Jonah Katz

Compression effects in English

Abstract This paper reports the results of an English experiment on vowel-shortening in different contexts. The data concern compression effects, whereby, in syllables with a greater number of segments, each one of the segments is shorter than in syllables with fewer segments. The experiment demonstrates that the amount of vowel compression found in English monosyllabic words depends in part on which consonants occur adjacent to the vowel in that word, how many consonants occur, and in which position they occur. Consonant clusters drive more vowel shortening than singletons when they involve liquids, but not when they involve only obstruents. Clusters involving nasals drive shortening relative to singletons only in onset position. We suggest that the results cannot be reduced to general principles of gestural overlap and coordination between consonants and vowels, but instead require a theory with overt representation of auditory duration.

Lenition, perception and neutralisation *

This paper argues that processes traditionally classified as lenition fall into at least two subsets, with distinct phonetic reflexes, formal properties and characteristic contexts. One type, referred to as loss lenition, frequently neutralises contrasts in positions where they are perceptually indistinct. The second type, referred to as continuity lenition, can target segments in perceptually robust positions, increases the intensity and/or decreases the duration of those segments, and very rarely results in positional neutralisation of contrasts. While loss lenition behaves much like other phonological processes, analysing continuity lenition is difficult or impossible in standard phonological approaches. The paper develops a phonetically based optimality-theoretic account that explains the typology of the two types of lenition. The crucial proposal is that, unlike loss lenition, continuity lenition is driven by constraints that reference multiple prosodic positions.

An Attentional Effect of Musical Metrical Structure

Theories of metrical structure postulate the existence of several degrees of beat strength. While previous work has clearly established that humans are sensitive to the distinction between strong beats and weak ones, there is little evidence for a more fine grained distinction between intermediate levels. Here, we present experimental data showing that attention can be allocated to an intermediate level of beat strength. Comparing the effects of short exposures to 6/8 and 3/4 metrical structures on a tone detection task, we observe that subjects respond differently to beats of intermediate strength than to weak beats.

A phonetic basis for the sonority of [X]

Although after voiceless stops French rhotics are realized as voiceless uvular fricatives [Х], they pattern phonologically as high-sonority liquids and are the only obstruent allowed between a consonant and a vowel. This poses a problem for the sonority hierarchy. This experiment tests whether [Х], which has apparent approximant-like formant structure (Yeou and Maeda, 1995) patterns like the fricative [f] or the approximant [l] in its ability to convey information in formant transitions from a preceding consonant. In an AX burst detection task, native English speakers heard syllables of the form ClV, CХV, and CfV (spoken by a native French speaker) with and without a burst. Pilot data (n = 8; 410 trials each) suggests participants are more likely to respond “same” for [Х] and [l] trials than for [f] trials (p < 0.001), suggesting that [Х] carries more redundant information from a preceding consonant than [f] does and thus behaves more like approximants than other fricatives do. This suggests that the sono...

Sequential contrast and assimilation in the perception of neighboring vowels and consonants

Sequential contrast exaggerates perceptual differences between neighboring segments. Our experiments measure this effect in consonant‐vowel‐stop and stop‐vowel‐consonant strings. Listeners identify and discriminate vowels from a front‐to‐back continuum in next‐to‐coronal versus labial stops, or stops from a coronal‐to‐labial continuum in next‐to‐front versus back vowels. If these intervals contrast sequentially, a vowel midway between front and back should sound backer next to a coronal than a labial stop because a coronal concentrates energy high in the spectrum. Similarly, a stop midway between coronal and labial should sound more labial next to a front vowel, because it too concentrates energy high in the spectrum. Exaggeration of spectral differences would also make a front vowel + labial stop versus a back vowel + coronal stop more discriminable than a front vowel + coronal stop versus a back vowel + labial stop. The strings’ lexical status is manipulated orthogonally via the other consonant to test ...