[lingtalks] Scott Myers (Linguistics Colloquium)

[Klinton Bicknell]

Our upcoming linguistics colloquium will be Scott Myers, presenting a talk entitled "The Origins of Vowel Length Neutralization." Professor Myers is coming to us from UT-Austin. For more information, see his website at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~smyers/scottmyers.html .

:: Details ::

Monday 6 November
2-3:30pm
AP&M 4301

:: Abstract ::

The origins of vowel length neutralization

In languages with contrasts in vowel length, there are recurring patterns in which those contrasts are neutralized under the same conditions across a range of unrelated languages. Many of these recurring patterns correspond directly to phonetic patterns in vowel duration (closed syllable shortening, stressed syllable lengthening, monosyllabic lengthening). In these cases, the phonological pattern can be attributed to language learners misinterpreting a durational pattern as a pattern in category distribution (phonologization).

Other recurring patterns have no such clear correspondence to durational patterns. There is a widespread pattern in which word-final vowels are required to be short. This is in contrast with a robust duration pattern in which final vowels are longer than nonfinal ones. I argue that phonological final shortening arises as a result of utterance-final devoicing, which renders the end of final vowels nonsalient. This hypothesis is supported by a series of perception experiments with Finnish listeners in which final devoicing increased the probability that a final vowel would be identified as short.

Another recurring pattern without a clear counterpart in duration is the lengthening of vowels next to vowel-like sonorants. I present more evidence from Finnish speakers in support of the claim that this lengthening results from listeners' responses to the long ambiguous formant transitions in these sequences.

These patterns correspond, then, not to clear durational patterns, but to contexts where it is difficult to determine the acoustic boundaries of the vowel. Patterns of this sort are related to a general model of phonologization, interpreted as the core of a theory of recurring phonological patterns.