Author:
Howson Phil J.,Monahan Philip J.
Abstract
Czech has a sibilant inventory that contrasts at three places of articulation: Alveolar, a pre-post-alveolar, and palato-alveolar. The specific aim of this study is to examine the perception of the typologically rare Czech sibilant inventory and to determine whether acoustic-perceptual characteristics play a role in the maintenance of the Czech trill-fricative. These results are compared to a more common three-way sibilant inventory, Polish. Native Czech listeners performed an auditory AX discrimination task in two blocks: A Czech block and a Polish block. Stimuli were embedded in varying levels of noise to increase task difficulty. Signal-to-noise ratio differences affected the perception of the Czech sibilants more than Polish sibilants. Moreover, a multidimensional scaling analysis revealed less perceptual dispersion for the Czech inventory than the Polish inventory. These results suggest that there is greater difficulty maintaining the Czech inventory considering the signal-to-noise comparisons and that this a factor that contributes to its rarity; however, similarities in perceptual dispersion indicate that maintenance across several acoustic-perceptual cues is possible, and Czech shows few signs of losing this typologically rare contrast.
Funder
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
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