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Linguistic Phonetics: A Look into the Future

ABSTRACT This paper exemplifies the need for collecting extensive experimental data on the language-dependent articulatory and acoustic characteristics of vowels and consonants. It reports data on constriction location for (alveolo)palatal consonants, and on the F2 frequency for allophonic realizations of different varieties of /l/, in several language groups. Keywords: palatal consonants, darkness degree in /l/, linguopalatal contact patterns, F2 frequency 1. INTRODUCTION We have at present a good deal of knowledge about sound inventory types [19], but are in need of more data on the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of phonetic categories in the world’s languages along the lines of work carried out by Ladefoged and colleagues [17]. The collection of experimental data on the phonetic properties Iof vowels and consonants produced in different contextual and positional conditions by speakers of a considerable number of languages should contribute to improve our knowledge about the typological possibilities, production mechanisms and allophonic patterns for specific sound types. This information should articulation for dental and alveolar consonants help us reach a more thorough understanding of the adaptation mechanisms [between consecutive phonetic segments in spoken sequences, and of the evolutionary paths for related sound changes. A relevant issue in this respect is whether phonetic data reported characteristics in experimental studies are truly language-specific or else should be attributed to speaker-dependent anatomical properties or production strategies. This word of caution is all the more justified since speech production data are often gathered from a relatively small number of subjects and are not normalized for speaker-dependent differences. It should be said, however, that attempts to relate the articulatory characteristics of speech sounds to the speakers’ vocal tract shapes have not been too successful. Thus, no clear relationship was found to hold between linguopalatal contact size and palate shape for a set of vowels and consonants produced by twenty speakers of four different languages, and for nine consonants produced by fifteen speakers of three Catalan dialects, i.e., it was not generally the case that speakers exhibiting domeshaped palates always had more lateral tongue contact than speakers with flatter palates [3, 28]. It may be that the relationship of interest becomes relevant for specific sound classes rather than for others. Thus, in the Catalan study just referred to,dorsopalatal contact size turned out to be correlated with palate height only when consonants of the (alveolo)palatal place of articulation in one of the three dialects subjected to investigation (Majorcan) were taken into consideration. It has also been shown that French speakers use different strategies for the articulation of //, i.e., tongue retraction and no tongue dorsum elevation for some speakers, and tongue shape adjustment and tongue dorsum elevation for others [35].ndependently of whether speakers differ or notin the way they produce specific sound types, languages and dialects may select different articulatory patterns for vowels and consonants. This has proved to be the case for lip rounding in vowels [18], for the main articulator and place of [6], for the distribution of vowels in the vowel space 10 ], for fricative spectra 22 vowel nasalization [4] and for stop voicing 16]. This paper contributes to the achievement of a more accurate knowledge of the language-dependent of speech sounds through the analysis of differences in closure and constriction location for (alveolo)palatal consonants, and in darkness degree and allophonic distribution for the alveolar lateral /l/.