Vaissière, J., (in Press), " Proposals for a Representation of Sounds Based on Their Main Acoustico- Perceptual Properties " , In: 'tones and Features, Proposals for a Representation of Sounds Based on Their Main Acoustico-perceptual Properties

The behavior of speech sounds involves a large number of “natural”, panchronic processes that take place at different points in time and space, in unrelated languages. More or less subtle synchronic, dialectal, stylistic, or allophonic variations may progressively become full-fledged sound changes. An overview of these sound changes brings out preferences for “natural” sounds, that are easier to perceive or produce, or more audible in noisy environments. These preferences are reflected synchronically in typologically preferred systems of contrasts, including cross-linguistic patterns in phonotactic restrictions. Additional evidence for these general tendencies comes from various sources, including widespread speech errors by children, hearing-impaired subjects or language learners, in ambient noise or in spectrogram reading (about panchronic phonology: Haudricourt 1969; on language universals, Greenberg [1966] 2005; on sound systems: Maddieson 1984; on the phonetics of sound changes: Ohala 1993, Blevins 2004; on universals in syllable structure: Clements and Keyser 1983, Vennemann 1988).