No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
A coarticulatory path to sound change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2026
Abstract
Although coarticulatory variation is largely systematic, and serves as useful information for listeners, such variation is nonetheless linked to sound change. This article explores the articulatory and perceptual interactions between a coarticulatory source and its effects, and how these interactions likely contribute to change. The focus is on the historical change VN (phonetically, ṼN) > Ṽ, but with more general attention to how a gesture associated with a source segment comes to be reinterpreted as distinctively, rather than coarticulatorily, associated with a nearby vowel or consonant. Two synchronic factors are hypothesized to contribute to reinterpretation: (i) articulatory covariation between the duration of the coarticulatory source (here, N) and the temporal extent of its effects (Ṽ), and (ii) perceived equivalence between source and effect. Experimental support for both hypotheses is provided. Additionally, the experimental data are linked to the historical situation by showing that the contextual conditions that trigger (i) and (ii) parallel the conditions that historically influence phonologization of vowel nasalization.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2009 by Linguistic Society of America
References
Abramson, Arthur S. 1962. The vowels and tones of Standard Thai: Acoustical measurements and experiments. (Folklore and linguistics 20.) Bloomington: Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology.Google Scholar
Alfonso, Peter J., and Baer, Thomas. 1982. Dynamics of vowel articulation. Language and Speech 25. 151–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald. 2008. Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511801686CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan. 1972 [1972]. An attempt at a theory of phonetic alternations. A Baudouin de Courtenay anthology: The beginnings of structural linguistics, ed. by Stankiewicz, Edward, 144–212. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Beddor, Patrice Speeter. 2007. Nasals and nasalization: The relation between segmental and coarticulatory timing. Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, ed. by Trouvain, Jürgen and Barry, William J., 249–54. Saarbrücken: Saarland University.Google Scholar
Beddor, Patrice Speeter. 2009. Perception de la variation due à la coarticulation [Perceiving coarticulatory variation]. La coarticulation, des indices à la représentation, ed. by Embarki, Mohamed and Dodane, Christelle, 189–211. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Beddor, Patrice Speeter, Brasher, Anthony; and Narayan, Chandan. 2007. Applying perceptual methods to the study of phonetic variation and sound change. In Solé et al., 127–43.Google Scholar
Beddor, Patrice Speeter, and Krakow, Rena Arens. 1999. Perception of coarticulatory nasalization by speakers of English and Thai: Evidence for partial compensation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 106. 2868–87.10.1121/1.428111CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beddor, Patrice Speeter, Krakow, Rena Arens; and Goldstein, Louis M. 1986. Perceptual constraints and phonological change. Phonology 3. 197–217.Google Scholar
Bell-Berti, Fredericka. 1993. Understanding velic motor control: Studies of segmental context. In Huffman & Krakow, 63–85.Google Scholar
Berent, Iris, Steriade, Donca, Lennertz, Tracy; and Vaknin, Vered. 2007. What we know about what we have never heard: Evidence from perceptual illusions. Cognition 104. 591–630.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Best, Catherine T., Morrongiello, Barbara; and Robson, Rick. 1981. Perceptual equivalence of acoustic cues in speech and nonspeech perception. Perception & Psychophysics 29. 191–211.10.3758/BF03207286CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blevins, Juliette. 2004. Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blevins, Juliette. 2007. Interpreting misperception: Beauty is in the ear of the beholder. In Solé et al., 144–54.Google Scholar
Bradlow, Ann R. 2002. Confluent talker- and listener-oriented forces in clear speech production. Laboratory phonology 7, ed. by Gussenhoven, Carlos and Warner, Natasha, 241–73. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Brooks, Maria Zagorska. 1968. Nasal vowels in Contemporary Standard Polish: An acoustic-phonetic analysis. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Broselow, Ellen, Chen, Su-I; and Huffman, Marie. 1997. Syllable weight: Convergence of phonology and phonetics. Phonology 14. 47–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browman, Catherine P., and Goldstein, Louis M. 1986. Towards an articulatory phonology. Phonology Yearbook 3. 219–52.Google Scholar
Busà, M. Grazia. 2003. Vowel nasalization and nasal loss in Italian. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, ed. by Solé, Maria-Josep, Recasens, Daniel, and Romero, Joaquin, 711–14. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Busà, M. Grazia. 2007. Coarticulatory nasalization and phonological developments: Data from Italian and English nasal-fricative sequences. In Solé et al., 155–74.10.1093/oso/9780199296675.003.0011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan. 2001. Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Marilyn Y. 1997. Acoustic correlates of English and French nasalized vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 102. 2360–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, Abigail C. 1990. Phonetic and phonological rules of nasalization. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 76. 1–224.Google Scholar
