chapter 4 is concerned with heterorganic consonant clusters (clusters produced with different articulators: lips, ton-gue front, and tongue dorsum). As these articulators can move separately, this cluster type may present gestural over-lap. For instance, in the cluster /tk/, during the production of C1 /t/, the tongue dorsum is free to raise in anticipation of C2/k/ before the /t/ stop release. Nevertheless, not all gestures can take place simultaneously, and not in all orders; ourprevious example /tk/ exhibits more overlap than the reverse order /kt/. After a C1 /k/ the tongue needs to repositionfor C2 /t/. The author expects a positive relation between overlap and assimilation; sequences that exhibit more overlap(e.g. /tk/) should assimilate more often than sequences that exhibit less overlap (e.g. /kt/), and this prediction seems tobe borne out by the data. Recasens points out that this could be due to perceptual factors; in the example of /tk/, as aresult of great gestural overlap, the stop burst for /t/ is reduced and there is little motivation from a perceptual perspec-tive to preserve the weak acoustic cue, with a /tk/ > /kk/ assimilation as a result. The strength of this argument is that itconsiders general assimilation processes in light of the observed patterns of gestural overlap.Chapter 5 discusses the articulatory factors involved in consonant weakening and manner assimilation, which arediscussed in five subsections, focussing on stops, lingual fricatives, nasals, laterals, and rhotics, respectively. Assimi-lation is shown to be facilitated when the consonants are produced by the same articulators (homorganicity), as changesin tongue configuration are argued to take place more easily if C1 and C2 have the same place of articulation. Weak-ening, on the other hand, is argued to be related to specific C2 phonetic characteristics. For instance, the shortening ofthe C1 seems to be especially triggered by voicing in the C2, as this voicing causes the intraoral pressure to lower forC1. It affects C1 dentals and alveolars most, as their articulation is already relatively short, with little contact with thepassive receptor. Articulatory reduction may then lead to weakening through lenition, aspiration, rhoticism, vocalisationor deletion, after which the consonant is prone to assimilate completely to the other consonant in the cluster.The DAC model of coarticulation clearly has a strong explanatory potential, and can therefore serve as a solid foun-dation for further work in the field of articulatory phonetics. Its appeal lies in its testable, functional hypothesis and clearpredictions, which are rigorously tested with data from Catalan. The vast body of empirical evidence offered in the bookconvincingly accounts for common sound patterns that are also observed in languages other than Catalan. It may alsoshed light on sound change: the author successfully demonstrates parallels between the observed coarticulation effects(phonetic realisation) and patterns of consonant assimilation (phonetic realisations perceived as a phonemic change).Moreover, the observation that some consonants are freer to adapt to their phonetic context than others may also beuseful to explain sound patterns outside of the scope of the book. Van Soeren, (2023) for instance, uses this insight toD.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329 3explain the observation that near the ends of Spanish words, some coronals, namely /l/ /n/ /ɾ/ /t/ and /d/, occur morefrequently than coronals /ʎ/ /ɲ/ /s/ and /r/.In addition, the book raises interesting issues. The author claims that the general favouring of anticipatory effects(when C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) as compared to carryover effects (when C1 influences C2) “appears to be in sup-port of the notion that the former [anticipatory effects] are planned while the latter [carryover effects] are conditioned to alarge extent by the peripheral properties of the speech production system” (p.188). As the DAC model cannot directlyaccount for this, Recasens suggests to further research articulatory planning and the physiomechanical nature of car-ryover effects. However, it may be that with a more perceptual focus, the DAC would be able to account for the favouringof anticipatory effects as well. Recasens himself discusses in Chapter 4 of his book that perceptual cues are sometimesreduced in coda position, which may explain why C1 assimilates to C2 more often than vice versa.One minor point of critique might be that theoretically, there is a risk that the explanation of the data involves circularreasoning. The fact that some consonants, such as /r/ and /s/ are reluctant to coarticulate or assimilate is explained withthe DAC model; they are more constrained than other consonants that do assimilate. But the reasoning behind this con-straint seems to be based on the very same observations they serve to explain; they are said to be constrained becausethey do not adapt to adjacent consonants. One possible way to break this circle would be a more in-depth discussion asto why constrained consonants require a precise