“Incomplete neutralization” (IN) refers to the finding that subphonemic differences distinguish segments in a neutralizing context. Previous findings on IN have often been called into question because of methodological problems. We conducted a production and a perception study to address these previous concerns and to investigate the robustness of IN in German final stop devoicing. Underlying v...

The perception of speech sounds can be re-tuned through a mechanism of lexically driven perceptual learning after exposure to instances of atypical speech production. This study asked whether this re-tuning is sensitive to the position of the atypical sound within the word. We investigated perceptual learning using English voiced stop consonants, which are commonly devoiced in word-final positi...

We analyzed the realizations of French voiced fricatives /,Ʒ/ by German non-native and French native speakers, in final position of an accentual group, a position where German fricatives are devoiced. Three speaker levels (from beginners to advanced speakers) and different boundary types (depending on whether the fricative is followed by a pause, a schwa, or is directly followed by the first p...

This article traces the development of voiced prepalatal obstruents /dʒ⌢/ and /ʒ/ in Judeo-Spanish, language spoken by Sephardic Jews since before their expulsion from late-15th century Spain. Using Medieval Spanish as a comparative starting point, we examine diachronic innovations phonological status distribution affricate fricative Judeo-Spanish during diaspora, focusing particular on effects...

This work is dealing with a case of L1-L2 interference in language learning. The Germans learning French as a second language frequently produce unvoiced fricatives in word-final position instead of the expected voiced fricatives. We investigated the production of French fricatives for 16 non-native (8 beginnerand 8 advanced-learners) and 8 native speakers, and designed auditory feedback to hel...

1 Introduction In this paper, I investigate seemingly unrelated occurrences of obstruent voicing in derived environments in three different languages: Breton, German, and Ital-ian. In the Breton dialect spoken on Île de Groix, underlyingly voiceless obstru-ents are realised as voiced when they are followed by a vowel-, or sonorant-initial word (1a). Since they do not surface as voiced when foll...

The implementation of the voicing of the English word-final obstruents constitutes a serious problem for foreign speakers of English whose native languages organize the phonological 'voicing' contrast differently. Polish teachers and learners of English implement too few and too sharply-cut rules whose application produces unnatural rendering of the English voicing distinction, with overemphasi...