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Variation in nasal–obstruent clusters and its influence on price and mouth in Scouse1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2015

AMANDA CARDOSO
AMANDA CARDOSO*
Affiliation:
Linguistics and English Language, University of Edinburgh, Dugald Stewart Building, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article has two main goals: (i) to show how nasal–obstruent clusters interact with a Canadian-Raising-type pattern in Liverpool English and (ii) to provide evidence that fine phonetic variation in the realisation of nasal–obstruent clusters influences the production of the preceding vowels. I present quantitative evidence from an acoustic study on price and mouth vowel realisations before nasal–obstruent clusters in Liverpool English. The investigation looks at price and mouth separately before obstruents, nasals and nasal–obstruent clusters, in order to demonstrate that nasal–obstruent clusters influence vowels differently depending on the quality of the vowel. Price realisations before nasal–obstruent clusters are similar to productions before singleton obstruents with the same voicing. Specifically, price has a raised realisation before nasal–voiceless obstruent clusters, but a non-raised realisation before nasal–voiced obstruent clusters, which is the same pattern as before singleton obstruents. Mouth realisations preceding nasal–obstruent clusters show evidence of a greater influence from the nasal. The nucleus formant measurements are similar to those before singleton obstruents, but there is frequent monophthongisation preceding nasal–obstruent clusters in mouth, which is mainly found before singleton nasals. Furthermore, I show that the variation in nasal–obstruent clusters in Liverpool English helps to explain the differences in realisation of the target vowels. Nasal deletion is more frequent in nasal–voiceless obstruent clusters following price, leading to vowel productions similar to those before singleton voiceless obstruents. However, nasal durations are longer in nasal–obstruent clusters following mouth, leading to a greater influence of the nasal in the form of more monophthongal vowel productions.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , November 2015 , pp. 505 - 532
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Patrick Honeybone, Warren Maguire, Lauren Hall-Lew and Márton Sóskuthy for providing insightful advice and support. I would also like to thank Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero and an anonymous reviewer for the useful suggestions and comments.

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