Consonant-f0 interaction in Malayalam stops: Automatic or controlled?

Abstract

Voicing is known to perturb f0 in the following vowel (House and Fairbanks, 1953). This lowering has been attributed to biomechanical constraints (Svantesson and House, 2006). On the basis of evidence from languages where the [voice] feature does not manifest itself phonetically, yet is accompanied by f0 lowering, it has been argued that f0 lowering serves to enhance the phonological [voice] contrast. We present results from an acoustic study of f0 perturbation in Malayalam, which exhibits predictable voicing in lexical items from its Dravidian stratum. Underlying voiceless stops only appear initially, and are voiced intervocalically. Malayalam also contains a large Sanskrit stratum lexicon, where phonetic voicing is tied to its stratal affiliation. We obtained a significant effect of laryngeal setting on z-score normalized f0 at vowel onset. These results suggest voicing is significant in determining the onset f0 of the vowel, regardless of the phonological status of voicing in a language We conclude that f0 lowering has physiological and biomechanical bases. In that sense, f0 lowering is an automatic consequence of the biomechanics of voicing. At the representational level, such lowering could indeed be enlisted for enhancement, however, that is not the only, or the primary purpose of f0 perturbation.Voicing is known to perturb f0 in the following vowel (House and Fairbanks, 1953). This lowering has been attributed to biomechanical constraints (Svantesson and House, 2006). On the basis of evidence from languages where the [voice] feature does not manifest itself phonetically, yet is accompanied by f0 lowering, it has been argued that f0 lowering serves to enhance the phonological [voice] contrast. We present results from an acoustic study of f0 perturbation in Malayalam, which exhibits predictable voicing in lexical items from its Dravidian stratum. Underlying voiceless stops only appear initially, and are voiced intervocalically. Malayalam also contains a large Sanskrit stratum lexicon, where phonetic voicing is tied to its stratal affiliation. We obtained a significant effect of laryngeal setting on z-score normalized f0 at vowel onset. These results suggest voicing is significant in determining the onset f0 of the vowel, regardless of the phonological status of voicing in a language We conclude tha...