An analysis of post-vocalic /s-ʃ/ neutralization in Augsburg German: evidence for a gradient sound change

Abstract

The study is concerned with a sound change in progress by which a post-vocalic, pre-consonantal /s-ʃ/ contrast in the standard variety of German (SG) in words such as west/wäscht (/vɛst/~/vɛʃt/, west/washes) is influencing the Augsburg German (AG) variety in which they have been hitherto neutralized as /veʃt/. Two of the main issues to be considered are whether the change is necessarily categorical; and the extent to which the change affects both speech production and perception equally. For the production experiment, younger and older AG and SG speakers merged syllables of hypothetical town names to create a blend at the potential neutralization site. These results showed a trend for a progressively greater /s-ʃ/ differentiation in the order older AG, younger AG, and SG speakers. For the perception experiment, forced-choice responses were obtained from the same subjects who had participated in the production experiment to a 16-step /s-ʃ/ continuum that was embedded into two contexts: /mIst-mIʃt/ in which /s-ʃ/ are neutralized in AG and /və'mIsə/-/və'mIʃə/ in which they are not. The results from both experiments are indicative of a sound change in progress such that the neutralization is being undone under the influence of SG, but in such a way that there is a gradual shift between categories. The closer approximation of the groups on perception suggests that the sound change may be more advanced on this modality than in production. Overall, the findings are consistent with the idea that phonological contrasts are experience-based, i.e., a continuous function of the extent to which a subject is exposed to, and makes use of, the distinction and are thus compatible with exemplar models of speech.

Complementary length in vowel–consonant sequences: Acoustic and perceptual evidence for a sound change in progress in Bavarian German

“…Scobbie et al 2000) and eventually even lead to transcription errors (Pouplier & Hardcastle 2005). Research has only recently been concerned with acoustic and perceptual analyses of German dialects that are able to investigate in more detail gradual variation within speakers or within one speech modality -as is the case with the age-dependent spectral differences in /s/-/ʃ/ reported by Bukmaier et al (2014), which were not perceptible.…”

“…The reasoning for predicting a contact-induced change for Central Bavarian is that there is evidence for two other sound changes in progress in German regional varieties, both of which appear to be due to contact with Standard German. In Augsburg Swabian an /s-ʃ/-merger before /t/ is being undone (Bukmaier, Harrington & Kleber 2014) and in East Franconian the intervocalic fortis-lenis merger is being reversed . The presence of a phonemic fortis-lenis and a /st/-/ʃt/ contrast in Standard German makes dialect leveling the likely cause for these changes.…”

Individual and dialect differences in perceiving multiple cues: A tonal register contrast in two Chinese Wu dialects

“…The resulting continuum has the same recording quality and naturalness as the originals and varies in all dimensions of the original two sounds. tandem straight has been successfully used in studies of many different phonological contrasts cross-linguistically (e.g., fricative place in German and English, nasal place in Japanese, vowel contrasts and sung melodies in Japanese: Bukmaier, Harrington, & Kleber, 2014;McAuliffe & Babel, 2016;Sadakata & Sekiyama, 2011;Yonezawa, Suzuki, Mase, & Kogure, 2005). We believe that this method is also appropriate for creating a natural breathiness continuum that varies in all acoustic dimensions of breathiness, providing a more thorough modification than previous studies that only focus on a few dimensions.…”

Nasal coda neutralization in Shanghai Mandarin: Articulatory and perceptual evidence

“…If outcomes are modulated by segmental context, as may be the case in Shanghai Mandarin, neutralization can be assessed with respect to substantive properties of this context; in the case of Shanghai Mandarin, for instance, neutralization may prove to be mediated by perceptual or articulatory properties of the preceding vowels. Unconditioned merger in place of articulation (Bukmaier, Harrington, & Kleber, 2014;Chang & Shih, 2015;Jannedy & Weirich, 2017;Chiu, Wei, Noguchi, & Yamane, 2019) does not afford this opportunity because it applies regardless of segmental context.…”