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Gestural Characterization of a Phonological Class: the Liquids Michael Ian Proctor 2009

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Gestural Characterization of a Phonological Class: the Liquids Michael Ian Proctor 2009 Abstract Gestural Characterization of a Phonological Class: the Liquids Michael Ian Proctor 2009 Rhotics and laterals pattern together in a variety of ways that suggest that they form a phonological class (Walsh-Dickey 1997), yet capturing the relevant set of consonants and describing the behavior of its members has proven difficult under feature-based phonological theory (Wiese 2001). In this dissertation, I argue that an articulatory characterization of liquids is better able to reconcile the essential aspects of their phonetic and phonological behavior. I present data from a broad survey of rhotic and lateral phonology which suggest that, cross-linguistically, the two properties most commonly associated with liq- uids are their interchangeability (alternation, neutralization and allophony within the class), and their shared phonotactic distribution within the syllable. Liquids act as cluster-enabling segments in complex onsets and codas, most commonly ap- pearing closer to the nucleus than obstruents; when liquids appear adjacent to the nucleus, they often interact with it. Ultrasound studies were conducted to examine lingual articulation in the liquid consonants which pattern together in Spanish and Russian. Although the liquids in these languages differ in their acoustic properties, manners and places of artic- ulation, they were found to be united by a lower susceptibility to vocalic coartic- ulation than coronal stops. In light of previous studies showing that rhotics and laterals are produced with both coronal and dorsal (or pharyngeal) constrictions in English (Delattre & Freeman 1968; Sproat & Fujimura 1993; Browman & Gold- stein 1995; Gick et al. 2006), this suggests that liquids require more global control of tongue shape than obstruents (Goldstein p.c.). In the languages examined in this study, liquid consonants are characterized by the coordinative production of coronal and dorsal gestures. I argue that coronal liquid consonants are segments corresponding to recurrent, sta- ble constellations of gestures in which a tongue-tip approximation is coordinated with a dorsal constriction. Such gestural configurations are inherently sonorous – due to the vocalic nature of the tongue body constriction and the incomplete or sporadic nature of the coronal closure – and therefore afford spontaneous voicing. I propose that asymmetries in the distribution of liquids in onset and coda clus- ters result from differences in the coordination of their constituent gestures with respect to the syllabic nucleus. Differences between clear and dark laterals result primarily from differences in dorsal target locations. Differences between rhotics are attributed to variation in the stiffness and degree of damping of tongue-tip and tongue body gestures – trills and retroflex rhotics being characterized by a more highly constrained dorsum, and taps by a lightly damped tongue tip. Phonological processes involving interactions between liquids and nuclei – post-vocalic deletion, coloring and lengthening – result from the blending and interaction of adjacent and overlapping tongue body gestures. ii Gestural Characterization of a Phonological Class: the Liquids A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Michael Ian Proctor Dissertation Director: Darya Kavitskaya December 2009 c 2010 by Michael Ian Proctor. All rights reserved. Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been written without the generous help of my family, friends, teachers, and colleagues. Thank you all. I have been inspired by the community of researchers at Haskins Laboratories, especially Chris Shadle, Khalil Iskarous, Doug Whalen, Hosung Nam, Mark Tiede and Aude Noiray, and partially supported by NIH grants NIDCD RO1 DC 006705 and NIDCD RO1 DC 02717. Erich Round, Tine Mooshammer, and the Yale Phonetics and CLAY groups have provided great feedback and encouragement along the way, and helpful critique of presentations. I was generously assisted by Shri Narayanan, Erik Bresch, the SPAN group at USC, and by my experimental participants and language informants. It is my great fortune to have had wonderful teachers at Yale and the University of Queensland. I would like to thank Dianne Jonas, Charles Yang, Stanley Insler, Maria Pinango,˜ Larry Horn, Carol Fowler, Rob Pensalfini, Mary Laughren, Michael Harrington, David Lee, Lynn Wales, and especially John Ingram, for encouraging me to pursue my interest in linguistics. Above all, I am indebted to the members of my committee – Dasha Kavitskaya, Jelena Krivocapic,´ Steve Anderson and Louis Goldstein – for their wisdom, criti- cism and guidance. Thank you all for keeping me on track, sharing your ideas, and helping me come to a better understanding of phonetics and phonology. Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv List of Tables ix List of Figures xii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Class of Liquids . .2 1.1.1 Scope . .3 1.2 Phonological Behavior of Liquids . .4 1.3 Capturing the Class of Liquids . .5 1.3.1 The Feature [sonorant] . .5 1.3.2 The Feature [approximant] . .6 1.3.3 The Feature [liquid] . .6 1.4 Phonetic Characterization of Liquids . .7 1.4.1 Phonetic Properties of Rhotics . .7 1.4.2 Phonetic Properties of Laterals . .8 1.4.3 Phonetic Properties of Liquids . .9 1.5 Representing Liquids in the Articulatory Domain . 10 1.5.1 Gestural Primitives in Phonology . 10 1.5.2 Tract Variables . 13 1.5.3 The Gestural Structure of Liquids . 15 iv 1.6 Organization of the Dissertation . 16 2 Phonological Characterization of the Class of Liquids 18 2.1 Distributional Behavior of Liquids . 19 2.1.1 Distribution within the Word . 19 2.1.2 Distribution within the Syllable . 22 2.2 Phonological Processes Involving Liquids . 27 2.2.1 Assimilation . 27 2.2.2 Dissimilation . 28 2.2.3 Harmonization . 29 2.2.4 Metathesis . 30 2.2.5 Merger . 32 2.2.6 Neutralization . 33 2.2.7 Alternation . 33 2.2.8 Post-Vocalic Liquids . 35 2.3 Liquid Allophony . 37 2.3.1 Phonologically-Conditioned Liquid Allophony . 37 2.3.2 Free Variation of Liquids . 37 2.4 Asymmetries in the Behavior of Liquids . 38 2.4.1 Word-Level Distributional Asymmetries . 39 2.4.2 Clustering Asymmetries . 40 2.4.3 Asymmetries in Syllabification . 41 2.4.4 Interactions with Syllable Nuclei . 42 2.4.5 Asymmetries in Liquid Syllabicity . 43 2.4.6 Summary: Asymmetries between Liquids . 43 2.5 Summary: Phonological Characterization of the Class of Liquids . 44 3 The Phonology of Spanish Liquids 46 3.1 Spanish Consonantal Phonology . 47 3.1.1 Liquid Inventory . 48 3.1.2 Distribution of Rhotics . 48 3.2 The Phonology of Spanish Liquids . 50 v 3.2.1 Spanish Syllable Phonotactics . 50 3.2.2 Phonological Processes Involving Liquids . 54 3.2.3 Phonological Acquisition of Spanish Liquids . 57 3.2.4 Summary – The Class of Liquids in Spanish . 57 3.3 Phonetic Characterization of Spanish Liquids . 58 3.3.1 Phonetic Properties of Spanish Laterals . 59 3.3.2 Phonetic Properties of Spanish Rhotics . 60 3.4 Summary . 64 4 Experimental Investigation of Spanish Liquid Production 66 4.1 Investigating the Goals of Consonant Production using Coarticulation . 67 4.2 Method . 68 4.2.1 Subjects . 68 4.2.2 Lingual Imaging . 69 4.2.3 Audio Acquisition . 70 4.2.4 Articulatory Analysis . 70 4.2.5 Acoustic Analysis . 71 4.3 Phonetic Characterization of Intervocalic Liquids . 71 4.3.1 Stimuli . 71 4.3.2 Results: Acoustics of Intervocalic Coronal Consonants . 72 4.3.3 Formant Analysis of Intervocalic Liquids . 79 4.3.4 Summary: Acoustic Properties of Spanish Intervocalic Liquids . 82 4.3.5 Results: Dynamic Analysis of Midsagittal Lingual Articulation . 84 4.3.6 Comparison of Mid-consonantal Dorsal Articulation . 88 4.3.7 Summary of Results – Spanish Intervocalic Consonants . 94 4.4 Phonetic Characterization of Spanish Coda Liquids . 95 4.4.1 Stimuli . 95 4.4.2 Results: Acoustic Characterization of Word-Final Rhotics . 95 4.4.3 Svarabhakti in Coda Rhotics . 98 4.5 Conclusions . 101 vi 5 Articulatory Modeling of Spanish Liquids 103 5.1 Gestural Characterization of Spanish Coronal Consonants . 104 5.1.1 Gestural Characterization of Spanish Liquids . 105 5.1.2 Articulatory Modeling of Spanish Liquids . 106 5.2 Gestural Organization in Spanish Codas . 111 5.3 Gestural Organization in Spanish Complex Onsets . 113 5.4 Articulatory Analysis of Phonological Processes Involving Spanish Liquids 114 5.4.1 Rhotacism, Lambdacism, and Liquid Neutralization . 114 5.4.2 Liquid Vocalization . 115 5.4.3 Metathesis . 117 5.4.4 Rhotic Svarabhakti . 118 5.5 Conclusions . 119 6 The Phonology of Russian Liquids 121 6.1 Russian Consonantal Phonology . 122 6.1.1 Contrastive Palatalization in Russian . 123 6.2 Russian Liquids . 125 6.3 Evidence for the Class of Liquids . 126 6.3.1 Phonotactics of the Russian Syllable . 126 6.3.2 Diachronic Processes Involving Liquids . 133 6.3.3 Asymmetries between Russian Laterals and Rhotics . 134 6.3.4 Summary – The Status of the Class of Liquids in Russian . 134 6.4 Phonetic Studies of Russian Liquids . 135 6.5 Summary . 136 7 Experimental Investigation of Russian Liquid Production 137 7.1 Method . 138 7.1.1 Subjects . 138 7.1.2 Experimental Procedure . 138 7.1.3 Corpora . 139 7.1.4 Dynamic Analysis of Lingual Articulation . 139 7.2 Results: Articulation of Non-Palatalized Coronal Consonants . 140 vii 7.2.1 Results – Comparison of Midconsonantal Dorsal Articulation . 143 7.2.2 Summary of Results: Russian Non-Palatalized Consonants.
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