The Phonetic Basis of a Phonological Pattern: Depressor Effects of Prenasalized Consonants

Abstract

UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2012) The Phonetic Basis of a Phonological Pattern: Depressor Effects of Prenasalized Consonants Emily Cibelli University of California, Berkeley ecibelli@berkeley.edu Presented at the 2011 Phonetics and Phonology in Iberia Conference Tarragona, Spain, June 21-22, 2011 1. Introduction Phonetically-based patterns of the interaction between consonantal features and the realization of pitch on a following vowel have formed the basis of classic theories of tonogenesis. However, not all phonological patterns which exhibit consonant-tone interaction are predictable from basic segmental information. In such cases where phonological patterns seem opaque, contradictory, or inexplicably divergent, two things are needed: representational accounts which can reliably derive environments in which patterns and their deviations will arise, and acoustic analyses which clarify the nature of the phonetic motivators underlying the patterns in question. The current study addresses the latter need by providing acoustic analyses that speak to a curious pattern in the literature: the phonologized interaction between prenasalized consonants and tone in certain tonal languages. An acoustic analysis of F 0 data demonstrating the phonetic effects of prenasalized consonants on pitch will provide a basis to distinguish between a number of possible representational accounts which could account for the cross- linguistic data. 2. Consonant-F 0 interaction and the prenasalized consonant dichotomy 2.1. The interaction of consonant and pitch It has long been recognized that the realization of pitch on a given vowel segment is influenced by adjacent consonant segments. It is generally believed that the identity of preceding consonants are more influential on a following vowel than those consonants which follow the vowel (Hombert 1978), although models based on Haudricourt (1954) have also argued while that onset consonants determine the height of the pitch realization, syllable-final segments can influence the shape of the pitch contour (Thurgood 2002). Classic acoustic studies (House and Fairbanks 1953, Lehiste & Peterson 1961, Hombert et al. 1979) have demonstrated the link between obstruent identity and the realization of pitch on a following vowel. Broadly, it has been found that voiced segments lower F 0 , while voiceless segments raise it. Physiological accounts for this phenomenon include the relative tenseness or slackness of the vocal cords in voiceless as opposed to voiced consonants (Hombert et al. 1979), the impact of laryngeal height (Honda 2004), and the influence of the cricothyroid muscle in voicing (ibid). In his dissertation, Lee (2008) points out that several laryngeal features, not just voicing, are involved in this phenomenon - suggesting that voicing, phonation, aspiration, and glottalization should all have an effect on the realization of F 0 .