Voicing in Contrast. Acquiring a Second Language Laryngeal System

293 Pages·2016·5.79 MB·English

by  Simon Ellen.

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Drawing on both rule-based and constraint-based approaches, Voicing in n
Contrast examines typological differences in the laryngeal systems of Dutch g r
and English and investigates the extent to which native speakers of Dutch i t
acquire English obstruent voicing. The analysis is based on a substantial new n
data collection of conversational Dutch and English speech by speakers of

different varieties of Dutch. The results of the study show that the English C
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interlanguage of advanced learners contains a mixed laryngeal system with o
elements from Dutch as well as from English. The book discusses how this
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system could emerge and analyses the extent to which learners succeeded
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in suppressing neutralizing processes of devoicing and voice assimilation.
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The results of the empirical analysis are examined in the light of existing a
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theoretical approaches to laryngeal systems.
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Although the focus is on Dutch and English, the frequent references to

other languages invite the reader to carry out comparable analyses for
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other languages with similar laryngeal systems. A detailed description of the cq Acquiring a Second Language
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is available on a CD-rom accompanying the book. a i
S Ellen Simon
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Ellen Simon holds a PhD in Linguistics from Ghent University. Her research o
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interests include laryngeal phonetics and phonology, and child and adult d L g
second language phonological acquisition. She has recently published a
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voicing_contrast.book Page 1 Friday, May 7, 2010 8:06 AM
VOICING IN CONTRAST
ACQUIRING A SECOND LANGUAGE LARYNGEAL SYSTEM
voicing_contrast.book Page 2 Friday, May 7, 2010 8:06 AM
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VOICING IN CONTRAST
ACQUIRING A SECOND LANGUAGE LARYNGEAL SYSTEM
Ellen Simon
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© Academia Press
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Ellen Simon
Voicing in Contrast – Acquiring a Second Language Laryngeal System
Gent, Academia Press, 2010, xiv + 272 pp.
ISBN 978 90 382 1562 4
D/2010/4804/90
U 1419
Layout: proxess.be
Cover: 2 Kilo Design
No part of this publication may be reproduced in print, by photocopy, microfilm or any other means, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
voicing_contrast.book Page i Friday, May 7, 2010 8:06 AM
I
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Symbols and abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Preface
What this book is about. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
CHAPTER1 VOICING IN CONTRAST: THE CASE OF DUTCH AND ENGLISH. . . 1
1.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. The phoneme inventories of Dutch and English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3. A note on terminology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4. Laryngeal phonetics: The structure of the larynx and vocal fold vibration . . . 4
1.5. The main laryngeal differences between Dutch and English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5.1. Aspiration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5.2. Prevoicing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5.3. Vowel Length. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5.4. Glottal reinforcement and glottal replacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.6. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
CHAPTER2 LARYNGEAL REPRESENTATIONS: THE CONCEPTS OF
MARKEDNESS, UNDERSPECIFICATION AND VOICE ASSIMILATION. 21
2.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2. Markedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3. Underspecification theory and the unary or binary nature of laryngeal features 26
2.3.1. Temporary underspecification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.2. Inherent Underspecification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.4. One or more laryngeal features in Dutch and English?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4.1. One feature [voice] in Dutch and English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4.2. Two or more laryngeal features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.5. Voice assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.5.1. Phonetic and phonological voice assimilation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.5.2. Different approaches to voice assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.6. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
CHAPTER3 A DATABASE OF SPOKEN DUTCH LEARNER ENGLISH. . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2. Compiling a database of spoken Dutch Learner English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.3. Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.4. Conversational speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.4.1. The set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.4.2. Conversational topics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
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II CONTENTS
3.4.3. Paralinguistic features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4.4. Vocabulary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4.5. Proficiency in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.4.6. The varieties of Dutch spoken in the conversations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.5. Word reading task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.6. Methodology: Data analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.6.1. Orthographic transcriptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.6.2. Coding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.6.3. Number of tokens in the database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.7. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
CHAPTER4 ACQUIRING STOPS: ASPIRATION AND PREVOICING . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2. Aspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2.1. VOT in conversational speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2.2. VOT in isolated words. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.3. Sonorant consonant devoicing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.4. Glottal replacement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.5. Prevoicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.5.1. Prevoicing in L1 Dutch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.5.2. Prevoicing in L1 English and Dutch Learner English. . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.5.3. Conclusion on prevoicing in DLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.6. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
CHAPTER5 ACQUIRING FRICATIVES: DURATION AND VOCAL FOLD
VIBRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.2. The voice contrast in fricatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.3. Voiceless fricatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.4. Voiced fricatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.5. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