lingual configuration. For instance, /r/ might be constrained to an alve-olar, lowered and backed tongue configuration because an altered configuration would not yield the same acousticeffect. In other words, the integration of perception and acoustics may lead to a more holistic, explanatory theory.In conclusion, The Production of Consonant Clusters is a solid functional account of the coarticulation processesinvolved in the production of consonant clusters, in which the author employs several methodologies, such as EPG,acoustic and ultrasound analysis to investigate homorganic and heterorganic assimilation, coarticulation and blending.The DAC model offers a clear and testable hypothesis, which allows the author to explain common cross-linguistic coar-ticulation patterns in consonant clusters, and sound change resulting from assimilation. I would recommend it to anyoneinterested in articulatory phonetics, and it is essential reading to linguists studying consonant clusters.ReferencesBlevins, J., 2006. A Theoretical Synopsis of Evolutionary Phonology. Theoret. Linguist. 32 (2), 117–165.Diver, W., 2012. Phonology as human behavior. In: Huffman, A., Davis, J. (Eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior.The Linguistic Essays of William Diver. Brill Publishers, Leiden/Boston, pp. 293–321, Original work published in 1979..Flemming, E., 2007. Speech Perception and Phonological Contrast. In: Pisoni, Remez (Eds.), The Handbook of SpeechPerception. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden/Oxford/Carlton, pp. 156–181.Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. Optimality Theory. Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Rutgers Center for CognitiveScience, New Brunswick, NJ.Recasens, D., Pallarès, M.D., Fontdevila, J., 1997. A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints. J. Acoust.Soc. Am. 102 (1), 544–561.Recasens, D., Espinosa, A., 2009. An articulatory investigation of lingual coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness forconsonants and vowels in Catalan. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125 (4), 2288–2298.Recasens, D., Mira, M., 2015. Place and manner assimilation in Catalan consonant clusters. J. Int. Phonet. Assoc. 45 (2), 115–147.Recasens, D., Rodríguez, C., 2016. A study on coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness for front lingual consonants andvowels using ultrasound. J. Phonet. 59, 58–75.Recasens, D., 2018. The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change. De Gruyter Mouton,Berlin/Boston.Steriade, D., 1997. Phonetics in Phonology: The Case of Laryngeal Neutralization. UCLA Work. Pap. Linguist..Van Soeren, D.P., 2023. The Role of Word Recognition Factors and Lexical Stress in the Distribution of Consonants in Spanish,English and Dutch. J. Linguist.. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000081, In press.D.P. van SoerenRijksuniversiteit Groningen, the NetherlandsReceived 9 March 2022; accepted in revised form 26 March 2022;E-mail address: d.p.van.soeren@rug

University of Groningen

   University of GroningenReview of The Production of Consonant Clustersvan Soeren, Daniël PieterPublished in:LinguaDOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2022Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):van Soeren, D. P. (2022). Review of The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology andSound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018). Lingua, 272, [103329].https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 30-04-2023Available online at www.sciencedirect.comwww.elsevier.com/locate/linguaScienceDirectLingua 272 (2022) 103329Book ReviewReview of the Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonologyand Sound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018)Not long ago, functional approaches to phonology were overshadowed by generative approaches, such as Optimal-ity Theory (OT), which aims to identify a set of universal phonological principles innate to the human mind. In this view,the actual production of speech is considered epiphenomenal, a surface realisation resulting from underlying phonolog-ical principles and mental representations (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Although OT has been highly successful informulating descriptive models of sound patterns, it can be argued that these are not explanatory, but rather are for-malised descriptions of possible sound patterns that fail to explain why some patterns are more common than others(Blevins, 2006: 131, 154–155). Later work in OT saw significant changes in the direction of functional explanation.These later, more functional OT approaches (e.g. Steriade, 1997) paid attention to phonetic and perceptual detailand the way sounds were produced in the human vocal tract, which had previously been considered epiphenomenalin OT and other generative approaches. The empirical advantage of this is that hypotheses can be supported with fac-tors known independently from analysis, such as the physiology of the human vocal tract (Diver, 1979/2012).Analytical success has led to more research on the