Palatalization of Alveolars in English

Abstract

The current survey reveals that palatalization in English occurs only to alveolars in the phonological environments with the alveolars closely conditioned by neighboring phonemic features. Essential factors in palatalization are that the alveolars should be (1) fricatives or stops denoted by graphemes such as ＜c＞, ＜d＞, ＜s＞, ＜t＞, ＜x＞, and ＜z＞, (2) located in word-medial position, (3) immediately followed by the high elements: the palatal glide /j/, denoted by ＜u＞, and the high front /┤/, represented by the grapheme ＜e＞ or ＜i＞ plus another vowel, (4) preceded by stress, and (5) the endings in free morphemes suffixed with bound morphemes beginning with the phonemic /j/ or /┤V/. Palatalization occurs in word-medial position except for the word-initial /s/, as in ‘sure, and ‘sugar,’ and their derivatives. No palatalization occurs to the nasal alveolar /n/ or to the liquid alveolar /l/, in that the nasal palatal and the liquid palatal are non-phonemic in English. The intervocalic /d/ is seldom palatalized, even though it occurs between stress and a high element plus another vowel. The word-medial /t/ is not palatalized when followed by agent, comparative, and element morphemes, as in ‘Christie,’ or ‘saltier,’ or ‘tritium.’ In voicing, the voiceless phonemes remain intact when palatalized. Nevertheless, the intervocalic voiceless fricative /s/ can be phonetically realized as the voiced /ž/. Contrary to general practice, the intervocalic voiceless alveolar stop plus the voiceless fricative /ks/, denoting the grapheme ＜x＞, can be palatalized as the voiced /gž/ when followed, rather than preceded, by the primarily stressed vowel as in ‘luxurious.’