Theoretical Implications of Directionally Asymmetric Transparency

2019

Vowel reduction patterns can shed light on the internal structure of their target vowels. This is evident in an element-based approach to representations, where abstract phonological elements are defined using phonological evidence such as that gleaned from vowel reduction processes. In Precedence-free Phonology, an extension of Element Theory, elements combine into hierarchical structures via head-dependency chains; only the most deeply embedded elements in these chains are targeted by vowel reduction. The reduction process itself operates blindly and uniformly on any target structure, thus allowing its original (full vowel) structure to be established by observing the phonological characteristics of its reduced form. The model succeeds in conflating centripetal (centering) and centrifugal (dispersing) vowel reduction into a single pattern. Also, by proposing that different varieties of a language have minimally different hierarchical representations for the ‘same’ sound, it accomm...

Perception & Psychophysics, 2008

Consonants and vowels may play different roles during language processing, consonants being preferentially involved in lexical processing, and vowels tending to mark syntactic constituency through prosodic cues. In support of this view, artificial language learning studies have demonstrated that consonants (C) support statistical computations, while vowels (V) allow certain structural generalizations. Nevertheless, these asymmetries could be mere byproducts of lower-level acoustic differences between Cs and Vs, in particular the energy they carry, and thus their relative salience. Here we address this issue and show that vowels remain the preferred targets for generalizations even when consonants are made highly salient or vowels barely audible. Participants listened to speech streams of nonsense CVCVCV words in which consonants followed a simple ABA structure. Participants failed to generalize this structure over sonorant consonants (Experiment 1), even when vowel duration was reduced to one third of that of consonants (Experiment 2). When vowels were eliminated from the stream, participants showed only a marginal evidence of generalizations (Experiment 4). In contrast, participants readily generalized the structure over barely audible vowels (Experiment 3). These results show that different roles of consonants and vowels cannot be readily reduced to acoustical and perceptual differences between these phonetic categories.

Annual Report of the Institute of Phonetics University of Copenhagen, 1972

ZAS Papers in Linguistics

As work like McCarthy (2002: 128) notes, pre-Optimality Theory (OT) phonology was primarily concerned with representations and theories of subsegmental structure. In contrast, the role of representations and choice of structural models has received little attention in OT. Some central representational issues of the pre-OT era have, in fact, become moot in OT (McCarthy 2002: 128). Further, as work like Baković (2007) notes, even for assimilatory processes where representation played a central role in the pre-OT era, constraint interaction now carries the main explanatory burden. Indeed, relatively few studies in OT (e.g., Rose 2000; Hargus & Beavert 2006; Huffmann 2005, 2007; Morén 2006) have argued for the importance of phonological representations. This paper intends to contribute to this work by reanalyzing a set of processes related to vowel harmony in Shimakonde, a Bantu language spoken in Mozambique and Tanzania. These processes are of particular interest, as Liphola’s (2001) s...

Journal of Memory and Language, 1987

Vowel nuclei of syllables appear to provide a relatively stable (although not stationary) frame of reference for judging consonant events. We offer evidence that reliable consonant identification demands prior or simultaneous evaluation of this "vocalic frame." Listeners were presented a list of /bVs/, ldVsl. and lgVsl syllables and were instructed to press a response key immediately upon recognizing a particular initial consonant target. Three groups of subjects monitored for /bl, /d., and /gl, respectively. The test syllables contained 10 English vowels varying substantially in intrinsic duration. Response times to the initial consonants correlated positively with the duration of the following vowels. even when the effect of consonant-vowel formant transition duration was partialed out. The results suggest that consonant recognition is vowel dependent and. specifically. that a certain amount or proportion of the vowel formant trajectory must be evaluated before consonants can be reliably identified. r{; 1987 Academic Prt:�s. Inc A recurrent finding in speech research is that the perceptual interpretation of conso nant cues may depend critically on infor mation about the following vowel. To take an example from the early literature, Li berman, Delattre, and Cooper (1952) re ported that a brief filtered noise burst (cen tered at about 1440 Hz) was typically per ceived as /p/ in front of a steady state Iii or lui, but as /k/ in front of a steady state /a/. More recently, Mann and Repp (1980) found an effect of the following vowel on the identification of a noise segment that was perceptually intermediate between /s/ and /fl. The segment was more likely to be labeled /s/ before lui than before /a/. These perceptual effects may be ex plained in terms of the listener's implicit knowledge of the normal acoustic conse

2005

A fundamental problem in spoken language is the duality between the continuous aspects of phonetic performance and the discrete aspects of phonological competence. We study a specific instance of this problem in Hungarian vowel harmony. We present a model where continuous phonetic distinctions uncovered by our experiments are linked to the discreteness of phonological form using the mathematics of nonlinear dynamics.

Speech Communication, 2005

In a recent paper in this journal, . Asymmetries in vowel perception. Speech Communication 41, 221-231] display a robust asymmetry effect in vowel discrimination, present in infants as well as adults. They interpret this effect as a preference for peripheral vowels, providing an anchor for comparison. We discuss their data in the framework of the Dispersion-Focalisation Theory of vowel systems. We show that focalisation, that is the convergence between two consecutive formants in a vowel spectrum, is likely to provide the ground for anchor vowels, by increasing their perceptual salience. This enables to explain why [y] is an anchor vowel, as well as [i], [a] or [u]. Furthermore, we relate the asymmetry data to an old experiment we had done on the discrimination of focal vs. non-focal vowels. Altogether, it appears that focal vowels, more salient in perception, provide both a stable percept and a reference for comparison and categorisation.

Journal of Phonetics, 1997

The Dispersion-Focalization Theory (DFT) attempts to predict vowel systems based on the minimization of an energy function summing two perceptual components : global dispersion , which is based on inter-vowel distances ; and local focalization , which is based on intra-vowel spectral salience related to the proximity of formants . The computation takes place in an auditory (formant-based) space , and is controlled by two parameters , , which sets the respective weight of F 1 and higher formants in auditory distances , and ␣ , which sets the respective weights of the dispersion and focalization components . In this study , we first sample the acoustic space with 33 ''prototypes'' associated with the major primary articulations for vowels . Then , for a given number of vowels , we define two dif ferent tools , ''phase spaces'' for dealing with optimal systems and ''stability'' for characterizing sub-optimal ones . The corresponding predictions are compared with the main trends of vowel systems analyzed in a companion paper (Schwartz , Boe ¨ , Valle ´ e & Abry , this issue) . We then derive a region in the ( , ␣ ) space for which theory predictions fit quite well with phonological inventories , with a special concern for two problems , namely peripheral vowels and front rounded vowels .

Phonology, 2020

We present an empirical challenge to Jardine's (2016) assertion that only tonal spreading patterns can be unbounded circumambient, meaning that the determination of a phonological value may depend on information that is an unbounded distance away on both sides. We focus on a demonstration that the ATR harmony pattern found in Tutrugbu is unbounded circumambient, and we also cite several other segmental spreading processes with the same general character. We discuss implications for the complexity of phonology and for the relationship between the explanation of typology and the evaluation of phonological theories.