functional motivation of sound patterns (Flemming, 2007). TheProduction of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change, by Recasens (2018) is a wonderfulexample of this; by paying attention to articulatory detail, Recasens reveals the adaptation processes involved in therealisation of consonant clusters. The book considers the articulatory and aerodynamic properties of consonants toexplain manner assimilations and weakening of syllable-final consonants, which have previously received little attentionin the literature. In six chapters and 210 pages, the author presents the culmination of more than twenty years of his ownresearch on different Catalan dialects (e.g. Recasens et al., 1997; Recasens and Espinosa, 2009; Recasens and Mira,2015), evaluates new data, and compares his results to work by other authors on (mostly Romance) languages, includ-ing Spanish and several Italian dialects, as well as English and Tamil.Much of the book is dedicated to testing Recasens’ Degree of Articulatory Constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation,which proposes that consonants differ in the extent to which they are constrained by the requirements on place andmanner of articulation involved in their production. In line with his earlier work (Recasens and Rodríguez, 2016), theauthor argues that, for example, certain coronals, namely [ʎ] [ɲ] [ʃ] [s] and [r], require a more precise tongue configu-ration in their production than other coronals, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and []. It is argued that there is not much variation in the pro-duction of alveolar trill [r] in Catalan, as it requires a lowered and backed tongue configuration and enough lingualtension to generate vibration: thus [r] is highly constrained.1 Likewise, palatals [ʎ] [ɲ] and [ʃ] are more restricted thandento-alveolars, as their production involves not only the front of the tongue but constrains the whole tongue bodyinstead. In contrast, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and [] show much more variation in the place and manner in which they are produced,which suggests that they require less articulatory precision and leave the tongue body freer to adjust to the phoneticcontext. Recasens thus considers these consonants less constrained.In the production of consonant clusters, then, Recasens observes that, when consonants conflict in the place or man-ner of articulation, the articulation of the less constrained consonant is adjusted, because it is freer in its place or mannerrequirements and thus freer to adapt. We are offered an example from Catalan: bany rus ‘Russian bath’, where thesequence /ɲr/ is antagonistic. The raised and fronted lingual configuration of alveolopalatal nasal /ɲ/ conflicts withhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.1033290016-7037/ 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1 Note that OT also uses this term, but Recasens uses the term “constrained” to refer to physiological restrictedness.2 D.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329the need to anticipate the tongue body lowering and backing for alveolar trill /r/. Speakers seem to solve the problem bydepalatalising /ɲ/, and importantly, they do not palatalise /r/ because it is highly constrained by the requirementsinvolved in its production. In other sequences, the tongue body configurations of the first and second consonants ina cluster (henceforth C1 and C2) may be more compatible; in the sequence /nʃ/ the tongue body raising and frontingfor /ʃ/ is freely anticipated because the alveolar nasal /n/ does not need a very precise lingual configuration; it is uncon-strained. With this approach, the book aims to demonstrate why certain adaptations take place more than others, andhow a production-based explanation is more plausible than one in terms of abstract phonological principles (as in gen-erative approaches).After the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents a general outline of the theory, including an explanation of thehypothesis supported in this book – the DAC model of coarticulation – and the adaptation mechanisms involved inthe production of consonant clusters. Three of these are discussed, respectively: coarticulation, assimilation and blend-ing, of which the latter is different from the former two because it does not involve the adaptation of one of the two con-sonants, but rather a “compromise realisation” between the two, typically when both are produced with the samearticulator. At the end of the chapter, the direction of segmental adaptation is discussed. In principle, the direction ofadaptation (C1 influences C2 or vice versa) depends on the consonants involved, but a favouring has been foundfor anticipatory effects (C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) compared to carryover effects (C2 is influenced by C1), a topicI will return to at the end of this review.Chapter 3 focuses on homorganic clusters (when C1 and C2 are both produced by the same articulator) across themorpheme boundary, and tests predictions that are made based on the DAC model. To this end, Recasens uses