Acquisition of sound symbolic values of vowels and voiced obstruents by Japanese children: Using a Pokémonastic paradigm
Shigeto Kawahara
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003974
April 2018
Recent studies on sound symbolism have demonstrated that in Japanese Poke ?mon names, the number of voiced obstruents in their names positively correlates with their evolution levels. This correlation is likely to have its roots in the sound symbolic relationship between voiced obstruents and largeness/heaviness/strengths. This study shows that when Japanese children are provided with two non-existing names and a pair of pre-evolution and post-evolution Pokemon characters, they are more likely to associate names having voiced obstruents with post-evolution Pokmon characters. The experiment also shows that Japanese children associate post-evolution characters more with [a] than with [i], which shows that they are sensitive to vocalic sound symbolism as well. [The authors: Kawahara, Shigeto, Miwa Isobe, Yukino Kobayashi, Tomoko Monou and Reiko Okabe].

Persistence of prosody
Shigeto Kawahara, Jason Shaw
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003973
April 2018
Segments or prosody, which comes first? In this paper we address this general issue of the relationship between segments and prosody by examining the consequences of vowel deletion for syllabification. Our main empirical focus is Japanese. The EMA study by Shaw & Kawahara (2018) showed that Japanese [u] optionally deletes in devoicing environments, yielding consonant clusters. Both phonological and phonetic evidence reviewed here suggests that these consonant clusters are parsed heterosyllabically. The current results imply a rather surprising conclusion that Japanese allows consonantal syllables headed by a fricative or an affricate, a conclusion that is especially surprising in light of the view that considers Japanese a “strict CV-language”

Predictability and Phonology: Past, Present & Future
Jason Shaw, Shigeto Kawahara
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003972
April 2018
Many papers in this special issue grew out of the talks given at the Symposium “The role of predictability in shaping human language sound patterns,” held at Western Sydney University (Dec, 10-11, 2016). Some papers were submitted in response to an open call; others were invited contributions. This introduction aims to contextualize the papers in the special issue within a broader theoretical context, focusing on what it means for phonological theory to incorporate gradient predictability, what questions arise as a consequence, and how the papers in this issue address these questions. (Introduction to a special issue in Linguistic Vanguard).

There are no Bracketing Paradoxes, or How to be a Modular Grammarian
Heather Newell
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003964
March 2018
This paper has as its central concern the proposition in Marantz (1987) that Bracketing Paradoxes (BP) have deep implications for the (in)correctness of certain proposals within the domain of generative phonology. Where it differs from Marantz’ account, and from every previous account of BPs is in the absence of an appeal to ad-hoc tools to eliminate the paradoxical derivations. It is argued herein that a theory in which phonological representations are limited to linear strings (no Prosodic Hierarchy), and where phonological operations must be triggered via phonological means (no Level-specific morphological diacritics) that Bracketing Paradoxes cease to exist. The necessary conclusion arising from this analysis is that problematic derivations like BPs signal important flaws in our theoretical proposals.

Grouping in music and language
Jonah Katz
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003938
March 2018
This paper reviews evidence concerning the nature of grouping in music and language, and attempts to draw from this topic some general lessons about music, language, and cognition more generally. The two domains both involve correspondence between auditory discontinuities and group boundaries, reflecting the Gestalt principles of proximity and similarity, as well as a nested, hierarchical organization of constituents. There are also obvious differences between musical and linguistic grouping. Grappling with those differences requires one to think in detail about modularity, information flow, levels of description, and the functional nature of cognitive domains.

Realization and representation of Nepali laryngeal contrasts: Voiced aspirates and laryngeal realism
Martha Schwarz, Morgan Sonderegger, Heather Goad
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003936
March 2018
Theories of Laryngeal Realism argue for a tight correspondence between a segment’s phonetic cues and the (laryngeal) phonological features that represent it. As such, the ‘p’/’b’ contrast in French, expressed phonetically by vocal fold vibration during the stop closure, is represented by a [voice] feature while the ‘p’/’b’ contrast in English, expressed phonetically by contrasting long and short lag VOT, is represented by a [spread] feature. Laryngeal realist literature focuses on whether a given segment is best represented by [voice] or [spread], and proposes a set of criteria and tests by which to diagnose the representation. In this study we push laryngeal realist theory in a new direction — to segments proposed to be specified for both [voice] and [spread] features — a combination which poses challenges to the current diagnostics. To do so, we analyze acoustic data from Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language with a single class of stops described as both voiced and aspirated. We apply the same criteria and diagnostics used in laryngeal realism. We find support for the proposed representation, with a caveat that the [voice] feature appears stronger than [spread].