Haskins Publications

Number	974
Year	1995
Drawer	18
Entry Date	06/30/1998
Authors	Abramson, Arthur S.
Contact
Publication	Bell-Berti, F. and Raphael, L.J. Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues. For Katerhine Safford Harris. AIP Press: New York.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0974.pdf
Abstract	While doing fieldwork at The University of Connecticut with students of mine on two dialects of Karen, one in 1987 and the other in 1992, I found that among the obstruents the systems of plosive consonants of both of them are largely characterized by a three-way contrast at each place of articulation, while the affricates of one and the sibilants of the other have a two-way contrast. A search of the scant literature revealed one comprehensive source of information on the major dialects and subdialects of this Southeast Asian language (Jones, 1961). Jones’ description of the obstruents in terms of voicing and aspiration, together with our own auditory impressions, suggested that this three-way distinction for the stops and a two-way distinction for affricates in one dialect and for sibilants in the other, could well be explained by a mechanism of laryngeal timing (Abramson, 1977).
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