Labial Palatalization: a Gestural Account of Phonetic Implementation*

In this paper I present an analysis of surface realizations of palatalized labials in several dialects of Polish. This account has two parts: first, I will demonstrate that the attested gradiency and variability in realization of palatalized labials result from dialect-specific gestural interpretations of the same phonological representation; then, I will show that these patterns of realizations are motivated by the need to preserve and enhance a phonemic contrast. I adopt the gestural approach to phonetic implementation (Browman & Goldstein 1989; Zsiga 1997) and an Optimality Theoretic (OT) approach to enhancement as maximizing perceptual contrastiveness (Flemming 1995, Ní Chiosáin & Padgett 1997). The analysis is based on the data from dialects spoken in four villages of northeastern Poland (Mazovia, Varmija and Mazury) documented in Basara et al. 1959 and Zdu ska 1965. I also refer to general works on Polish dialects (Dejna 1993 and Stieber 1968). My assumptions about Polish phonology are based on Bethin 1992, Chen 1996, Rothstein 1993, and Rubach 1984. The phonetics of Polish consonants is drawn from Wierzchowska 1980 as well as Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the data on palatalized labials in the different dialects. Section 3 is devoted to the analysis. In 3.1 and 3.2 I outline my assumptions. Section 3.3 focuses on the articulatory representations of palatalized labials, while 3.4 addresses the perceptual aspect of the plainpalatalized contrast.