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The Role of Perception in Slavic Sibilant Systems

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Title: The Role of Perception in Slavic Sibilant Systems


1
The Role of Perception inSlavic Sibilant
Systems
  • Marzena Rochon
  • Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS),
    Berlin
  • marzena_at_zas.gwz-berlin.de

2
Goal
  • Perception plays a crucial role in Slavic
  • (and other) sibilant systems
  • A trifold sibilant distinction such as s ? ?
    is not optimal in terms of maintaining sufficient
    perceptual contrast. Therefore languages either
  • (a) enhance the contrast by replacing a
    post-alveolar sibilant (?) by a retroflex one ??
    , e.g. Polish, Russian, or
  • (b) they reduce a trifold distinction to a
    bifold one, e.g. s, ? or s ?j, e.g. Croatian,
    Polish dialects, Serbian.

3
Outline of the talk
  • 1. Coronal fricatives and affricates in Polish
  • 2. Sibilant systems in other Slavic languages
    similarities and contrasts
  • 3. Preliminary analysis
  • 4. Acoustic analysis and the role of perception
    in sibilant inventories
  • 5. Conclusions marked vs. unmarked systems

4
Standard Polish
5
2
3
1 Mazovian
1
2 Kashubian
3 Mazurian
3
Dejna 1994 71
6
Mazovian spoken in Mazovia (except the extreme
northeast), in Malopolska (except the areas
between the rivers Wislok i San, the Upper Wieprz
and Bug) and in northern Silesia.
  • Standard Polish
  • ??yto rye nom.sg.
  • t???as time nom.sg.
  • Mazovian
  • zyto
  • t?sas

7
Mazovian
8
Kashubian spoken in the northern part of Poland,
close to Gdansk
  • Standard Polish
  • a on ?pji and he sleeps
  • nie wid??eli they didnt see
  • Kashubian
  • a on spji
  • nie wid?zeli

9
How are Standard Polish retroflexes realized in
Kashubian?
  • Standard Polish
  • ??aro grey
  • ??arpie he pulls
  • Conclusion they are palatalized post- alveolars
  • Kashubian
  • szaro
  • szarpie

10
Kashubian
11
Mazurian Jablonków dialects spoken in the
northeastern regions of Poland (around Malbork,
Ostróda, Lubawa and eastern Warmia) and in the
small area in the southern part of Poland (around
Jab³onków)
  • Standard Polish
  • ??yto ryenom.sg.
  • t???as time nom.sg.
  • Mazurian Jablonków
  • ?jyto
  • t??jas

12
Mazurian Jablonków dialects
13
Polish systems
  • Standard Polish ? ? ?? ?? ?
    ?
  • Mazovian ? ? ? ?
  • Kashubian ? ? ?j ?j
  • Mazurian ? ? ?j ?j
  • Conclusions
  • 1. A trifold sibilant system is not optimal.
  • 2. Dialects, trying to avoid it, prefer a
    bifold distinction.
  • 3. The retroflexes ?? ?? are consistently
    avoided.

14
Why have Mazovian dialects chosen alveolopalatals
and not retroflexes ?
  • They are easier from an articulatory point of
    view, cf. also acquisition of ? vs. ??, Lobacz
    (1996).
  • In morphology the role of ? ? t?? d?? is much
    more important than that of ?? ?? ????? ????.
  • They appear in both nominal and verbal
    inflection, e.g. nos no?e nose nom./loc.,
    plote plet???esz to weave 1.sg./2.pl.pres.,
    cf. Stankiewicz (1986 109)

15
Serbian/Croatian
16
  • Kordic (19975) on Serbian Croatian
  • The meaning of the words containing c (t??)
    or c (t??) remains the same even if a speaker
    does not distinguish c and c. .. The majority
    of native speakers pronounce both c or c in the
    same way making no difference between them. The
    same holds for dž (d???) and dz (d??) as well.
  • Stankiewicz (1986 110)
  • c, dz have a very low frequency. Their
    overlap has no effect on the morphological
    structure.

17
Lower Sorbian, cf. Stadnik (1998385), de Bray
(1951701)
18
Russian, cf. Stadnik (1988 380)
19
Russian
  • Alveolopalatals are emerging
  • sjadl he sat down
  • vzjatj to take
  • Sawicka (200111) tj, dj are frequently
    accompanied by affricatization.
  • Jones Ward (1969 104) a very short fricative
    element is heard.

