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German fricatives: coda devoicing or positional faithfulness?

German fricatives: coda devoicing or positional faithfulness?

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252 Jill Beckman, Michael Jessen and Catherine Ringen<br />

strong frication turbulence, high intra-<strong>or</strong>al air pressure is necessary, but if<br />

intra-<strong>or</strong>al air pressure is raised too much, it becomes too similar in magnitude<br />

to subglottal air pressure, and voice production will cease. This<br />

problem is particularly severe in the production of strident <strong>fricatives</strong> such<br />

as /z/. In <strong>or</strong>der to distinguish strident from non-strident <strong>fricatives</strong>, strident<br />

<strong>fricatives</strong> need to be produced with high-amplitude frication turbulence.<br />

But simultaneous voice production inevitably leads to a reduction of<br />

frication amplitude. This has the consequence that the difference in frication<br />

amplitude between voiced strident and voiced non-strident <strong>fricatives</strong><br />

is much smaller than the amplitude difference between voiceless<br />

strident and voiceless non-strident <strong>fricatives</strong>, so that the perception of the<br />

feature [strident] is challenged f<strong>or</strong> voiced <strong>fricatives</strong> (Balise & Diehl 1994).<br />

When a strident fricative such as /z/ is devoiced, it means that the speaker<br />

was not able to maintain this balance between the goals of voice production<br />

and the generation of strong frication turbulence. This does not<br />

necessarily have the consequence that the distinction between /s/ and /z/ is<br />

lost f<strong>or</strong> the listener, because the distinction is also cued by other means<br />

such as a difference in duration between voiceless (longer) and voiced<br />

(sh<strong>or</strong>ter) <strong>fricatives</strong> (see Jessen 1998 f<strong>or</strong> an overview and <strong>German</strong> data).<br />

Perhaps because of this and other cues to the voiced/voiceless distinction<br />

among <strong>fricatives</strong>, the speaker often gives in to the articulat<strong>or</strong>y difficulty of<br />

voiced strident fricative production, and <strong>devoicing</strong> occurs.<br />

Some auth<strong>or</strong>s rep<strong>or</strong>t an asymmetry in voicing behaviour between /v/<br />

and /z/, in the sense that the percentage <strong>or</strong> amount of <strong>devoicing</strong> is larger in<br />

/z/ than /v/ in <strong>German</strong> (Jessen 1998, Möbius 2004, Kuzla et al. 2007).<br />

This difference is not unexpected. Specifically, the explanation of fricative<br />

<strong>devoicing</strong> based on Balise & Diehl (1994) w<strong>or</strong>ks f<strong>or</strong> /z/, but not f<strong>or</strong> /v/. In<br />

addition, the size of the <strong>or</strong>al cavity behind /v/ is larger than behind /z/, so<br />

that, as with stops, the m<strong>or</strong>e anteri<strong>or</strong> articulations are m<strong>or</strong>e supp<strong>or</strong>tive of<br />

voicing. The size of this place-dependent <strong>devoicing</strong> effect differs between<br />

studies; it is non-significant in Jessen (1998), but significant in Kuzla et al.<br />

(2007). Place-dependent <strong>devoicing</strong> can interact with the phonetic <strong>devoicing</strong><br />

effect that a preceding voiceless sound exerts on a voiced fricative,<br />

e.g. across a w<strong>or</strong>d boundary. Acc<strong>or</strong>ding to the results of Möbius (2004),<br />

Kuzla et al. (2007), and (less strongly) Jessen (1998), the voicing difference<br />

between /v/ and /z/ is larger after a voiceless sound than after a voiced<br />

sound <strong>or</strong> after pause, so that a post-voiceless alveolar fricative clearly has<br />

the lowest percentage <strong>or</strong> amount of voicing. What happens if /z/ is preceded<br />

by a voiceless sound – <strong>or</strong> in any of the weaker <strong>devoicing</strong> effects<br />

discussed here – is something we believe should be modelled phonetically<br />

(gradient <strong>devoicing</strong>). With perhaps a few unsystematic exceptions, there<br />

is no complete (categ<strong>or</strong>ical) <strong>devoicing</strong> at w<strong>or</strong>k and theref<strong>or</strong>e no need f<strong>or</strong><br />

a phonological constraint of progressive assimilation to voicelessness<br />

in <strong>German</strong>. Notice that if an assimilat<strong>or</strong>y <strong>devoicing</strong> constraint were at<br />

w<strong>or</strong>k it would change all of the phonetic voicing c<strong>or</strong>relates of a voiced<br />

fricative – not just vocal fold vibration – in a way that would make it indistinguishable<br />

from the voiceless counterpart. There are no indications

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