23.4203, Diss: Phonetics/ Phonology: Dmitrieva: 'Geminate Typology and the Perception of Consonant Duration'

linguist at linguistlist.org linguist at linguistlist.org
Mon Oct 8 19:59:14 UTC 2012


LINGUIST List: Vol-23-4203. Mon Oct 08 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.4203, Diss: Phonetics/ Phonology: Dmitrieva: 'Geminate Typology and the Perception of Consonant Duration'

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Veronika Drake, U of Wisconsin Madison
Monica Macaulay, U of Wisconsin Madison
Rajiv Rao, U of Wisconsin Madison
Joseph Salmons, U of Wisconsin Madison
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin Madison
       <reviews at linguistlist.org>

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Do you want to donate to LINGUIST without spending an extra penny? Bookmark
the Amazon link for your country below; then use it whenever you buy from
Amazon!

USA: http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-20
Britain: http://www.amazon.co.uk/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-21
Germany: http://www.amazon.de/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistd-21
Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-22
Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistc-20
France: http://www.amazon.fr/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistf-21

For more information on the LINGUIST Amazon store please visit our
FAQ at http://linguistlist.org/amazon-faq.cfm.

Editor for this issue: Lili Xia <lxia at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  


Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:57:09
From: Olga Dmitrieva [dmitro at stanford.edu]
Subject: Geminate Typology and the Perception of Consonant Duration

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=23-4203.html&submissionid=4555252&topicid=14&msgnumber=1
 
Institution: Stanford University 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Olga Dmitrieva

Dissertation Title: Geminate Typology and the Perception of Consonant Duration 

Dissertation URL:  http://www.stanford.edu/~dmitro/Downloads.html

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics
                     Phonology


Dissertation Director(s):
Arto Anttila
Jaye Padgett
Meghan Sumner

Dissertation Abstract:

The crosslinguistic typology of geminate consonants demonstrates 
several prominent tendencies: geminates are typically found in 
intervocalic positions, often after stressed vowels, but are avoided in 
adjacency to other consonants and on word boundaries, more so 
word-initially than word-finally; sonorant geminates are more infrequent 
than obstruent geminates. This dissertation investigates the effect that 
the contextual environment (vocalic or consonantal neighbours, 
position with respect to the edges of the word and stressed vowels) as 
well as the phonetic properties of the consonants themselves (sonority, 
continuancy, and voicing) has on the perception of the contrast 
between short and long consonants. The primary goal of the 
perceptual experiment with speakers of Russian, American English, 
and Italian as participants was to demonstrate that perception of the 
duration distinction in consonant was context-dependent.

The experimental results showed that perceptual contrast 
distinctiveness was higher in the intervocalic than in the 
preconsonantal environment, and in the word-initial than in the word-
final position. These generalizations are based on the facts that the 
perception of the distinction was less categorical in the preconsonantal 
and word-final conditions: consonants were less consistently 
categorized as either short or long, while a greater portion of a 
durational continuum caused indecision about the category 
membership of the consonant. In addition, perception of durational 
distinctions in the preconsonantal and word-final conditions was 
affected by singleton-bias: listeners were more reluctant to categorize 
consonants in these environments as long.

Distinctiveness-based explanation for the crosslinguistic preference for 
post-tonic and obstruent geminates was not supported by the 
experimental results. It was found that stress did not affect perception 
of consonant duration. However, a survey of several languages for 
which a stress-geminacy connection was reported showed a striking 
correlation between weight-sensitivity and tendency to geminate in the 
post-stress position. Thus, an alternative account for this typological 
pattern is proposed, which states that gemination is used in the weight-
sensitive languages to repair light stressed syllables, creating a 
typological connection between geminate consonants and stress.

Results concerning the perception of consonant duration as a function 
of the phonetic properties of the consonant showed that the duration 
distinction was easiest to perceive in sonorant consonants (liquids and 
nasals) and alveolar voiceless fricatives. Both voiced and voiceless 
alveolar stops conditioned a less well-defined perceptual contrast. 
These results contradict typological observations and some previous 
experimental data, thus warranting further research in this domain.

The dissertation also develops an optimality-theoretic account of 
typological asymmetries in the distribution of duration contrasts, 
focusing on the effects of segmental environment (intervocalic and 
preconsonantal) and word-position (word-initial and word-final). The 
proposed model accounts for several aspects of geminate typology 
though the interaction between constraints on syllable weight and 
perceptually motivated constraints on the distinctiveness of duration 
contrasts.
 






----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-23-4203	
----------------------------------------------------------



More information about the LINGUIST mailing list