Acoustic cues to the [j]-[i] distinction in American English

Abstract

Existing lexical items suggest that American English exhibits a [j]-[i] distinction (e.g., pneumonia [numonjə], Estonia [ɛstoniə]). This study tests if such a distinction can be experimentally elicited in both existing and new items and what acoustic cues most consistently convey it. A sentence reading task elicits the distinction by native speakers of American English using orthographically paired nonce names: 'y' stimuli (e.g., Chobya) expecting [jV] productions, 'i' stimuli (e.g., Shabia) expecting [iV] productions. Stimuli are controlled and diversified along the factors of place and manner of the preceding consonant and word position (initial vs. medial). Multiple acoustic factors of [V] sequences are measured and tested against each other as predictors of stimulus orthography, thus as cues to any elicited distinction, in a generalized linear mixed-effects model. Productions of 'y' stimuli are predicted by significantly earlier transition to the following vowel (represented by timepoint of the F2 maximum), lower F1, and lower intensity. This confirms the presence of the distinction and supports a constriction/height-based classification (Padgett 2008). A significant difference in F2 is not observed; these results are therefore not consistent with a classification of [j] as a coronal sound and [i] as dorsal (Levi 2008).