Association for Laboratory Phonology

@msonderegger.bsky.social and #LabPhon20 colleagues, can you offer insight here?

Exploring the social meaning of the ‘leader-lagger’ vowels in New Zealand English Clusters of New Zealand English (NZE) monophthongs systematically covary across speakers (Brand et al., 2021; Hurring et al., 2025), meaning information about how a speaker realises one vowel also giv...

Pronunciation of New Zealand English monophthongs varies across speakers, distinguishing ‘leaders’ from ‘laggers’ of ongoing sound changes. But do listeners make social judgements based on these vowels? Yes! doi.org/10.16995/lab... @jbhay.bsky.social @joshwilsonblack.bsky.social #LabPhon #openaccess

Association for Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon) | LinkedIn Association for Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon) | An international body of scholars committed to advancing knowledge on the phonetics and phonology of human languages | The Association for Laboratory P...

Hey #LabPhon community, the Association is growing its social media offerings. Join us over on LinkedIn, as well!

www.linkedin.com/company/labp...

Cross-linguistic phonetic recalibration in bilingual lexical processing The study explores phonetic recalibration as a novel method for investigating sound-category linkages across languages, by examining cross-linguistic generalization of phoneme retuning among Spanish-E...

Are sound categories separate or integrated across languages in #bilingual speakers? Phonetic recalibration suggests asymmetrical linkages across languages, in this study of cross-linguistic generalization of phoneme retuning by #Spanish–English speakers. #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Adventures in /Ɂ/ The glottal stop is a speech sound with varying functions. It can occur as a phoneme in its own right, as a marker of prosodic boundaries, as a replacement of oral stops, and as the replacement for le...

What happens when a speech sound is both everywhere and nowhere? @holmit.bsky.social shows that glottal stop /ʔ/ differently affects lexical access in #German and #Maltese, in ways that are counterintuitive to its phonemic status in those languages. doi.org/10.16995/lab... #LabPhon #openaccess

Phrasing and prominence disambiguate clefted Relative Clauses We investigated the prosodic disambiguation of string-identical it-clefts with Connected Clauses(-Who sang? -It was [the editor] [that sang]) versus clefted Relative Clauses (-Who called? -Itwas [the ...

Without #prosody, cleft sentences hide an understudied ambiguity: "It was the man that fell" answers "Who fell?” but ALSO infinite competing questions like "Who cried?”. Prosody supports resolving such ambiguities in both #production and #comprehension. doi.org/10.16995/lab... #LabPhon #openaccess

A multi-cue study to the interpretation of German information-seeking and rhetorical questions The meaning of an utterance can be conveyed by a number of prosodic cues, but their relative contribution is often unclear. We tested the interpretation of German questions as information-seeking (Exp...

Is there a rhetorical question “tune”? In an active-learning scenario testing relative cue weights, individual tonal cues have more impact on question interpretation in #German than tone combinations or non-tonal cues like voice quality or duration. #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Morphological effects in speech reduction are speaker specific and may partly originate from the words’ most frequent phonological context Recently, a number of studies have investigated whether the morphological status of a segment (e.g., whether a segment is part of a stem, a noun suffix, or verb suffix) affects its pronunciation. Most...

Are morphological effects on phonetic #reduction byproducts of phonological context? Patterns of reduction by #Dutch final /ən/ show that some, not all, differences across #morphological categories can be explained by words' typical #phonological context. doi.org/10.16995/lab... #openaccess #LabPhon

In #speechperception, listener expectations, e.g. about how sounds produced by men & women differ, can influence phoneme categorization. Do #L2 listeners use expectations about speaker gender even for contrasts absent from their #L1? #LabPhon #openaccess @isf-oeaw.bsky.social doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Syllable structure and lexical pitch accent in Split Croatian Contour tones in most languages are restricted to relatively sonorous syllable types. Relatively rare are languages that permit contour tones on all syllables, including less sonorous ones. There is a...