ultra-sound and acoustic analysis, and electropalatographic data (EPG, used to track contact between the tongue and thepalate during speech) of participants speaking three different Catalan dialects. This, together with a review of experi-mental data from other languages (e.g. Spanish, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Italian) by other authors, provides supportfor the DAC model of coarticulation. Moreover, sequences of unconstrained + unconstrained or constrained + con-strained consonants are discussed. It seems that in the former sequence category, the articulation of both consonantsis often adapted (blending). For constrained + constrained clusters, the example of /sʃ/ and /ʃs/ is discussed; the DACmodel predicts an adaptation of /s/, as /ʃ/ is more constrained than /s/, but this prediction is borne out only in the /sʃ/sequence. For /ʃs/, we observe intermediate realisations (blending), an assimilation of /s/ or no adaptation at all. Theauthor suggests that this might be due to the general favouring of anticipatory effects.Chapter 4 is concerned with heterorganic consonant clusters (clusters produced with different articulators: lips, ton-gue front, and tongue dorsum). As these articulators can move separately, this cluster type may present gestural over-lap. For instance, in the cluster /tk/, during the production of C1 /t/, the tongue dorsum is free to raise in anticipation of C2/k/ before the /t/ stop release. Nevertheless, not all gestures can take place simultaneously, and not in all orders; ourprevious example /tk/ exhibits more overlap than the reverse order /kt/. After a C1 /k/ the tongue needs to repositionfor C2 /t/. The author expects a positive relation between overlap and assimilation; sequences that exhibit more overlap(e.g. /tk/) should assimilate more often than sequences that exhibit less overlap (e.g. /kt/), and this prediction seems tobe borne out by the data. Recasens points out that this could be due to perceptual factors; in the example of /tk/, as aresult of great gestural overlap, the stop burst for /t/ is reduced and there is little motivation from a perceptual perspec-tive to preserve the weak acoustic cue, with a /tk/ > /kk/ assimilation as a result. The strength of this argument is that itconsiders general assimilation processes in light of the observed patterns of gestural overlap.Chapter 5 discusses the articulatory factors involved in consonant weakening and manner assimilation, which arediscussed in five subsections, focussing on stops, lingual fricatives, nasals, laterals, and rhotics, respectively. Assimi-lation is shown to be facilitated when the consonants are produced by the same articulators (homorganicity), as changesin tongue configuration are argued to take place more easily if C1 and C2 have the same place of articulation. Weak-ening, on the other hand, is argued to be related to specific C2 phonetic characteristics. For instance, the shortening ofthe C1 seems to be especially triggered by voicing in the C2, as this voicing causes the intraoral pressure to lower forC1. It affects C1 dentals and alveolars most, as their articulation is already relatively short, with little contact with thepassive receptor. Articulatory reduction may then lead to weakening through lenition, aspiration, rhoticism, vocalisationor deletion, after which the consonant is prone to assimilate completely to the other consonant in the cluster.The DAC model of coarticulation clearly has a strong explanatory potential, and can therefore serve as a solid foun-dation for further work in the field of articulatory phonetics. Its appeal lies in its testable, functional hypothesis and clearpredictions, which are rigorously tested with data from Catalan. The vast body of empirical evidence offered in the bookconvincingly accounts for common sound patterns that are also observed in languages other than Catalan. It may alsoshed light on sound change: the author successfully demonstrates parallels between the observed coarticulation effects(phonetic realisation) and patterns of consonant assimilation (phonetic realisations perceived as a phonemic change).Moreover, the observation that some consonants are freer to adapt to their phonetic context than others may also beuseful to explain sound patterns outside of the scope of the book. Van Soeren, (2023) for instance, uses this insight toD.