Doctoral Dissertation Research: Palatalization in Romanian

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

Within the larger context of the Romance languages, Romanian stands alone in displaying a set of palatalized consonants (characterized by the raising of the tongue with the articulation of the consonant). For example, [lup] 'wolf' differs from [lup'] 'wolves' only in the presence of the palatalized property of the final consonant, indicated by the apostrophe. The present study will document experimentally the existence of this type of palatalization within the larger Romance family, thereby providing insight into an understudied phenomenon in a language family that has otherwise been studied abundantly. Previous experiments have shown that the perceptual properties of Romanian palatalization are somewhat different from those obtained in other languages where this phenomenon is present, such as Russian and Japanese. While in other languages palatalization of consonants seems to be more perceptible at the alveolar place of articulation (e.g. t) than at the labial place of articulation (e.g. p), in Romanian the opposite seems to be the case. In order to verify and further investigate the perceptual properties of palatalization, as well as to analyze its acoustic properties, the present research project will conduct three additional experiments in Romania with native speakers of this language. The benefits to be derived from this work are threefold. First, this study will provide systematic experimental documentation of the existence of this type of palatalization in Romanian. Second, the descriptive generalizations resulting from this investigation will contribute new data relevant in settling a number of theoretical issues regarding the nature of palatalized consonants in Romanian and more generally. Finally, the ways in which Romanian palatalization both departs from and conforms to the larger typological framework will be explored, thereby advancing our understanding of palatalization from a cross-linguistic perspective.