Most languages phonologically restrict #contour #tones to more sonorous syllable types. How does #Split #Croatian, a language that permits contour tone crowding on all syllables, phonetically accommodate contours even for short vowels and obstruent codas? #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/lab...

The acquisition of L2 English complex onsets by L1 Farsi speakers Much previous work has shown that sibilant-initial complex onsets (SC onsets) differ in their typological, phonological, articulatory, and acquisitional properties from other onsets. The exact mechani...

Complex onsets that begin with #sibilants differ from other complex onsets in their phonological properties, articulation, and acquisition. What makes them special?

#LabPhon #Farsi #L2Phonology #epenthesis #openaccess

doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Investigating potential MERGED and DISTINCT speakers in an ongoing merger — Evidence from production and perception This study investigates whether it is possible to use evidence from production and perception to identify different types of speakers in the study of the ongoing merger of /ʃ/ and /ç/ in Norwegian. Sp...

Can we reliably identify MERGED vs. DISTINCT speakers during ongoing sound change? #Acoustics + #perception data from #Norwegian /ʃ, ç/ show that a principled boundary between speaker groups does not exist. doi.org/10.16995/lab...
#openaccess #LabPhon @timoroettger.bsky.social @stausland.bsky.social

The effects of contextual tonal variation on Cantonese tone merging Previous studies on Cantonese tone merging have examined monosyllabic materials so far, yet disyllabic words are common in daily conversation. Sound change often originates from a pool of synchronic v...

Q: How does tonal coarticulation in disyllabic words of #Cantonese contribute to tone merging and inform research on #soundchange? A: The two interact dynamically, with carryover effects in extreme tonal contexts emerging as an important source of change. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/lab...

When a tone in #Huaiyuan #Chinese changes to sound like another is it a perfect copy, or can listeners still hear a difference? An investigation of tone sandhi suggests that neutralization of perceptual categories can override subtle acoustic differences. doi.org/10.16995/lab...
#LabPhon #openaccess

Take a short SURVEY to help #LabPhon20 organizers understand what might constrain in-person conference attendance, given issues of immigration, funding, and accessibility. We strive to make a realistic and equitable conference plan, including for students.

ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Convening for #LabPhon20 in Montreal is an opportunity to celebrate 40 years of #LabPhon.

We invite the ALP community to gather videos, pictures, memories, & artifacts from the last 4 decades, for presentation in Montreal. To help curate and organize materials, please contact labphon20@gmail.com.

CALL FOR PAPERS, #LabPhon20:
Deadline to submit abstracts is Dec 1, 2025. Abstract guidelines and submission link available in Oct 2025.

CALL FOR SATELLITE WORKSHOP PROPOSALS: Deadline for satellite workshop proposals is Nov 1, 2025. Events' date is June 25, 2026.

labphon.org/labphon20/ca...

The conference website for #LabPhon20 is now live: labphon.org/labphon20/home

#LabPhon 20 will happen in #Montréal, Québec, Canada, June 26–28, 2026, with additional pre-conference events on June 25. The call for papers and proposals for satellite workshops will be circulated in late August 2025.

We are excited to announce our #LabPhon Association's 2025 off-season programming, a series of three events on #prosody and #suprasegmentals. All events are scheduled during July and August, and they're FREE for ALP members. 😎 🌞 Info and registration are available here: labphon.org/content/summ...

A new perspective on the development of Quebec French rhotic vowels Quebec French is reportedly developing rhoticity, with low F3 resulting from a bunched or retroflexed tongue (like English /ɚ/), in some or all of the front mid rounded vowels /ø, œ, œ̃ /. The source ...

How do rare sound changes, like the development of rhotic vowels, actuate and spread? @massimolipari.github.io and @msonderegger.bsky.social show that rhotacization of 3 #QuebecFrench vowels emerges from an interplay of social + phonological pressures. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/lab...

New insights into German #prosody! How do speakers & listeners distinguish utterance-medial vs. utterance-final #intonation boundaries in #German? Subtle differences in intonation, particularly in the rhyme's f0, are key cues for listeners. #LabPhon #openaccess #kinematics doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Final Devoicing before it happens: A large-scale study of word-final obstruents in French This paper investigates the phonetic precursors of Final Devoicing in a large corpus of natural French speech. We argue that this evaluation should consider the magnitude of the [voice] contrast, rath...