Cohn, Abigail C. 1993. Nasalization in English: Phonology or phonetics? Phonology 10. 43–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Chene, Brent, and Anderson, Stephen R. 1979. Compensatory lengthening. Language 55. 505–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delvaux, Véronique, Demolin, Didier, Harmegnies, Bernard; and Soquet, Alain. 2008. The aerodynamics of nasalization in French. Journal of Phonetics 36. 578–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitch, Hollis L., Halwes, Terry, Erickson, Donna M.; and Liberman, Alvin M. 1980. Perceptual equivalence of two acoustic cues for stop-consonant manner. Perception and Psychophysics 27. 343–50.10.3758/BF03206123CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fowler, Carol A. 1996. Listeners do hear sounds, not tongues. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 99. 1730–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Carol A. 2005. Parsing coarticulated speech in perception: Effects of coarticulation resistance. Journal of Phonetics 33. 199–213.10.1016/j.wocn.2004.10.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Carol A., and Brown, Julie M. 2000. Perceptual parsing of acoustic consequences of velum lowering from information for vowels. Perception and Psychophysics 62. 21–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fujimura, Osamu. 1977. Recent findings on articulatory processes: Velum and tongue movements as syllable features. Modèles articulatoires et phonétique/Articulatory modeling and phonetics, ed. by Carré, René, Descout, Raymond, and Wajskop, Max, 115–26. Grenoble: Groupement des Acousticiens de Langue Française.Google Scholar
Hattori, Shirô, Yamamoto, Kengo; and Fujimura, Osamu. 1958. Nasalization of vowels in relation to nasals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 30. 267–74.10.1121/1.1909563CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, Sarah. 2003. Roles and representations of systematic fine phonetic detail in speech understanding. Journal of Phonetics 31. 373–405.10.1016/j.wocn.2003.09.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, Bruce, and Stivers, Tanya. 2000. Postnasal voicing. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, ms.Google Scholar
Hernéndez-Chévez, Eduardo, Vogel, Irene; and Clumeck, Harold. 1975. Rules, constraints and the simplicity criterion: An analysis based on the acquisition of nasals in Chicano Spanish. Nasélfest: Papers from a symposium on nasals and nasalization, ed. by Ferguson, Charles, Hyman, Larry M., and Ohala, John J., 231–48. Stanford, CA: Language Universals Project.Google Scholar
Hombert, Jean-Marie. 1986. The development of nasalized vowels in the Teke language group (Bantu). The phonological representation of suprasegmentals, ed. by Bogers, Koen, der Hulst, Harry van, and Mous, Maarten, 359–79. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Hombert, Jean-Marie, Ohala, John J.; and Ewan, William G. 1979. Phonetic explanations for the development of tones. Language 55. 37–58.10.2307/412518CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huffman, Marie K. 1990. Implementation of nasal: Timing and articulatory landmarks. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 75. 1–149.Google Scholar
Huffman, Marie K., and Krakow, Rena A. (eds.) 1993. Nasals, nasalization, and the velum. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kavitskaya, Darya. 2002. Compensatory lengthening: Phonetics, phonology, diachrony. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kawasaki, Haruko. 1986. Phonetic explanation for phonological universals: The case of| distinctive vowel nasalization. Experimental phonology, ed. by Ohala, John J. and Jaeger, Jeri J., 81–103. Orlando: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Keating, Patricia A. 1990. The window model of coarticulation: Articulatory evidence. Papers in laboratory phonology 7, ed. by Kingston, John and Beckman, Mary E., 451–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Mi-Ryoung, Beddor, Patrice Speeter; and Horrocks, Julie. 2002. The contribution of consonantal and vocalic information to the perception of Korean initial stops. Journal of Phonetics 30. 77–100.10.1006/jpho.2001.0152CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krakow, Rena A. 1993. Nonsegmental influences in velum movement patterns: Syllables, sentences, stress, and speaking rate. In Huffman & Krakow, 87–113.Google Scholar
