Contrast enhancement motivates closed syllable laxing and open syllable tensing

What is it about?

Across languages, tense vowels are often limited to open syllables and lax vowels are limited to closed syllables. This paper proposes that these patterns are motivated by contrast enhancement: in vowel-consonant sequences, tensing enhances the perceptual distinctiveness of vowels whereas laxing enhances the distinctiveness of consonants. Laxing typically applies in closed syllables to compensate for the absence of good perceptual cues to the identity of coda consonants. A study on French supports the hypothesis that consonant contrasts (in particular place contrasts) are more distinct after lax than after tense vowels.

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