Two-way Contrast Research Articles

Consonant-Tone Interaction in Thai: An OT Analysis

Thai tones have traditionally been characterized in terms of a correlation between tones and syllable type (Gandour 1974, Tumtavitikul 1993, Intrasri 2001, Morin and Zsiga 2006). However, I show that a more interesting set of observations can be made on the distribution of Thai tones in which they can be explained as a consequence of consonant-tone interaction within an OT framework. The observations are that unaspirated stops are not compatible with a high tone vowel in the nucleus. An obstruent coda has the effect of shortening the vowel in the nucleus, something that is testable via phonetic experimentation. This shortening effect places a burden on either phonetic perception or production, so that the five-way contrast is neutralized to a two-way contrast. The shortening effect places an especially strong burden on contour tones, so these tones are preferably excluded from the two-way contrast. The best two-way contrast among the three level tones is a simple high-low contrast, which is more readily perceivable than a low-mid or high-mid contrast. I also show that unaspirated obstruents prefer to be adjacent to a non-high tone. Unaspirated coda are allowed to be adjacent to a preceding high tone in a short vowel, but a long vowel presents an opportunity to insert a low tone on the second tone bearing unit, thus producing a two-way contrast between low and falling tone instead. This insertion of a low tone is done in order to avoid a situation where a high tone vowel would be adjacent to the unaspirated consonant. A high-tone vowel-unaspirated coda sequence would result otherwise. It is argued that the attested patterns of consonant-tone interaction in Thai are captured by conjoining two markedness constraints in addition to the simple markedness constraints.

Voice and Aspiration of Stops in Turkish

According to the descriptive grammars of Turkish (Kornfilt 1997, Swift 1963, Lewis 1967, among others) and underspecification-based analysis of Turkish (Inkelas 1995), stops have a two-way contrast: voiced unaspirated vs. voiceless aspirated. Moreover, voiced stops are described as fully voiced in all positions. By contrast, it is argued in this paper that Turkish has a three-way contrast of stops, which is a combination of [spread glottis] and [voice] contrasts. More specifically, Turkish stops contrast as voiceless aspirated vs. voiceless unaspirated vs. voiced. Support for the claim comes from an acoustic-phonetic experimental study of Turkish. In this study a native male speaker of Turkish was recorded and analyzed acoustically with a speech analysis software package (Wavesurfer). In addition, a list of words read by a native female speaker of Turkish from the University of Victoria Phonetic Database was analyzed. The acoustic analysis of the data shows that Turkish has voiceless aspirated stops in all positions in a word. Voiced stops are found in intervocalic position, word-finally and in consonant clusters. Moreover, the data reveal voiceless unaspirated stops in word-initial position and in consonant clusters. In order to account for the data, an OT analysis of the three-way contrast of stops is proposed. This analysis entails that *sg and *voice are low-ranking in Turkish. Once this three-way contrast is acknowledged, a straightforward alternative to the underspecification analysis of Inkelas (1995) is possible.

Voice and Aspiration in Austrian German Plosives

It is well-known that so-called voiced plosives in German, including Austrian German, are voiceless except between vowels where they are (sometimes) voiced (i.e. have vocal fold vibration during closure). Nonetheless, in the phonological literature, the contrast is often treated as one of [voice]. This leaves a rather substantial mismatch between the phonological description and the phonetic facts. Jessen & Ringen (2002) have recently presented experimental evidence in support of the position that the contrast in northern Standard German (NG) is one of [spread glottis]. It is often suggested that in Austrian German there is a two-way contrast of plosives, but no aspiration. This raises a question about whether the contrast in Austrian Standard German (AG) can possibly be one of [spread glottis] vs. non-[spread glottis]. This paper investigates this question. We present experimental results and argue that for AG, like NG, the appropriate feature of contrast is [spread glottis].

Phonetic structures of an endangered language: Khonoma Angami

Angami is a Tibeto–Burman language spoken in the Naga Hills in the northeastern part of India. This study describes the phonetic inventory of one of the smaller Angami dialects, Khonoma, which is spoken by no more than 5000 people in the extreme west of the Angami region. Data for the study include recordings of two female and four male adult native speakers, along with palatographic samples and aerodynamic data for selected phonemes. Khonoma Angami has 45 consonants, 6 vowels, and 4 level tones. The plosives have a three-way contrast in voice onset time; nearly all other consonants have a two-way contrast, including the nasals and approximants. Angami voiceless nasals are different from the common type exemplified in, for example, Burmese. Aerodynamic measurements show that glottal opening during Angami voiceless nasals lasts until after the supralaryngeal articulatory closure is released, whereas in Burmese the glottis closes well before closure release. Thus Angami voiceless nasals could be described as ‘‘aspirated.’’ The inaudibility of formant transitions between the nasal and the following vowel leads to interesting questions of how place of articulation is perceived in initial voiceless nasals. [Work supported by NSF.]

Discrimination of duration ratios in bisyllabic tokens by native English and Estonian listeners

In an earlier study [ Journal of Phonetics (1987), 15 , 349–363], we examined the ability of Estonian and English speakers to discriminate among pairs of noise bursts whose durations were in the ratios of 1 : 2, 2: 3, 3 : 2, and 2 : 1. The results obtained showed that both groups of listeners clearly recognized only two contrastive patterns: 1 : 2 and 2 : 3 vs. 3 : 2 and 2: 1. Since there may be a difference in the perception of duration ratios when listeners are in a speech mode of perception rather than a non-speech mode, the present study is a replication of the earlier study using bisyllabic tokens as stimuli instead of noise-burst sequences. Again, the obtained results show the same contrastive patterns. The data support a reanalysis of the three-way quantity contrast in Estonian into two-way contrast based on duration (short-long vs. long-short) and a contrast based upon F 0 contours.

Transfer of training of a new linguistic contrast in voicing.

The present study examined the plasticity of the human perceptual system by means of laboratory training procedures designed to modify the perception of the voicing dimension in synthetic speech stimuli. Although the results of earlier laboratory training studies have been ambiguous, recently Pisoni, Aslin, Perey, and Hennessy (1982) have succeeded in altering the perception of labial stop consonants from a two-way contrast in voicing to a three-way contrast. The present study extended these initial results by demonstrating that experience gained from discrimination training on one place of articulation (e.g., labial) can be transferred to another place of articulation (e.g., alveolar) without any additional training on the specific test stimuli. Quantitative analyses of the identification functions showed that the new perceptual categories were stable and displayed well-defined labeling boundaries between categories. Taken together with the earlier findings, these results imply a greater degree of plasticity in the adult speech processing system than has generally been acknowledged in past studies.