DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Quantifying the Sonority Hierarchy

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

The general topic of this dissertation is sonority. Specifically, the following issues will be addressed: (1) What is sonority? (2) What is the articulatory, acoustic, and/or auditory basis of sonority? (3) How should sonority be quantified? (4) Is the sonority scale universal or language-specific? and (5) What role should sonority play in formal phonological constraints? It has long been recognized that sonority differences determine the sequencing of sounds within syllables, a pattern observed in all languages. In order to explain this universal effect, many linguists have suggested that sonority derives from differences in how sounds are pronounced or perceived. However, to date a phonetic definition of sonority (in articulatory, acoustic, or perceptual terms) has remained elusive. Consequently, a number of phonologists and phoneticians have questioned the theoretical validity of sonority altogether, claiming that this notion is impossible to characterize in a concrete way. Consequently, the potential contribution of this project is to resolve a long-standing controversy regarding the physical basis of sonority. The goal of this project is to determine which of five physical parameters best characterizes sonority differences: intensity (loudness), peak rate of oral air flow, peak intraoral air pressure, constriction duration, or frequency of the first formant. Each of these characteristics will be systematically studied in the speech of multiple native speakers of both English and Spanish for all language-specific phonemes, consonants and vowels alike. The objective of this research is to demonstrate that sonority can be quantified in a precise, consistent, non-arbitrary, and phonetically-grounded way based on the values of one or more of these physical correlates.