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A recurring finding of research on the L2 acquisition of coda obstruent voicing is that, in terms of the phonetic parameters that serve to realize the voicing contrast, learners are overwhelmingly more accurate with duration than the voicing of the obstruent itself. The current work expands our understanding of this asymmetry in two ways. First, as previous studies have focused almost exclusively on learners of English, we investigate here whether L2 learners' superior production of duration is also found among learners of other target languages via a study of Mandarin-speaking learners' production of French stop and fricative codas. Results from 18 Mandarin-speaking learners of French, primarily of beginner and intermediate proficiency who completed a sentence reading task, parallel those of previous studies with greater accuracy observed for vowel duration than the laryngeal voicing of the obstruent. Second, we explore potential sources of this asymmetry, in particular, the roles of L1 experience as well as of universal factors, namely, the relative perceptual salience of duration versus voicing, and the articulatory difficulty of voicing obstruents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the link between the perception and production in sound change in progress, both at the regional and the individual level. Two devoicing processes showing regional variation in Dutch are studied: the devoicing of initial labiodental fricatives and of initial bilabial stops. Five regions were selected, to represent different stages of change in progress. For each region, 20 participants took part in production (Study 1) and perception (Study 2) experiments. First, the results of the production tasks give additional insight in the regional and individual patterns of sound change. Second, the regional perceptual patterns in fricatives match the differences in production: perception is the most categorical in regions where the devoicing process is starting, and the least categorical in regions where the process of devoicing is almost completed. Finally, a clear link is observed between the production and perception systems undergoing sound change at the individual level. Changes in the perceptual system seem to precede changes in production. However, at the sound change completion, perception lags behind: individuals still perceive a contrast they no longer produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Acoustic analysis of plain and breathy voiced obstruents and sonorants in Marathi is presented. • Breathy sonorants are associated with increased spectral tilt and increased noise. • This finding is consistent with findings for breathy obstruents and vowels. • Differences between plain and breathy consonants are diminished in sonorant contexts, however. • The acoustic facts may help explain the typological underrepresentation of breathy sonorants. Abstract Breathy voiced sonorant consonants are typologically rare, more so than other non-modal sonorants (e.g. voiceless sonorants, which are widely attested in language families like Tibeto-Burman and Otomanguean). Similarly, they are more vulnerable to diachronic loss than voiceless sonorants (e.g. in Tibeto-Burman). The acoustic correlates of breathiness in sonorants have not been thoroughly investigated, and a question arises as to whether there is a tie between their acoustics and their typology: does the acoustic encoding of breathiness in sonorants contribute to their typological scarcity? The current study probes this question via instrumental acoustic analysis of breathy and modal obstruents and sonorants in Marathi, an Indic language. Measures standardly used to assess voice quality (F0, H1*-H2*, H1*-A1*, H1*-A2*, H1*-A3*, and Cepstral Peak Prominence) are reported. As expected, breathy voiced obstruents are associated with increased values in the H1-based measures and decreased values in Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP), a measure which reflects the presence of noise in the signal. Sonorants show the same general trend, with higher H1-based measures and lower CPP associated with breathy than with plain sonorants, but the differences between plain and breathy consonants is greater in obstruents than in sonorants. Specifically, the acoustic correlates of breathy voice are diminished in post-sonorant contexts. It is proposed that phonemic breathy voice is not acoustically encoded as robustly in sonorant consonants as in obstruents, and that this helps explain the typology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined identification responses by Taiwan Mandarin L1 speakers learning English. Stimuli were monosyllabic and disyllabic native English productions of voiced and voiceless, labial and coronal, plosives and non-sibilant fricatives. Analyses correlated individual identification performance for laryngeal (hereafter, “voicing”) contrasts and manner contrasts, obtained from different halves of the overall corpus. Manner accuracy correlations were strong, particularly between voiced and voiceless segments. Manner accuracy also correlated across consonants appearing in different prosodic locations, word-initial, word-final, and intervocalic post-stress and pre-stress positions. Voicing accuracy also correlated across prosodic positions, though not between word-final position and the other positions. These results were interpreted with respect to a previously published corpus of Korean learners. The two corpora showed different patterns of correlation across prosodic positions for voicing, apparently due to the effects of different, prosodically-conditioned voicing allophony in the L1s. Finally, overall segmental and d- prime estimates were compared across the two language groups, revealing very strong similarities in the segmental accuracies for the two L1 groups. Analyses, however, also showed a persistent advantage for Mandarin listeners for manner contrasts. It was proposed that the difficulty of individual segments in specific prosodic locations, combined with the overall characteristics of the L1 phonological system, better account for learners’ identification accuracies than does the correspondence of specific L1 and L2 segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Acoustic data from languages with word-final devoicing show that words ending in phonologically voiced versus voiceless obstruents (e.g., код /kod/ ‘code’ vs. кот /kot/ ‘cat’ in Russian) are seldom homophonous at the phonetic level. The present study examines how such incomplete neutralization of the underlying contrast varies across (i) different types of obstruents