Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Phonetic typology and articulatory constraints
T2 - The realisation of secondary articulations in Scottish Gaelic rhotics
AU - Nance, Claire
AU - Kirkham, Sam
PY - 2022/9/21
Y1 - 2022/9/21
N2 - Much progress has been made in the last 200 years about understanding the origins and mechanisms of sound change. It is hypothesised that many sound changes originate in biomechanical constraints on speech production, or in the misperception of sounds. These production and perception pressures explain a wide range of sound changes across the world’s languages, yet we also know that sound change is not inevitable. For example, similar phonological structures have undergone change in many languages yet remained stable in others. In this study, we examine how typologically unusual contrasts are maintained in the face of intense pressures, in order to uncover the potential biomechanical, perceptual and sociolinguistic factors that facilitate the maintenance of typologically unusual contrasts. We focus on secondary articulation contrasts in Scottish Gaelic rhotics, triangulating auditory, acoustic and articulatory data in order to better understand the maintenance of contrast in the face of multi-dimensional typological challenges. Here, individual-level articulatory strategies are combined with contextual prosodic information in order to maintain acoustic and auditory distinctiveness across three rhotic phonemes. We highlight the need to more comprehensively consider typologically unusual and minority languages in order to test the limits of generalisations about cross-linguistic phonetic typology.
AB - Much progress has been made in the last 200 years about understanding the origins and mechanisms of sound change. It is hypothesised that many sound changes originate in biomechanical constraints on speech production, or in the misperception of sounds. These production and perception pressures explain a wide range of sound changes across the world’s languages, yet we also know that sound change is not inevitable. For example, similar phonological structures have undergone change in many languages yet remained stable in others. In this study, we examine how typologically unusual contrasts are maintained in the face of intense pressures, in order to uncover the potential biomechanical, perceptual and sociolinguistic factors that facilitate the maintenance of typologically unusual contrasts. We focus on secondary articulation contrasts in Scottish Gaelic rhotics, triangulating auditory, acoustic and articulatory data in order to better understand the maintenance of contrast in the face of multi-dimensional typological challenges. Here, individual-level articulatory strategies are combined with contextual prosodic information in order to maintain acoustic and auditory distinctiveness across three rhotic phonemes. We highlight the need to more comprehensively consider typologically unusual and minority languages in order to test the limits of generalisations about cross-linguistic phonetic typology.
KW - rhotics
KW - palatalisation
KW - Scottish Gaelic
KW - Celtic
KW - sound change
KW - ultrasound
U2 - 10.1353/lan.0.0268
DO - 10.1353/lan.0.0268
M3 - Journal article
VL - 98
SP - 419
EP - 460
JO - Language
JF - Language
SN - 0097-8507
IS - 3
ER -