20
Phonological phonetic evidence
  • Hamman (2001)
  • Polish Retraction Rule Rubach (1984)
  • ko/s/ic ko?ic to mow
  • towarzy/??/ic towarzy???c to
    accompany
  • Russian Hamilton (1990)
  • b?tj to be bjitj to hit
  • s??tj to sew s?jitj
  • Bulgarian
  • ti?ina silence
  • stra?ilo monster
  • Conclusion in Russian retroflexes occur they
    are velarized tongue backing and tongue-fronting
    for front vowels are incompatible

21
Belorussian, cf. Stadnik (1988 382) sjudy
here tjomnyj dark
22
Ukrainian, cf. Stadnik (1988381)Stankiewicz
(1986) ?, ?, t???, d?? occur in the
southwestern Ukrainian dialects.
23
Russian (Belorussian, Ukrainian)
  • Alveolopalatals are emerging and post-
  • alveolars are changing to retroflexes.

24
Czech, cf. Kucera (196124)
25
Slovenian, cf. Stadnik (1998  391)
26
Slovak, cf. Rubach (1993 31)
27
Bulgarian, cf. Stadnik (1988 389)
28
Upper Sorbian, cf. Schuster-Šewc (1996 41) de
Bray (1951688)Carlton (1990260) In modern US
t?? merges with t??.
29
Preliminary conclusions
  • 1. If a language has a bifold distinction, then
    it is between alveolars/dentals and
    postalveolars.
  • 2. As soon as alveolopalatals emerge,
    postalveolars change to retroflexes.
  • 3. A system such as ? ?? ? is more optimal
    than ? ? ?.
  • Is this a Polish/Slavic specific phenomenon or a
    universal one?

30
Hall (1997a) The Historical Development of
Retroflex Consonants in Indo-Aryan.
  • Indo-European s ? Indo-Iranian ? ? Old
    Indo-Aryan s?.
  • Two claims
  • No language can contrast palatoalveolars and
    alveolopalatals.
  • If a language contrasts two postalveolar
    (retroflex, palatoalveolar, alveolopalatal)
    sounds then one will be apical and the other
    laminal.

31
Hall (1997a)
  • stage 1 /s, ?/ ? stage 2 /s , ? , ? / ? stage
    3 /s, s?, ?/
  • s s? ? , ?
  • coronal
  • anterior - -
  • distributed - -
  • Contrasts like /?, ?/ and /? , ?/ are
    nonoccurring.

32
Feature round
33
Functional explanation a. articulation does not
explain why s? is more preferable to ?.b.
perception
s?
?
cf. Wierzchowska (197064,98)
34
Acoustics, cf. Kudela (1968), Dogil (1990),
Stevens (1998).
35
Acoustic comparison,cf. Halle and Stevens(1989),
Kudela (1968), Dogil 1990)
  • ? ?
  • F3, F4 higher than in s?.
  • Absence of the major amplitude
  • peak in the F2 frequency region.
  • Halle and Stevens(1989) prominent spectral peaks
    in the F3-F4 follow from the natural resonances
    of the cavity situated under the inferior surface
    of the tongue blade the so called lower incisors
    cavity
  • F3 and F4 in ? ? are higher because of the
    expected influence of palatalization.
  • s? z?
  • A broad band in the 2-4kHz frequency range
  • Dogil (1990) the observed acoustic difference
    must be attributed to the participation of the
    lips in the production of these sound types.
  • The closed front cavity has the property of
    enhancing the natural frequencies with the F2
    region. The spread lips in the case of ? ?
    leave the front cavity open and thus radiation of
    the F2 frequencies is facilitated which, explains
    why natural frequencies corresponding to the
    second resonance of the entire vocal tract are
    absent in these consonants.

36
Acoustics / Perception
  • s? and ? are very similar from an acoustic point
    of view. Speakers of different languages have
    difficulty in distinguishing them.
  • Piela Dukiewicz (1962), Piela (1964) show that
    the range of 1024-2048 plays a crucial role in
    the recognition of sibilants.
  • s? and ? considerably differ in F2 (1280 vs
    1750). s? is preferred over ? because it creates
    more contrast to s (2000) and ? (2700).
  • If a language already has dental/alveolar and
    alveolopalatal fricatives, the perceptual
    contrast is better maintained by retroflexes than
    by post-alveolars.

37
Conclusions
  • Perception plays a crucial role in Slavic
    sibilant systems
  • A trifold distinction such as s ? ? is not
    optimal in terms of maintaining sufficient
    perceptual contrast. Therefore languages either
  • (a) create a system in which a postalveolar is
    replaced by a retroflex fricative, e.g. Polish,
    Russian, or
  • (b) reduce a trifold distinction to a bifold one,
    e.g. Croatian, Polish dialects, Serbian. In this
    case the system contains postalveolars.

38
Markedness
  • ? s
  • ? ?j sj s
  • ? ? s
  • s? ? s
  • ? s
  • ?j s

39
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