Krakow, Rena A. 1999. Physiological organization of syllables: A review. Journal of Phonetics 27. 23–54.10.1006/jpho.1999.0089CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krakow, Rena A., Beddor, Patrice S., Goldstein, Louis M.; and Fowler, Carol A. 1988. Coarticulatory influences on the perceived height of nasal vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 83. 1146–58.10.1121/1.396059CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Labov, William. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2007. Transmission and diffusion, Language 83. 344–87.10.1353/lan.2007.0082CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahiri, Aditi, and Marslen-Wilson, William. 1991. The mental representation of lexical form: A phonological approach to the recognition lexicon. Cognition 38. 245–94.10.1016/0010-0277(91)90008-RCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, Alvin M., and Mattingly, Ignatius G. 1985. The motor theory of speech perception revised. Cognition 21. 1–36.10.1016/0010-0277(85)90021-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lindblom, Björn. 1990. Explaining phonetic variation: A sketch of the H&H theory. Speech production and speech modelling, ed. by Hardcastle, William J. and Marchai, Alain, 403–39. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Lindblom, Björn. 1996. Role of articulation in speech perception: Clues from production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 99. 1683–92.10.1121/1.414691CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lindblom, Björn, Guion, Susan, Hura, Susan, Moon, Seung-Jae; and Willerman, Raquel. 1995. Is sound change adaptive? Rivista di Linguistica 7. 5–36.Google Scholar
Lisker, Leigh. 1957. Closure duration and the intervocalic voiced-voiceless distinction in English. Language 33. 42–49.10.2307/410949CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macmillan, Neil A., and Creelman, C. Douglas. 1991. Detection theory: A user's guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maddieson, Ian. 1984. Patterns of sounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511753459CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maeda, Shinji. 1993. Acoustics of vowel nasalization and articulatory shifts in French nasal vowels. In Huffman & Krakow, 147–67.Google Scholar
Malécot, André. 1960. Vowel nasality as a distinctive feature in American English. Language 36. 222–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Virginia A., and Repp, Bruno H. 1980. Influence of vocalic context on perception of the [S]-[s] distinction. Perception and Psychophysics 28. 548–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Manuel, Sharon Y. 1995. Speakers nasalize /Ò/ after /n/, but listeners still hear /Ò/. Journal of Phonetics 23. 453–76.10.1006/jpho.1995.0033CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manuel, Sharon Y. 1999. Cross-language studies: Relating language-particular coarticulation patterns to other language-particular facts. Coarticulation: Theory, data and techniques, ed. by Hardcastle, William J. and Hewlett, Nigel, 179–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, James G., and Bunnell, H. Timothy. 1982. Perception of anticipatory coarticulation effects in vowel-stop consonant-vowel sequences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 8. 473–88.Google Scholar
Matthies, Melanie, Perrier, Pascal, Perkell, Joseph S.; and Zandipour, Majid. 2001. Variation in anticipatory coarticulation with changes in clarity and rate. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44. 340–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mitterer, Holger. 2006. On the causes of compensation for coarticulation: Evidence for phonological mediation. Perception and Psychophysics 68. 1227–40.10.3758/BF03193723CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nguyen, Noël, and Hawkins, Sarah. 1999. Implications for word recognition of phonetic dependencies between syllable onsets and codas. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, vol. 1, ed. by Ohala, John J., Hasegawa, Yoko, Ohala, Manjari, Granville, Daniel, and Bailey, Ashlee C., 647–50. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. 1981. The listener as a source of sound change. Chicago Linguistic Society 17.2.178–203.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. 1993. Coarticulation and phonology. Language and Speech 36. 155–70.10.1177/002383099303600303CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ohala, John J. 1994. Towards a universal, phonetically-based, theory of vowel harmony. Proceedings of the International Conference on Spoken Language Processing '94, Yokohama, Japan 3. 491–94.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J., and Grazia Busà, M. 1995. Nasal loss before voiceless fricatives: A perceptually-based sound change. Rivista di Linguistica 7. 125–44.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J., and Ohala, Manjari. 1993. The phonetics of nasal phonology: Theorems and data. In Huffman & Krakow, 225–49.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J., and Ohala, Manjari. 1995. Speech perception and lexical representation: The role of vowel nasalization in Hindi and English. Phonology and phonetic evidence: Papers in laboratory phonology 4, ed. by Connell, Bruce and Arvaniti, Amalia, 41–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511554315.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohala, Manjari, and Ohala, John J. 1991. Nasal epenthesis in Hindi. Phonetica 48. 207–20.10.1159/000261885CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onsuwan, Chutamanee. 2005. Temporal relations between consonants and vowels in Thai syllables. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan dissertation.Google Scholar
