Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-tbj44 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T01:03:13.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The discriminability of nearly merged sounds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Alice Faber  and
Marianna Di Paolo
Alice Faber
Affiliation:
Haskins Laboratories
Marianna Di Paolo
Affiliation:
University of Utah
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In a near-merger, speakers produce two contrasting words differently, without reliably being able to discern the contrast in their own speech or in the speech of others. Acoustic measurements typically reveal small differences between the elements of near-merged minimal pairs along several acoustic dimensions. We argue that statistical evaluation of the potential distinctiveness of these near-merged elements must simultaneously take into account all of these dimensions. For this reason, discriminant analysis is used to assess the differences between near-merged/il–Il/, /el–εl/, and /ul–υl/ for five Utah speakers. In contrast with independent univatiate analyses of variance of F1, F2, f0, and spectral slope, the multivariate discriminant analyses suggest that all three contrasts are preserved by all five speakers. However, hompohones like heel and heal are not distinguished by the discriminant analyses. Discriminant analysis is thus a powerful technique for assessing whether a reliable basis exists for the claim that two potentially contrastive items are in fact distinctive.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 35 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, Harold B. (1973–1976). The linguistic atlas of the Upper Midwest, 3 volumes. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, Guy, Winkle, Tom, Tillery, Jan & Sand, Lori. (1991). The apparent time construct. Language Variation and Change 3:241–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, Zinny S. (1973). The perception of sub-phonemic differences. Language & Speech 16:351–355.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colton, Raymond H. & Conture, Edward G. (1990). Problems and pitfalls of electroglottography. Journal of Voice 4:10–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Paolo, Marianna. (1988). Pronunciation and categorization in sound change. Texas Linguistic Forum 30:84–92. [Special Issue: Linguistic change & contact: Proceedings of the sixteenth annual conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in Language]Google Scholar
Di Paolo, Marianna. (1992a). Hypercorrection in response to the apparent merger of (a) and (b) in Utah English. Language & Communication 12:267–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Paolo, Marianna. (1992b). Evidence for the instability of a low back vowel “merger.” Paper presented at the Twenty-First Annual Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in Language,Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Di Paolo, Marianna & Faber, Alice. (1990). Phonation differences and the phonetic content of the tense-lax contrast in Utah English. Language Variation and Change 2:155–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, W.J. (ed.). (1988). BMDP statistical software manual. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Faber, Alice. (1986). On the actuation of sound change: A Semitic case study. Diachronica 3:163–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faber, Alice. (1992). Articulatory variability, categorical perception, and the inevitability of sound change. In Davis, Garry & Iverson, Greg (eds.), Explanation in historical linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 58–75.Google Scholar
Faber, Alice, Best, Catherine T. & Di Paolo, Marianna. (1993). Dialect differences in vowel perception. Paper presented at the fall meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,Denver.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faber, Alice, Best, Catherine T. & Di Paolo, Marianna. (1994). Dialect differences in production and percepiton. Paper presented at the fall meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,Austin.Google Scholar
Faber, Alice, Di Paolo, Marianna & Best, Catherine T. (1994). The peripatetic history of Middle English *. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America,Boston.Google Scholar
Faber, Alice, Di Paolo, Marianna & Best, Catherine T. (1995). Perceiving the unperceivable: The acquisition of near merged contrasts. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Fant, C. Gunnar. (1956). On the predictability of formant levels and spectrum envelopes from formant frequencies. In Halle, Morris et al. (eds.), For Roman Jakobsen. The Hague: Mouton. 109–119.Google Scholar
Fowler, Carol A. (1994). Invariants, specifiers, cues: An investigation of locus equations as information about place of articulation. Perception & Psychophysics 55:597–610.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrington, Jonathan & Cassidy, Stephen. (1994). Dynamic and target theories of vowel classification: Evidence from monophthongs and diphthongs. Language & Speech 37:357–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, John. (1985). Phonological variation and change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hartman, James W. (1984). Some possible trends in the pronunciation of young Americans (maybe). American Speech 59:218–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henton, Caroline. (1992). Acoustic variability in the vowels of female and male speakers. Paper presented at the spring meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Javkin, Hector, Antoñanzas-Barroso, Norma & Maddieson, Ian. (1987). Digital inverse filtering for linguistic research. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 30:122–129.Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith. (1989). On the perceptual representation of vowel categories. Indiana University Research on Speech Perception, Progress Report 15:343–358.Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith, Ladefoged, Peter & Lindau, Mona. (1993). Individual differences in vowel production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 94:701–714.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
