In qualified defense of VOT.
| Number | 258 |
|---|---|
| Year | 1978 |
| Drawer | 5 |
| Entry Date | 06/03/1999 |
| Authors | Lisker, L. |
| Contact | |
| Publication | Language and Speech, 21, 375-383. |
| url | http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0258.pdf |
| Abstract | The voice onset time (VOT) measure has been said to provide the single most nearly adequate physical basis for separating homorganic stop categories across a variety of langs, granted that other features may also be involved. That transition duration affects perceived voicing of synthesized initial stops in English has suggested the hypothesis by K. N. Stevens & D. H. Klatt (see LLBA VIII/3, 7404345) that a detector responsive to rapid formant-f transitions after voice onset better explains the child's acquisition of the contrast than does a mechanism that responds to VOT directly. If such a detector is part of biological equipment, it seems underutilized in lang, since the hypothesis states that the presence or absence of the laryngeal signal during the interval in which the stop-vowel transition occurs is basic to voicing perception. In effect, the "archtypical" voiceless stop is aspirated. The VOT measure does have limitations, since it is inapplicable to prepausal stops. However, there are much more serious difficulties with the posited detector, since even for English initial stops there is evidence that the presence of a voiced first-formant transition is not required for perception of /bdg/, & that absence of such a transition does not necessarily lead to perception of /ptk/, if appropriate VOT values are provided. Some role for the formant 1 transition is not entirely ruled out. |
| Notes |
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