What is it about?
Based on an examination of distributional patterns, palatograms of the articulation of secondarily articulated consonants, and acoustic analyses we discovered that typologically uncommon combination of labial and palatal constriction in Akan-Twi has arisen from a convergence created by general patterns of coarticulation of consonants and vowels. This convergence has been systematized in a (consonantal) acoustic dimension partially independent from the original (vocalic) dimensions of contrast for which the rounding and palatal articulations were specified.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Contrastiveness and quantal considerations contribute to the occurrence of typologically ‘odd’ sounds if one keeps in mind how an articulatory gesture functions within a language's contrastive system.
Perspectives
The experiments done gave me an opportunity to not only understand what native speakers take for granted, the articulatory mechanisms that take place in the production of sounds considered or weird or odd by speakers of languages that do not have such sounds. Most importantly, it gave me an opportunity to work with one of the top notch phoneticians in the United States, Ken de Jong, but also in the lab of the late Peter Ladefoged, the most distinguished phonetician of his time.
Distinguished Professor Samuel Gyasi Obeng
Indiana University System
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Labio-Palatalization in Twi: Contrastive, Quantal, and Organizational Factors Producing an Uncommon Sound, Language, September 2000, JSTOR,
DOI: 10.2307/417139.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