King, Robert D. (1980). The history of final devoicing in Yiddish. In Herzog, Marvin I., Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, BarbaraMiron, Dan, & Wisse, Ruth (eds.), The field of Yiddish IV. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. 371–430.Google Scholar
Klecka, William R. (1980). Discriminant analysis. (Sage University Paper Series: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences. 19.) Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans & McDavid, Raven I. (1961). The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic states. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1974). On the use of the present to explain the past. In Proceedings of the eleventh International Congress of Linguistics, Vol. 2. Bologna: Società editrice Il Mulino. 825–851.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1991). The three dialects of English. In Eckert, Penelope (ed.), New ways of analyzing sound change. Orlando: Academic. 1–44.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1994). Principles of linguistic change: Internal factors. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Karen, Mark & Miller, Corey. (1991). Near-mergers and the suspension of phonemic contrast. Language Variation and Change 3:33–74.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Yaeger, Malcah & Steiner, Richard C. (1972), A quantitative study of sound change in progress (Report on NSF contract GS-3287). Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter. (1983). The linguistic use of different phonation types. In Bless, Diane H. & Abbs, James A. (eds.), Vocal fold physiology: Contemporary research and clinical issues. San Diego: College Hill. 351–360.Google Scholar
LANE. Kurath, Hans (ed.). (1939–1943). Linguistic atlas of New England. Providence: Brown University.Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse & Peterson, Gordon E. (1961). Some basic considerations in the analysis of intonation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 33:454–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Löfqvist, Anders. (1991). Inverse filtering as a tool in voice research and therapy. Scandinavian Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 16:8–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, Jim & Harris, John. (1980). When is a merger not a merger? The MEAT/MATE problem in a present-day English vernacular. English World Wide 1:199–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norman, Arthur. (1971). A Southeast Texas dialect study. In Allen, Harold B. & Underwood, Gary N. (eds.), Readings in American dialectology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. 135–151.Google Scholar
Nunberg, Geoffrey. (1980). A falsely reported merger in eighteenth century English: A study in diachronic variation. In Labov, William (ed.), Locating language in time and space. New York: Academic. 221–250.Google Scholar
Orton, Harold, et al. (1969–). Survey of English dialects. Leeds: E. J. Arnold.Google Scholar
Pederson, Lee A., McDaniel, Susan Lea, Bailey, Guy & Bassett, Marvin. (1986). Linguistic atlas of the Gulf States. VoL 1: Handbook for the linguistic atlas of the Gulf States. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Gordon E., & Barney, Harold L. (1952). Control methods used in a study of vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 24:175–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Port, Robert & Crawford, Penny. (1989). Incomplete neutralization and pragmatics in German. Journal of Phonetics 17:257–282.Google Scholar
Stanley, Oma. (1936). The speech of East Texas. American Speech 11:3–36, 145–166, 232–251, 327–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth N. (1988). Modes of vocal fold vibration based on a two-section model. In Fujimura, Osamu (ed.), Vocal fold physiology: Voice production, mechanisms and functions. New York: Raven. 357–370.Google Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth N. (1989). On the quantal nature of speech. Journal of Phonetics 17:3–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sussman, Harvey M. (1991). The representation of stop consonants in three dimensional acoustic space. Phonetica 48:18–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sussman, Harvey M., McCaffrey, Helen A. & Matthews, Sandra A. (1991). An investigation of locus equations as a source of relational invariance for stop place categorization. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 90:1309–1339.Google Scholar
Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English, 3 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whalen, Douglas H. (1991). Infrequent words are longer in duration than frequent words. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 90:2311 (abstract).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yaeger, Malcah. (1974). Speaking style: Some phonetic realizations and their significance. Pennsylvania Working Papers on Linguistic Change and Variation 1:1–60.Google Scholar