Perceptual and prosodic factors in cluster timing: Manner, order, and syllable position effects in Polish consonant clusters

Abstract

We investigate timing in Polish tautosyllabic C1C2 clusters differing in manner, consonant order, and syllable position. Hoole et al. (2013) reported for German that perceptual constraints may condition timing differences in /kn/ and /kl/ clusters due to the nasal but not the lateral obscuring the preceding stop burst. Using articulography, we test this hypothesis for a variety of Polish onset clusters (C1={m, p, k}, C2={n, l, r}). Results from three speakers confirm a significant influence of both C1 and C2 on timing patterns. A C1 nasal shows more overlap than a stop. For C2, /l/ shows more overlap than /n/, consistent with the German results. However, the relative difference between C2=/n/ and C2=/l/ holds independently of whether C1 is a nasal or a stop, contra the perception hypothesis. Further, it is known from several languages that onset clusters overlap less than coda clusters, yet this observation has been confounded by the sonority conditioned change in consonant order in onset/coda. Polish has several clusters which do not change order as a function of syllable position, allowing us to tease these two factors apart. If consonant order is kept constant, there is no significant syllable position effect on C-C timing.