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329 3explain the observation that near the ends of Spanish words, some coronals, namely /l/ /n/ /ɾ/ /t/ and /d/, occur morefrequently than coronals /ʎ/ /ɲ/ /s/ and /r/.In addition, the book raises interesting issues. The author claims that the general favouring of anticipatory effects(when C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) as compared to carryover effects (when C1 influences C2) “appears to be in sup-port of the notion that the former [anticipatory effects] are planned while the latter [carryover effects] are conditioned to alarge extent by the peripheral properties of the speech production system” (p.188). As the DAC model cannot directlyaccount for this, Recasens suggests to further research articulatory planning and the physiomechanical nature of car-ryover effects. However, it may be that with a more perceptual focus, the DAC would be able to account for the favouringof anticipatory effects as well. Recasens himself discusses in Chapter 4 of his book that perceptual cues are sometimesreduced in coda position, which may explain why C1 assimilates to C2 more often than vice versa.One minor point of critique might be that theoretically, there is a risk that the explanation of the data involves circularreasoning. The fact that some consonants, such as /r/ and /s/ are reluctant to coarticulate or assimilate is explained withthe DAC model; they are more constrained than other consonants that do assimilate. But the reasoning behind this con-straint seems to be based on the very same observations they serve to explain; they are said to be constrained becausethey do not adapt to adjacent consonants. One possible way to break this circle would be a more in-depth discussion asto why constrained consonants require a precise lingual configuration. For instance, /r/ might be constrained to an alve-olar, lowered and backed tongue configuration because an altered configuration would not yield the same acousticeffect. In other words, the integration of perception and acoustics may lead to a more holistic, explanatory theory.In conclusion, The Production of Consonant Clusters is a solid functional account of the coarticulation processesinvolved in the production of consonant clusters, in which the author employs several methodologies, such as EPG,acoustic and ultrasound analysis to investigate homorganic and heterorganic assimilation, coarticulation and blending.The DAC model offers a clear and testable hypothesis, which allows the author to explain common cross-linguistic coar-ticulation patterns in consonant clusters, and sound change resulting from assimilation. I would recommend it to anyoneinterested in articulatory phonetics, and it is essential reading to linguists studying consonant clusters.ReferencesBlevins, J., 2006. A Theoretical Synopsis of Evolutionary Phonology. Theoret. Linguist. 32 (2), 117–165.Diver, W., 2012. Phonology as human behavior. In: Huffman, A., Davis, J. (Eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior.The Linguistic Essays of William Diver. Brill Publishers, Leiden/Boston, pp. 293–321, Original work published in 1979..Flemming, E., 2007. Speech Perception and Phonological Contrast. In: Pisoni, Remez (Eds.), The Handbook of SpeechPerception. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden/Oxford/Carlton, pp. 156–181.Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. Optimality Theory. Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Rutgers Center for CognitiveScience, New Brunswick, NJ.Recasens, D., Pallarès, M.D., Fontdevila, J., 1997. A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints. J. Acoust.Soc. Am. 102 (1), 544–561.Recasens, D., Espinosa, A., 2009. An articulatory investigation of lingual coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness forconsonants and vowels in Catalan. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125 (4), 2288–2298.Recasens, D., Mira, M., 2015. Place and manner assimilation in Catalan consonant clusters. J. Int. Phonet. Assoc. 45 (2), 115–147.Recasens, D., Rodríguez, C., 2016. A study on coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness for front lingual consonants andvowels using ultrasound. J. Phonet. 59, 58–75.Recasens, D., 2018. The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change. De Gruyter Mouton,Berlin/Boston.Steriade, D., 1997. Phonetics in Phonology: The Case of Laryngeal Neutralization. UCLA Work. Pap. Linguist..Van Soeren, D.P., 2023. The Role of Word Recognition Factors and Lexical Stress in the Distribution of Consonants in Spanish,English and Dutch. J. Linguist.. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000081, In press.D.P. van SoerenRijksuniversiteit Groningen, the NetherlandsReceived 9 March 2022; accepted in revised form 26 March 2022;E-mail address: d.p.van.soeren@rug

   University of GroningenReview of The Production of Consonant Clustersvan Soeren, Daniël PieterPublished in:LinguaDOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2022Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):van Soeren, D. P. (2022). Review of The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology andSound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018). Lingua, 272, [103329].https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103329CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 26-12-2022Available online at www.sciencedirect.comwww.elsevier.com/locate/linguaScienceDirectLingua 272 (2022) 103329Book ReviewReview of the Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonologyand Sound Change, Daniel Recasens (2018)Not long ago, functional approaches to phonology were overshadowed by generative approaches, such as Optimal-ity Theory (OT), which aims to identify a set of universal phonological principles innate to the human mind. In this view,the actual production of speech