The role of coarticulation and production constraints on glide insertion and elision in the Romance languages
Daniel Recasens
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Abstract:
This paper explores the context-dependent factors which cause glide insertion and deletion to occur in VC, CV, VV, VCV and CC sequences using descriptive and speech production and perception data from the Romance languages. For all sequences under analysis, a key factor involved in glide insertion and deletion is gestural affinity or (quasi)-homorganicity between the contextual phonetic segments and the target glide. The rationale underlying this investigation is that a given transitional acoustic cue may trigger glide insertion or deletion depending on its degree of perceptual salience. For VC, CV, VV and VCV sequences, our data indicate that glide insertions are favoured by an increase in prominence of the vowel formant transitions (as in Old French [car] > [tʃjɛr] CARU), while glide deletions may occur whenever the vowel transitions are severely reduced (as for the change [tʃjɛr] > [ʃjɛr] > [ʃɛr] which occurred after [car] > [tʃjɛr]). Moreover, the direction of the two sound change processes is in accordance with the direction of the coarticulatory effects exerted by the target segment. Thus, for example, consonants exerting prominent anticipatory and carryover coarticulatory effects (e.g., alveolopalatals) may cause a glide to be inserted immediately before or after them, while consonants triggering more anticipation than carryover coarticulation (e.g., dark /l/) may trigger glide insertion before them only.
In: Sánchez Miret, Fernando & Daniel Recasens (eds.). 2013. Studies in phonetics, phonology and sound change in Romance. ISBN 9783862884452[6]: 111-120. (pdf e-paper)
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