The Origin of Vowel Length Neutralization in Final Position: Evidence from Finnish Speakers
The Origin of Vowel Length Neutralization in Final Position: Evidence from Finnish Speakers
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尾位元音长度中和的起源：来自芬兰语使用者的证据
DOI：
10.1007/s11049-006-0001-7
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发表时间：
2007
影响因子：
1.3
通讯作者：
Benjamin B. Hansen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Scott Myers;Benjamin B. Hansen
在各种元音长度不同的语言中，长元音被系统地排除在词尾位置之外，取而代之的是短元音。这是尽管一个领域(话语、短语、单词)末尾的元音通常比相应的非韵母在持续时间上更长。我们认为，韵尾缩略的语音模式历时地产生于韵尾清音的影响--发声在话语结束时的破裂。对最后一个元音进行部分清音会使人们很难听到这个元音的结尾，因此有利于将最后一个元音识别为短元音。如果语言学习者概括了这样的识别模式，他们就采用了最终的缩写模式。对芬兰语使用者进行的一系列实验支持了这一主张，即部分无声的元音往往被认为是短的。前两个实验证实，语言中既有最后的延长，也有最后的清音。三个进一步的实验表明，芬兰语说话者根据元音浊化部分的持续时间来识别部分清音韵母的长度类别，因此元音的部分清音增加了被识别为短元音的概率。
In a broad variety of languages with contrastive vowel length, long vowels are systematically excluded from a domain-final position, and are replaced with short vowels there. This is despite the fact that vowels at the end of a domain (utterance, phrase, word) are generally longer in duration than corresponding nonfinal vowels. We propose that the phonological pattern of final shortening arises diachronically from the effects of final devoicing – the breakdown in voicing at the end of an utterance. Partial devoicing of the final vowel makes it difficult to hear the end of the vowel and so favors identification of final vowels as short. If language learners generalize such an identification pattern, they have adopted a final shortening pattern. The claim that partially voiceless final vowels tend to be identified as short is supported by a series of experiments with Finnish speakers. The first two experiments establish that there is both final lengthening and final devoicing in the language. Three further experiments show that Finnish speakers identify the length category of partially voiceless final vowels on the basis of the duration of its voiced portion, so that partial devoicing of a vowel increases the probability of its being identified as short.