The articulatory and acoustic characteristics of Polish sibilants and their consequences for diachronic change

• Published in: Journal of the International Phonetic Association Vol. 46; no. 3; pp. 311 - 329
• Main Authors: Bukmaier, Véronique, Harrington, Jonathan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01-12-2016; Cambridge University Press for the International Phonetic Association
• Subjects: Acoustics; Articulation; Cues; Diachronic analysis; Diachronic linguistics; Fricatives; Language; Polish language; Salience; Tongue movement
• ISSN: 0025-1003; 1475-3502
• DOI: 10.1017/S0025100316000062

The study is concerned with the relative synchronic stability of three contrastive sibilant fricatives /s ʂ ɕ/ in Polish. Tongue movement data were collected from nine first-language Polish speakers producing symmetrical real and non-word CVCV sequences in three vowel contexts. A Gaussian model was used to classify the sibilants from spectral information in the noise and from formant frequencies at vowel onset. The physiological analysis showed an almost complete separation between /s ʂ ɕ/ on tongue-tip parameters. The acoustic analysis showed that the greater energy at higher frequencies distinguished /s/ in the fricative noise from the other two sibilant categories. The most salient information at vowel onset was for /ɕ/, which also had a strong palatalizing effect on the following vowel. Whereas either the noise or vowel onset was largely sufficient for the identification of /s ɕ/ respectively, both sets of cues were necessary to separate /ʂ/ from /s ɕ/. The greater synchronic instability of /ʂ/ may derive from its high articulatory complexity coupled with its comparatively low acoustic salience. The data also suggest that the relatively late stage of /ʂ/ acquisition by children may come about because of the weak acoustic information in the vowel for its distinction from /s/.