is considered epiphenomenal, a surface realisation resulting from underlying phonolog-ical principles and mental representations (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Although OT has been highly successful informulating descriptive models of sound patterns, it can be argued that these are not explanatory, but rather are for-malised descriptions of possible sound patterns that fail to explain why some patterns are more common than others(Blevins, 2006: 131, 154–155). Later work in OT saw significant changes in the direction of functional explanation.These later, more functional OT approaches (e.g. Steriade, 1997) paid attention to phonetic and perceptual detailand the way sounds were produced in the human vocal tract, which had previously been considered epiphenomenalin OT and other generative approaches. The empirical advantage of this is that hypotheses can be supported with fac-tors known independently from analysis, such as the physiology of the human vocal tract (Diver, 1979/2012).Analytical success has led to more research on the functional motivation of sound patterns (Flemming, 2007). TheProduction of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change, by Recasens (2018) is a wonderfulexample of this; by paying attention to articulatory detail, Recasens reveals the adaptation processes involved in therealisation of consonant clusters. The book considers the articulatory and aerodynamic properties of consonants toexplain manner assimilations and weakening of syllable-final consonants, which have previously received little attentionin the literature. In six chapters and 210 pages, the author presents the culmination of more than twenty years of his ownresearch on different Catalan dialects (e.g. Recasens et al., 1997; Recasens and Espinosa, 2009; Recasens and Mira,2015), evaluates new data, and compares his results to work by other authors on (mostly Romance) languages, includ-ing Spanish and several Italian dialects, as well as English and Tamil.Much of the book is dedicated to testing Recasens’ Degree of Articulatory Constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation,which proposes that consonants differ in the extent to which they are constrained by the requirements on place andmanner of articulation involved in their production. In line with his earlier work (Recasens and Rodríguez, 2016), theauthor argues that, for example, certain coronals, namely [ʎ] [ɲ] [ʃ] [s] and [r], require a more precise tongue configu-ration in their production than other coronals, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and []. It is argued that there is not much variation in the pro-duction of alveolar trill [r] in Catalan, as it requires a lowered and backed tongue configuration and enough lingualtension to generate vibration: thus [r] is highly constrained.1 Likewise, palatals [ʎ] [ɲ] and [ʃ] are more restricted thandento-alveolars, as their production involves not only the front of the tongue but constrains the whole tongue bodyinstead. In contrast, [l] [n] [ɾ] [t] and [] show much more variation in the place and manner in which they are produced,which suggests that they require less articulatory precision and leave the tongue body freer to adjust to the phoneticcontext. Recasens thus considers these consonants less constrained.In the production of consonant clusters, then, Recasens observes that, when consonants conflict in the place or man-ner of articulation, the articulation of the less constrained consonant is adjusted, because it is freer in its place or mannerrequirements and thus freer to adapt. We are offered an example from Catalan: bany rus ‘Russian bath’, where thesequence /ɲr/ is antagonistic. The raised and fronted lingual configuration of alveolopalatal nasal /ɲ/ conflicts withhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.1033290016-7037/ 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1 Note that OT also uses this term, but Recasens uses the term “constrained” to refer to physiological restrictedness.2 D.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329the need to anticipate the tongue body lowering and backing for alveolar trill /r/. Speakers seem to solve the problem bydepalatalising /ɲ/, and importantly, they do not palatalise /r/ because it is highly constrained by the requirementsinvolved in its production. In other sequences, the tongue body configurations of the first and second consonants ina cluster (henceforth C1 and C2) may be more compatible; in the sequence /nʃ/ the tongue body raising and frontingfor /ʃ/ is freely anticipated because the alveolar nasal /n/ does not need a very precise lingual configuration; it is uncon-strained. With this approach, the book aims to demonstrate why certain adaptations take place more than others, andhow a production-based explanation is more plausible than one in terms of abstract phonological principles (as in gen-erative approaches).After the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents a general outline of the theory, including an explanation of thehypothesis supported in this book – the DAC model of coarticulation – and