Biomechanically Conditioned Variation at the Origin of Diachronic Intervocalic Voicing

This paper addresses the question of how synchronic variation in intervocalic voicing of voiceless obstruents, as observed in several languages (e.g., Rome Italian /lato/ [lato] ~ [lado]), may initiate and give rise to a regular sound change (e.g., /t/ > /d/ between vowels). We hypothesize that a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Language and speech Vol. 58; no. 3; pp. 351 - 370
Main Authors:	Nadeu, Marianna, Hualde, José Ignacio
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	London, England SAGE Publications 01-09-2015 Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:	Adult Basque language Biomechanical Phenomena - physiology Colleges & universities Conditioning (Psychology) - physiology Diachronic linguistics Dialect Studies Female Gender Gender Identity Humans Individual differences Individuality Italian language Language Larynx - physiology Male Males Obstruents Phonation - physiology Phonemes Phonemics Phonetics Phonological assimilation Phonology Romance Languages Sex Characteristics Sex differences Sex Factors Sound change Sound Spectrography Spain Spanish language Speech Speech Acoustics Speech Articulation Tests Speech Production Measurement Speech rate Spelling Verbal Behavior - physiology Voicing Vowels Spain voicing gender effects speech rate Sound change lenition
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Summary:	This paper addresses the question of how synchronic variation in intervocalic voicing of voiceless obstruents, as observed in several languages (e.g., Rome Italian /lato/ [lato] ~ [lado]), may initiate and give rise to a regular sound change (e.g., /t/ > /d/ between vowels). We hypothesize that a biomechanically motivated linkage between male gender, speech rate, and voicing may provide a way to accelerate the spread of the phenomenon and lead to an eventual generalized recategorization. In order to explore this hypothesis, first we reanalyze the results of a previous study on intervocalic voicing in Spanish, focusing on individual differences and, in particular, the possible role of gender. Then we report on a study of the same phenomenon in Basque, focusing also on interspeaker variation. Finally, we report on a controlled experiment where speech rate was manipulated.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0023-8309 1756-6053
DOI:	10.1177/0023830914554727