Laryngeal Contrasts in Fenno-Swedish, Russian, Hungarian, Turkish & Norwegian

University Of Iowa, Iowa City IA

Investigators

Abstract

Accurate data about the phonetic details of consonants in most languages are very difficult to find, even for some of the best-studied languages. Although discussions of the types of different consonants found in languages of the world have been a central concern of linguists for at least two decades, progress has been impeded because, in many cases, inaccurate data have been repeated by researchers, and in other cases, crucial data have simply not been available. Preliminary investigations indicate that descriptions that take new and more accurate phonetic data into account are often surprisingly different from earlier descriptions, leading to new insights about specific languages and about cross-linguistic similarities and differences. Recordings of native speakers of five languages with different consonant systems (Turkish, Norwegian, Hungarian, Fenno-Swedish and Russian) have been made. The consonants in these recordings will be analyzed acoustically. The goals of this research are (a) to provide phonetically accurate descriptions of the consonant systems of these languages and (b) to compare the consonant systems found in these languages, and (c) to study the implications of the results for our understanding of the type of variation that is found cross-linguistically. The study will contribute to the understanding of language, especially of how sound systems are organized, how they differ from language to language, and where there are similarities. Such understanding is important to all areas of research on sound systems, both theoretical and applied, including language acquisition (both first and second), language loss, language change and speech perception.