the adaptation mechanisms involved inthe production of consonant clusters. Three of these are discussed, respectively: coarticulation, assimilation and blend-ing, of which the latter is different from the former two because it does not involve the adaptation of one of the two con-sonants, but rather a “compromise realisation” between the two, typically when both are produced with the samearticulator. At the end of the chapter, the direction of segmental adaptation is discussed. In principle, the direction ofadaptation (C1 influences C2 or vice versa) depends on the consonants involved, but a favouring has been foundfor anticipatory effects (C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) compared to carryover effects (C2 is influenced by C1), a topicI will return to at the end of this review.Chapter 3 focuses on homorganic clusters (when C1 and C2 are both produced by the same articulator) across themorpheme boundary, and tests predictions that are made based on the DAC model. To this end, Recasens uses ultra-sound and acoustic analysis, and electropalatographic data (EPG, used to track contact between the tongue and thepalate during speech) of participants speaking three different Catalan dialects. This, together with a review of experi-mental data from other languages (e.g. Spanish, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Italian) by other authors, provides supportfor the DAC model of coarticulation. Moreover, sequences of unconstrained + unconstrained or constrained + con-strained consonants are discussed. It seems that in the former sequence category, the articulation of both consonantsis often adapted (blending). For constrained + constrained clusters, the example of /sʃ/ and /ʃs/ is discussed; the DACmodel predicts an adaptation of /s/, as /ʃ/ is more constrained than /s/, but this prediction is borne out only in the /sʃ/sequence. For /ʃs/, we observe intermediate realisations (blending), an assimilation of /s/ or no adaptation at all. Theauthor suggests that this might be due to the general favouring of anticipatory effects.Chapter 4 is concerned with heterorganic consonant clusters (clusters produced with different articulators: lips, ton-gue front, and tongue dorsum). As these articulators can move separately, this cluster type may present gestural over-lap. For instance, in the cluster /tk/, during the production of C1 /t/, the tongue dorsum is free to raise in anticipation of C2/k/ before the /t/ stop release. Nevertheless, not all gestures can take place simultaneously, and not in all orders; ourprevious example /tk/ exhibits more overlap than the reverse order /kt/. After a C1 /k/ the tongue needs to repositionfor C2 /t/. The author expects a positive relation between overlap and assimilation; sequences that exhibit more overlap(e.g. /tk/) should assimilate more often than sequences that exhibit less overlap (e.g. /kt/), and this prediction seems tobe borne out by the data. Recasens points out that this could be due to perceptual factors; in the example of /tk/, as aresult of great gestural overlap, the stop burst for /t/ is reduced and there is little motivation from a perceptual perspec-tive to preserve the weak acoustic cue, with a /tk/ > /kk/ assimilation as a result. The strength of this argument is that itconsiders general assimilation processes in light of the observed patterns of gestural overlap.Chapter 5 discusses the articulatory factors involved in consonant weakening and manner assimilation, which arediscussed in five subsections, focussing on stops, lingual fricatives, nasals, laterals, and rhotics, respectively. Assimi-lation is shown to be facilitated when the consonants are produced by the same articulators (homorganicity), as changesin tongue configuration are argued to take place more easily if C1 and C2 have the same place of articulation. Weak-ening, on the other hand, is argued to be related to specific C2 phonetic characteristics. For instance, the shortening ofthe C1 seems to be especially triggered by voicing in the C2, as this voicing causes the intraoral pressure to lower forC1. It affects C1 dentals and alveolars most, as their articulation is already relatively short, with little contact with thepassive receptor. Articulatory reduction may then lead to weakening through lenition, aspiration, rhoticism, vocalisationor deletion, after which the consonant is prone to assimilate completely to the other consonant in the cluster.The DAC model of coarticulation clearly has a strong explanatory potential, and can therefore serve as a solid foun-dation for further work in the field of articulatory phonetics. Its appeal lies in its testable, functional hypothesis and clearpredictions, which are rigorously tested with data from Catalan. The vast body of empirical evidence offered in the bookconvincingly accounts for common sound patterns that are also observed in languages other than Catalan. It may alsoshed light on sound change: the author successfully demonstrates parallels between the observed coarticulation effects(phonetic realisation) and patterns of consonant assimilation (phonetic realisations