Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology

This paper presents the first cross-linguistic investigation into the phonological behavior of implosive sounds. In many feature theories, implosives share features with obstruent sounds, plus some implosive-specific laryngeal feature. These feature theories predict, then, that implosives should pattern phonologically as a natural class with obstruents, to the exclusion of sonorants. We take a detailed look at the phonological patterning of implosives in six languages, and present results of a typological survey of implosives in 88 languages where implosives contrast with sonorants and...

This study uses non-native perception data to examine the relationship between perceived phonetic similarity of segments and their phonological patterning. Segments that are phonetically similar to one another are anticipated to pattern together phonologically, and segments that share articulatory or acoustic properties are also expected to be perceived as similar. What is not yet clear is whether segments that pattern together phonologically are perceived as similar. This study addresses this question by examining how L1 English listeners and L1 Guébie listeners perceive non-native...