and stimulus words (plosives vs. fricatives; labials/coronals vs. dorsals; monosyllables vs. disyllables; minimal vs. non-minimal pairs) and (ii) different types of experimental tasks and stimulus lists (word-reading vs. picture-naming/word-guessing; presence vs. absence of minimal pairs among the stimuli). Results from Russian show that underlying voicing affects consonantal duration and glottal pulsing but not preceding vowel duration. For consonantal duration, voicing effects are found regardless of speakers' exposure to orthography or minimal pairs and more differences are seen in minimal pairs and monosyllables than non-minimal pairs or disyllables. For glottal pulsing, comparable effects are observed for all types of obstruents and stimulus words but they are significant only during word-reading or when speakers encounter full minimal pairs. This shows that incomplete neutralization has different sources for different acoustic parameters. Some differences are the result of phonological and lexical pressures. Other differences arise due to methodological influences. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article examines the extent of differences between second language (L2) learners in their abilities to identify L2 consonants and provides evidence for linguistic generalization from one consonant to other consonants. It distinguishes among different sorts of models of the relationship between segments: (a) segmentally specific models in which each segment is treated separately and (b) generalized featural models in which segments that share features are treated as a group. It also examines (c) ordered models in which one segment might rely on another previously existing one. The article presents the results of an experiment with 40 Korean learners of English identifying English obstruents in different prosodic locations, and it examines the pattern of variation in perceptual accuracy across the listeners. Results indicate that manner perception varies from person to person as a unit, regardless of the segment, suggesting a single generalized featural skill. Voicing identification, however, does not vary as a unit across the different prosodic positions, suggesting different skills that are applicable to different prosodic positions and are acquired separately. There is also evidence for an implicational relationship between pairs of segments that differ in markedness, providing some evidence for an ordered model; however, such patterns are not pervasive across different contrasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Cantonese ESL learners' pronunciation of English final singleton consonants. Twelve learners at the intermediate and advanced levels participated in a recent research study, which included four different tasks: the reading of a word list of about 150 words, the description of about 100 pictures, the reading of three passages of about 250-350 words each, and a conversational interview. Words consisting of all the English permissible final singleton consonants in different preceding vowel environments were used for probing into the learners' interphonology. The participants' performance in each task was recorded and transcribed independently by two raters. The results of the study showed that the participants had most problems with the voicing contrasts of final obstruents. Other problems included the non-release of final plosives and the inaccurate articulation of certain fricatives and sonorant consonants, especially the lateral /I/. The preceding vowel environments of nasals and lateral were also found to be significant in determining the learners' acquisition of the segments concerned. It is suggested that ESL teachers should be aware of the sources of their students' problems as well as the relative gravity of the problems if they are to help their students overcome the problems effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American sociolinguists have largely ignored obstruents as invariant, including how speakers distinguish /s, t/ from /z, d/. Upper Midwestern final obstruents provide clear evidence that the realization of such contrasts can and does vary. In a once German-speaking Wisconsin town, we have found that speakers systematically produce final laryngeal distinctions differently than reported for American English, with an apparent partial neutralization of the distinction. Here, we seek the historical antecedents of this pattern, comparing acoustic characteristics of recordings from speakers throughout the region born from 1866-1986. Analysis by date of birth shows distinct obstruent phonetics over this whole period, revealing striking changes in which acoustic cues have been exploited to maintain the distinction: The oldest speakers used primarily glottal pulsing, younger ones exhibit a "trading relation" between pulsing and preceding-vowel duration, and the youngest have reduced the acoustic cues of the distinction dramatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the processes of spirantization and devoicing in Spanish. It argues that the aim of these processes is twofold. Phonologically, they serve to simplify marked linguistic structures, and phonetically, they aid to reduce muscular effort in the articulation of segments intended to have a complete oral closure with simultaneous vocal fold vibration. It is assumed that the phonetic component is part of the grammar and that certain sound patterns are determined at this low level by principles specific to this component that operate on surface phonological representations. Markedness constraints are phonological principles that are phonetically grounded, whereas effort-reduction constraints pertain solely to the phonetic component. At both levels, voiced stops are problematic because they contain a complete oral closure, which is the greatest impediment to voicing. Spanish chooses to either give up their voicing, or keep it but loosen the complete oral closure. Phonologically, both stricture and voicing are lost in non-prominent positions but maintained in prominent ones, so that voiced stops may retain their distinctiveness. Phonetically, the stricture of voiced stops must be loosen in all contexts that do not facilitate articulatory ease, so that the crucial effort threshold enforced by the constraint ranking of the phonetic component may be respected. By allowing co-articulation, speech rate and register to play a role in the sound component of the grammar, this analysis accounts for the gradiency, and great deal of cross dialectal and dialect internal variation exhibited by Spanish spirantization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]