24.962Consonant duration contrastsReadingsFor Thursday:Steriade (1997)Consonant length contrasts• Explore some issues in the typology of consonant lengthcontrasts.• Focus on consonant length contrasts in Italian (McCrary2004).• Two main points:– Distinctiveness plays a central role in accounting forthe phonology of consonant length.– In Italian, the realization of singleton consonantsdepends on their contrastive status. Non-contrastivesingletons are realized with intermediate duration.• duration of short consonants is reduced to enhance thecontrast with geminates.Consonant length contrasts in Italian: McCrary(2004)• Short and long consonants contrast in Italiane.g. papo - pappo, sete - setteDistribution of length contrasts:• All length contrasts appear between vowels.• Stop and [f] length contrasts are also permitted between avowel and a liquid:fabbro applicato soffrire• But not in other contexts, e.g. between a liquid and avowel:*farbbo *alppicato *sorffireMcCrary (2004)• Measured duration of singleton stops in the followingenvironments:V_V contrast pápa, páta, pákaV_LV contrast pápra, pápla, etc.VL_V no contrast párpa, pálpa, etc.- Note: all target consonants are in onset according tostandard analyses of Italian syllabification.Method:• 15 subjects, speakers of Pisan Standard Italian.• Nonce words spoken in the frame ‘Non trovo la parola __ neldizionario’.• 6 repetitions of each word.Consonant length contrasts in Italian: McCrary(2004)Results:• Singleton stops are shorter in the environments where they contrast withgeminates (V_V, V_L) than in the environment where the contrast isneutralized (L_V).• Neutralization of the length contrast yields stops of an intermediate duration(voiceless geminate stop duration between low vowels is ~200 ms (Espositoand Di Benedetto 1999)).Consonant length contrasts in Italian: McCrary(2004)• This interpretation is supported by distinct behaviour of [f] and [v].– f-ff and v-vv contrast between vowels– f-ff contrast in V_L (like stops), v-vv do not contrast in this environment.• [f] patterns like the stops: shorter in V_V, V_L, i.e. environments of contrast.• [v] is shorter in V_V (environment of contrast) than in V_L, L_V.– why is [v] shorter in V_L than in L_V? Possibly duration is an important cueto [f]-[v] contrast - [v] must be shorter than [f].Consonant length in ItalianTwo issues:• Why are length contrasts neutralized in L_V?• Why are neutralized consonants intermediate betweencontrastively long and short consonants?Analysis of Italian duration patterns• The intermediate duration observed in L_V is the preferredstop duration.• Where there are length contrasts, consonants deviate fromthis preferred duration in order to realize a distinct contrast(dispersion).Analysis of Italian duration patterns• Where length contrast is neutralized, consonants lackduration targets, so Dur=150 ms is unopposed.• Why are length contrasts neutralized in L_V?*!Mindist =100 ms150-200d.*100-200c.*!50-150b.Dur =150 ms!150a.MaxContrastsDur ≥100 msDur ≤200 msInventory:Constraints on C length contrasts• The central factor in the occurrence anddistribution of length contrasts seems to be thediscriminability of duration differences.• Determining the duration of a consonant entailslocating its onset and offset in time.• This is hypothesized to be easier where theseevents are marked by larger, more abrupt changesin loudness (Podesva 2000, McCrary 2004,Kawahara 2005).– Change within frequency bands?Constraints on C length contrastsDistinctiveness of C length contrasts• Kato et al (1997) found that modifications ofsegment duration were easier to discriminatewhere the change moved a boundary betweensegments that differed more in loudness.• So, between vowels, quieter (≈less sonorous)consonants should yield more distinct lengthcontrasts.• The predicted relationship between sonority andgeminate markedness is supported by Podesva’s(2000, 2002) survey of 52 languages (cf.Kawahara 2005):Typology of C length contrasts• Implicational hierarchy for geminates:glides → laterals → nasals → stops*Biblical Hebrew, Wolof***Chaha, Japanese, Luganda****!Xoo**Selkup, Yakut, Fula*Finnish, Hindi, Icelandic, etcRhoticsLateralsGlidesLiquidsNasalsExample languagesTypology of C length contrasts• Implicational hierarchy for geminates:glides → laterals → nasals → stops• Approximately: more sonorous geminates imply lesssonorous geminates• Rhotics do not fit neatly in this hierarchy.– Rhotics are diverse in their intensity characteristics.– The geminate counterpart of tap [R] is generally a trill[r], which is not simply a lengthened tap, and so maybe subject to independent constraints (cf. Kawahara2005).• *GG >> *LL >> *NN >> *ObsGemDistinctiveness of C length contrasts• There is no implicational relationship between geminatefricatives and nasals although fricatives are lower insonority.– Fricative has less abrupt onset/offset ?– Kirchner (1998) argues that geminate fricatives arehigh effort segments.• There are also processes eliminating sonorous geminatesand blocking their creation (Podesva 2000, Kawahara2005).Distinctiveness of C length contrasts• Luganda - class 5 augmentative prefix causes geminationDistinctiveness of C length contrasts• Kawahara (2005) provides experimental evidence that thedistinctiveness of duration contrasts does depend on consonantmanner.– Identification task: singleton vs. geminate.– 17 Arabic-speaking subjects.– Stimuli based on Arabic geminates [tt, dd, ss, zz, nn, ll, jj] in a [ha_ag] frame.– For each consonant type, initial [ha-] taken from one of two utterances, one pre-geminate, one pre-singleton (minimal differences in duration of the vowels).– Remainder of word extracted from representative geminate of each consonanttype, close to mean duration observed in production study.– Duration continuum constructed by deleting 12 ms increments from steady stateof geminate constriction.– 10 step continuum– Production study indicated that all types of geminates are ~120ms longer thancontrasting singleton, so the continuum spanned the range from mean singletonduration to mean geminate duration.Kawahara (2005) - perception of length contrastsResults: Reaction times• Previous studies have shown that reaction times in identification anddiscrimination tasks are generally slower where