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Japanese /r/ is not feature-less: A rejoinder to Labrune (2014)

100%

Kawahara S.

Open Linguistics

2014

vol. 1

issue 1

Labrune (2014) argues that Japanese /r/ is structurally empty. This reply points out that the phonological characteristics of /r/ which are discussed by Labrune (2014) come with many systematic exceptions, and hence they are better modeled by violable constraints. To illustrate how violable constraints accommodate such systematic exceptions, alternative analyses based onOptimality Theory (Prince&Smolensky, 2004) are presented. This reply also points out that the three constraints on /r/ that are discussed by Labrune (2014) are in fact not specific to /r/, and therefore, motivating structural emptiness based on these patterns would face a problem of not being able to distinguish /r/ from other segments. Based on these considerations, this reply concludes that /r/ (and other segments) in Japanese should have segmental contents.

Nasal place assimilation and the perceptibility of place contrasts

63%

Kawahara S., Garvey K.

Open Linguistics

2014

vol. 1

issue 1

Typological studies of place assimilation show that nasal consonants are more likely to assimilate in place than oral stops (Cho, 1990; Jun, 1995, 2004; Mohanan, 1993). Jun (1995, 2004) argues that this typological asymmetry derives from a difference in the perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants and in oral stops. Since the place contrasts in nasals are perceptually weaker than the place contrasts in oral stops, speakers are more willing to neutralize the former. However, the previous phonetic and psycholinguistic experiments do not provide unambiguous evidence for the weaker perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants (Hura et al., 1992; Mohr & Wang, 1968; Pols, 1983; Winters, 2002). To offer additional experimental findings bearing on this debate, this paper reports two similarity judgment experiments and two identification experiments in noise, which all show the lower perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants in coda. The results are compatible with- and thus can lend support to-Jun’s (1995, 2004) idea that the asymmetry in place assimilation may result from a difference in the perceptibility of place contrasts.

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2 Open Linguistics

2 Kawahara S.

1 Garvey K.

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Japanese /r/ is not feature-less: A rejoinder to Labrune (2014)

Nasal place assimilation and the perceptibility of place contrasts