Spoken syntax: The phonetics of giving a hand in New Zealand English

Abstract

This article considers the exemplar theories which are independently developing in phonetics and in syntax, and argues that they jointly make some predictions that neither does alone. One of these predictions is explored in the context of two sound changes which occurred in the history of New Zealand English. We show that both of these phonetic changes were affected by phrase-level factors. The raising of /æ/ was more advanced in the word hand when it referred to a limb, than when used in phrases such as give a hand or lend a hand . And the centralization of the / i / vowel was more advanced in utterances of give involving abstract themes ( give a chance ), than when it had a meaning of transfer of possession ( give a pen ). We argue that existence of such effects lends support both to the idea (from syntactic exemplar theory) that phrases are stored, and the idea (from phonetic exemplar theory) that lexical representations are phonetically detailed.