Paul, Hermann. 1888 [1888]. Principles of the history of language. Trans. by H. A. Strong. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co.Google Scholar
Pind, Jörgen. 1999. Speech segment durations and quantity in Icelandic. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 106. 1045–53.10.1121/1.427114CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pisoni, David B., and Luce, Paul A. 1987. Trading relations, acoustic cue integration, and context effects in speech perception. The psychophysics of speech perception, ed. by Schouten, Marten E. H., 155–72. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Raphael, Lawrence J., Dorman, M. F., Freeman, Frances; and Tobin, Charles. 1975. Vowel and nasal duration as cues to voicing in word-final stop consonants: Spectrographic and perceptual studies. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 18. 389–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Repp, Bruno H. 1981. Auditory and phonetic trading relations between acoustic cues in speech perception: Preliminary results. Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research SR 67/68.165–90.Google Scholar
Repp, Bruno H. 1982. Phonetic trading relations and context effects: New experimental evidence for a speech mode of perception. Psychological Bulletin 92. 81–110.10.1037/0033-2909.92.1.81CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roengpitya, Rungpat. 2001. A study of vowels, diphthongs, and tones in Thai. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley dissertation.Google Scholar
Ruhlen, Merritt. 1978. Nasal vowels. Universals of human language: Phonology, ed. by Greenberg, Joseph H., 203–41. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sampson, Rodney. 1999. Nasal vowel evolution in Romance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarborough, Rebecca. 2004. Coarticulation and the structure of the lexicon. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles dissertation.Google Scholar
Sefton, Samantha. 2005. Nasals and nasalization in American English: Implications for theories of coarticulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Department of Linguistics undergraduate honors thesis.Google Scholar
Solé, Maria-Josep. 1992. Phonetic and phonological processes: The case of nasalization. Language and Speech 35. 29–43.10.1177/002383099203500204CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solé, Maria-Josep. 1995. Spatio-temporal patterns of velopharyngeal action in phonetic and phonological nasalization. Language and Speech 38. 1–23.10.1177/002383099503800101CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Solé, Maria-Josep. 2007. Compatibility of features and phonetic context: The case of nasalization. Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, ed. by Trouvain, Jürgen and Barry, William J., 261–66. Saarbrücken: Saarland University.Google Scholar
Solé, Maria-Josep, Beddor, Patrice Speeter; and Ohala, Manjari (eds.) 2007. Experimental approaches to phonology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199296675.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strange, Winifred. 1989. Evolving theories of vowel perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 85. 2081–87.10.1121/1.397860CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Suen, Ching Yee, and Beddoes, Michael P. 1974. The silent interval of stop consonants. Language and Speech 17. 126–34.10.1177/002383097401700204CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tatham, Mark, and Morton, Katherine. 2006. Speech production and perception. New York: Palgrave.10.1057/9780230513969CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, Rebecca, Zukowski, Andrea; and Daylene Richmond-Welty, E. 1995. What happened to the ‘n’ of sinkl Children's spellings of final consonant clusters. Cognition 55. 1–38.10.1016/0010-0277(94)00638-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuttle, Edward F. 1991. Nasalization in Northern Italy: Syllabic constraints and strength scales as developmental parameters. Rivista di Linguistica 3. 33–92.Google Scholar
Vaissière, Jacqueline. 1988. Prediction of articulatory movement of the velum from phonetic input. Phonetica 45. 122–39.10.1159/000261822CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaissière, Jacqueline, and Amelot, Angélique. 2008. Nasalité, coarticulation et anticipation. Paris: Université Sorbonne Nouvelle–Paris 3, ms.Google Scholar
van Leyden, Klaske. 2002. The relationship between vowel and consonant duration in Orkney and Shetland dialects. Phonetica 59. 1–19.10.1159/000056202CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whalen, Douglas H., Abramson, Arthur S., Lisker, Leigh; and Mody, Maria. 1993. F0 gives voicing information even with unambiguous voice onset times. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 93. 2152–59.10.1121/1.406678CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whalen, Douglas H., and Beddor, Patrice S. 1989. Connections between nasality and vowel duration and height: Elucidation of the Eastern Algonquian intrusive nasal. Language 65. 457–86.10.2307/415219CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, Alan. 2008. The phonetics of quantity alternation in Washo. Journal of Phonetics 36. 508–20.10.1016/j.wocn.2007.10.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 201
- Cited by