2010/12/01 by Gillian Gallagher · 1 citation
Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism #Phonetics and Phonology Research
paper · doi:10.1017/s0952675710000217
openalex publication_date 2010/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this paper, I present an analysis of the typology of laryngeal co-occurrence restrictions based on contrast markedness. The key ingredient of the analysis, for which I provide experimental support, is that laryngeal co-occurrence phenomena reflect a preference for maximising the perceptual distinctness of contrasts between words (Flemming 1995, 2004). An AX discrimination task finds that the contrast between an ejective and a plain stop is less accurately perceived in the context of another ejective in the word than in the context of another plain stop in the word. Pairs of words like [k'ap'i] and [k'api], which contrast 2 vs . 1 ejectives, are less reliably distinguished than pairs of words like [kap'i] and [kapi], which contrast 1 vs . 0 ejectives. The unifying factor of all laryngeal co-occurrence patterns is the neutralisation of the contrast between words with one and two laryngeally marked segments, exactly the contrast that is shown to be relatively perceptually weak.