perceived as a phonemic change).Moreover, the observation that some consonants are freer to adapt to their phonetic context than others may also beuseful to explain sound patterns outside of the scope of the book. Van Soeren, (2023) for instance, uses this insight toD.P. van Soeren / Lingua 272 (2022) 103329 3explain the observation that near the ends of Spanish words, some coronals, namely /l/ /n/ /ɾ/ /t/ and /d/, occur morefrequently than coronals /ʎ/ /ɲ/ /s/ and /r/.In addition, the book raises interesting issues. The author claims that the general favouring of anticipatory effects(when C1 is adapted to anticipate C2) as compared to carryover effects (when C1 influences C2) “appears to be in sup-port of the notion that the former [anticipatory effects] are planned while the latter [carryover effects] are conditioned to alarge extent by the peripheral properties of the speech production system” (p.188). As the DAC model cannot directlyaccount for this, Recasens suggests to further research articulatory planning and the physiomechanical nature of car-ryover effects. However, it may be that with a more perceptual focus, the DAC would be able to account for the favouringof anticipatory effects as well. Recasens himself discusses in Chapter 4 of his book that perceptual cues are sometimesreduced in coda position, which may explain why C1 assimilates to C2 more often than vice versa.One minor point of critique might be that theoretically, there is a risk that the explanation of the data involves circularreasoning. The fact that some consonants, such as /r/ and /s/ are reluctant to coarticulate or assimilate is explained withthe DAC model; they are more constrained than other consonants that do assimilate. But the reasoning behind this con-straint seems to be based on the very same observations they serve to explain; they are said to be constrained becausethey do not adapt to adjacent consonants. One possible way to break this circle would be a more in-depth discussion asto why constrained consonants require a precise lingual configuration. For instance, /r/ might be constrained to an alve-olar, lowered and backed tongue configuration because an altered configuration would not yield the same acousticeffect. In other words, the integration of perception and acoustics may lead to a more holistic, explanatory theory.In conclusion, The Production of Consonant Clusters is a solid functional account of the coarticulation processesinvolved in the production of consonant clusters, in which the author employs several methodologies, such as EPG,acoustic and ultrasound analysis to investigate homorganic and heterorganic assimilation, coarticulation and blending.The DAC model offers a clear and testable hypothesis, which allows the author to explain common cross-linguistic coar-ticulation patterns in consonant clusters, and sound change resulting from assimilation. I would recommend it to anyoneinterested in articulatory phonetics, and it is essential reading to linguists studying consonant clusters.ReferencesBlevins, J., 2006. A Theoretical Synopsis of Evolutionary Phonology. Theoret. Linguist. 32 (2), 117–165.Diver, W., 2012. Phonology as human behavior. In: Huffman, A., Davis, J. (Eds.), Language: Communication and Human Behavior.The Linguistic Essays of William Diver. Brill Publishers, Leiden/Boston, pp. 293–321, Original work published in 1979..Flemming, E., 2007. Speech Perception and Phonological Contrast. In: Pisoni, Remez (Eds.), The Handbook of SpeechPerception. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden/Oxford/Carlton, pp. 156–181.Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. Optimality Theory. Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Rutgers Center for CognitiveScience, New Brunswick, NJ.Recasens, D., Pallarès, M.D., Fontdevila, J., 1997. A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints. J. Acoust.Soc. Am. 102 (1), 544–561.Recasens, D., Espinosa, A., 2009. An articulatory investigation of lingual coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness forconsonants and vowels in Catalan. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125 (4), 2288–2298.Recasens, D., Mira, M., 2015. Place and manner assimilation in Catalan consonant clusters. J. Int. Phonet. Assoc. 45 (2), 115–147.Recasens, D., Rodríguez, C., 2016. A study on coarticulatory resistance and aggressiveness for front lingual consonants andvowels using ultrasound. J. Phonet. 59, 58–75.Recasens, D., 2018. The Production of Consonant Clusters: Implications for Phonology and Sound Change. De Gruyter Mouton,Berlin/Boston.Steriade, D., 1997. Phonetics in Phonology: The Case of Laryngeal Neutralization. UCLA Work. Pap. Linguist..Van Soeren, D.P., 2023. The Role of Word Recognition Factors and Lexical Stress in the Distribution of Consonants in Spanish,English and Dutch. J. Linguist.. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000081, In press.D.P. van SoerenRijksuniversiteit Groningen, the NetherlandsReceived 9 March 2022; accepted in revised form 26 March 2022;E-mail address: d.p.van.soeren@rug

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