CHAPTER6 FINAL LARYNGEAL NEUTRALISATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.2. Contexts of final laryngeal neutralisation in Dutch vs. English. . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.3. Final laryngeal neutralisation in Dutch Learner English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.3.1. Stops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.3.2. Fricatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.4. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
CHAPTER7 REGRESSIVE VOICE ASSIMILATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.2. Contexts of regressive voice assimilation in Dutch vs. English . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.3. Regressive voice assimilation in DLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
7.3.1. Voiceless obstruents as targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
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CONTENTS III
7.3.2. Voiced obstruents as targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
7.4. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
CHAPTER8 SONORANT CONSONANTS AS TRIGGERS OF VOICEASSIMILATION 133
8.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
8.2. The situation in Dutch and English and a comparison with other languages . 133
8.3. Proposals on how sonorants can trigger voice assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
8.3.1. Temporary underspecification of [voice] in sonorants. . . . . . . . . . . . 137
8.3.2. The feature [Sonorant Voice]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.3.3. The feature [Pharyngeal Expansion]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.3.4. Summary of rule-based proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
8.3.5. A phonetic approach: Positional neutralisation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.3.6. A constraint-based approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.4. Assimilation before sonorant consonants in L1 Dutch and DLE:
East- vs. West-Flemish speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.4.1. Voiceless fricatives preceding sonorant consonants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.4.2. Voiced fricatives preceding sonorant consonants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.5. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
CHAPTER9 PROGRESSIVE DEVOICING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.2. Progressive devoicing in Dutch vs. English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.2.1. Progressive devoicing in Dutch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.2.2. Progressive devoicing in English? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.3. Progressive devoicing in Dutch Learner English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
9.4. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
CHAPTER10 PREVOCALIC VOICE ASSIMILATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10.2. Prevocalic obstruents in Dutch vs. English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10.2.1. Prevocalic obstruents in Dutch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10.2.2. Prevocalic obstruents in English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
10.3. Prevocalic voicing in Dutch Learner English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
10.3.1. Prevocalic voice assimilation involving stops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
10.3.2. Prevocalic voice assimilation involving fricatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
10.4. Regressive voice assimilation before voiced stops, sonorant consonants and
vowels: A comparison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
10.5. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
CHAPTER11 ACQUIRING LARYNGEAL REPRESENTATIONS OR REALISATIONS
AND SUPPRESSING LARYNGEAL PROCESSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
11.1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
11.2. Contrasting East- and West-Flemish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
11.3. Acquiring laryngeal representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
11.3.1. Stops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
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IV CONTENTS
11.3.2. Fricatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
11.3.3. Summary of laryngeal representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
11.4. Suppressing laryngeal processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
11.4.1. L1 Dutch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
11.4.2. L1 English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
11.4.3. Dutch Learner English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
11.5. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
CHAPTER12 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS: WHAT THIS STUDY HAS REVEALED AND
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
12.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
12.2. Answers to the questions: What we can conclude from this research . . . . . . . 231
12.3. What needs to be done: Suggestions for further research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
12.3.1. The role of perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
12.3.2. The role of cross-linguistic universals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
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V
Acknowledgements
On completion of this volume I wish to thank a number of people and institutions.
The research reported on in this volume has been made possible through a doctoral
(2002-2006) and post-doctoral (2007-2010) grant from the Fund for Scientific
Research – Flanders (FWO), for which I am truly grateful. A one-year stay at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the academic year 2006-2007 was funded
by the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) / Francqui Foundation. I
thank the foundation for their belief in the value of my project and the Linguistics
Department in Amherst for their hospitality.
Mieke Van Herreweghe has commented on nearly everything I have written on voice
and voice assimilation, and has provided valuable feedback. I would like to take the
opportunity to thank her for supporting me at different stages of my professional
development.
A number of people have discussed earlier versions of this volume with me. I sincerely
want to thank Paula Fikkert for her expert opinion. Her comments have influenced
my thinking and writing. My thanks also go to Johan Taeldeman for generously shar-
ing his knowledge of Dutch phonology with me in many discussions and to Beverley
Collins for his insightful comments on the phonetics of English. I further wish to
thank Joe Pater for his extensive feedback on an earlier version of the work, John
Kingston for sharing his expertise in laryngeal phonetics and acoustic measurements,
and John McCarthy for discussing Chapter 11 with me. I also wish to thank the lin-
guistics community in general for providing me with valuable feedback when I pre-
sented parts of this study at various national and international seminars, workshops
and conferences.
This study would not have been possible without the participation of the informants.
I want to thank cordially all participants for providing me with data. I also wish to
thank the staff members of the College of Europe in Bruges and the British Council
in Brussels who provided me with native English speech data. Thanks also to David
Chan, Peter Flynn, Diego Hernandez and Beverley Collins for participating in
recording sessions.
I have enjoyed working in the English Department at Ghent University, and espe-
cially wish to thank our Head of Department, Stef Slembrouck, for creating a stim-
ulating research atmosphere. I also warmly thank all colleagues in the department for
making it an agreeable workplace.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Pieter Borghart from Academia Press for skilfully leading
me through the publication process of this book, and to three anonymous reviewers
for their thorough reading and excellent comments and suggestions. It goes without
saying that I take full responsibility for all remaining shortcomings.