Speaker: Runqi Tan (MIT)
Title: Direction of Coarticulation in Retroflex Fricative – a case study from Mandarin
Time: Monday, September 16th, 5pm – 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract: Abstract: In many Australian and Dravidian languages, retroflex and apical alveolar stops only contrast after vowels (e.g. Steriade 1995, 2001). This is because the primary cues to the contrast between retroflex and apical alveolar stops are located in the VC transitions (Anderson 1997), thus this contrast preferentially appears after a vowel, where the sounds are more perceptually distinguishable (Steriade 1995, 2001). The fact that the primary cues are realized on the preceding vowel follows from the fact that the retroflex stop has a stronger coarticulatory effect on the preceding vowel than the following vowel (Steriade 1995, 2001, Hamann 2003, Tabain et al. 2020).
However, it is the following high front vowel that assimilates to retroflex sounds in Mandarin, a language with retroflex fricatives and affricates (Li & Zhang 2017), suggesting a stronger coarticulatory effect on the following vowel than the preceding vowel. In articulation, the characteristic flapping-out movement of retroflex stops does not happen to retroflex fricatives (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996), which makes it possible for retroflex fricatives to have coarticulation on the following vowel. These observations lead to the hypothesis that the direction of coarticulation in retroflex fricatives differs from retroflex stops.
This study conducted a phonetic experiment to test this hypothesis. The experiment explored F3 transitions in a pair of Mandarin fricative /s/ and /ʂ/. The lowering effect of F3 by /ʂ/ is the primary cue to the contrast between retroflex and alveolar sounds (Hamann 2003). Ten native Mandarin speakers (age from 20 to 30, 5 male speakers and 5 female speakers) were asked to read 15 VCV minimal pairs in a carrier sentence “wo du __ gei ni tiŋ” (I read __ for you to hear), where the C was /s/ or /ʂ/, and the two vowels in VCV were identical. Due to Mandarin CV syllable structure, in VCV structures, VC is necessarily between syllables and CV is within syllables. The stop study also allows C to be onset, which means that VCV also comes from two syllables, which is comparable to fricative study. F3 was measured in four positions in each VCV stimuli: midpoint of the first vowel (V1F3), endpoint of the first vowel (C1F3), beginning of the second vowel (C2F3) and midpoint of the second vowel (V2F3). The effect of place of articulation on F3 on left and right side of the consonant was calculated and compared by fitting a linear mixed effect model with consonant F3 as dependent variable, vowel F3 as independent variable, C as a fixed effect, and a random slope for sibilant place.
The lowering effect of F3 is found on both sides of the retroflex fricative and does not differ significantly between the left and right side. This result confirms that the direction of coarticulation in Mandarin retroflex fricative /ʂ/ differs from that in retroflex stops. This difference leads to the prediction that retroflexion contrast in fricatives should not follow the same typology as retroflexion contrast in stops, as a result, different rankings of the markedness constraints and faithfulness constraints are expected for the two types of retroflex consonants.
Keywords: retroflex fricative, coarticulation, phonetic cue.