Is final devoicing as well-understood as we think? A new #LabPhon paper uses large #French corpora + Bayesian modeling to show its phonetic precursors fit typology better when viewed as multidimensional contrast neutralization. #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Learning new speech sounds in remote and in-person protocols: Benefits, drawbacks, and considerations for future research In-laboratory training of novel speech sounds has provided significant insight into how adult language learners learn new sounds. However, this training is often costly in terms of time in lab for par...

New in #LabPhon: How well do adult language learners acquire new sound contrasts, in remote vs. in-laboratory environments? Results show that both paradigms result in learning, but there are trade-offs in both protocol types. @m2b2.bsky.social @spplab.bsky.social #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Linguistic experience and social factors in speech perception: the case of merged speakers of Mandarin sibilants This work explores the combined effects of social expectations and a speaker’s production characteristics on the perception of alveolar versus retroflex sibilants that are variably merged in Taiwan Ma...

How are social expectations employed in cases of mergers in progress? A study of #TaiwanMandarin #sibilants finds that merged speakers may be somewhat desensitized to acoustic cues, but they readily employ social cues in speech perception. #sociophonetics #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Remote data collection in the study of ongoing sound change in Spanish – a comparative analysis In this paper, I look at Canary Islands Spanish /p b/ lenition from a comparative perspective by examining the speech of the same participants produced on different occasions and under different circu...

Can unsupervised self-recordings help researchers capture more naturalistic speech when studying #soundchange? 🎤📱
A study of /p b/ #lenition in Canary Islands #Spanish shows that self-recordings pose some challenges but help reduce the observer’s paradox. #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/lab...

We're delighted to announce that #LabPhon20 will be held in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in the (North American) summer of 2026, with the theme “Looking back and looking forward.” Dates, thematic sessions, invited speakers and further information will be announced by the organizing committee. #LabPhon

At the margins: phonology and phonetics of Zongozotla Totonac glottalization Glottal stops and glottalized (“laryngealized”) vowels in Totonac and Tepehua languages are crucial for historical reconstructions, but their phonological and phonetic properties have often posed anal...

How marginal can phonological contrasts be? In Zongozotla #Totonac, phonation type and glottal stops are phonologically contrastive, but they are weakly differentiated phonetically and the glottal stops only surface phrase-finally. #LabPhon #openaccess #marginalcontrast doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Contrastive vowel length and segment duration in production and perception in Djambarrpuyŋu This paper deals with segment duration and phonological length in production and perception in the Australian language Djambarrpuyŋu. It provides an acoustic phonetic account of vowel and consonant du...

Vowel and consonant duration vary inversely in Australian #Yolngu language Djambarrpuyŋu, so what’s contrastive? A pair of #speechproduction and #speechperception studies show that V length is contrastive, though both V & C duration influence perception. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/lab...

Pharyngealization in Tashlhiyt from kinematic and acoustic perspectives This study investigated the implementation of pharyngealization in Tashlhiyt, across various linguistic contexts VCV, VCCV, VCCV, and VCCCV. We analyzed articulatory and acoustic data from six male sp...

How is pharyngealization realized in across linguistic contexts? In #Tashlhiyt, it's signaled in #coronals by a lowered tongue body & lowered F2 in nearby vowels, which can extend into larger phonetic domains. doi.org/10.16995/lab... #openaccess #LabPhon @phbuech.bsky.social @annehermes.bsky.social

Lenition, fortition, and lexical access in Iwaidja and Mawng Many models of word recognition assume that spoken words are faithful to their phonological shape in the lexicon and that word recognition begins with the first incoming segment and proceeds linearly....

Most models of #word recognition assume the input is faithful to #phonological specifications in the #lexicon, but it's not always the case. Results from #lenition in #Mawng & #Iwaidja explore how recognition occurs in such scenarios. @bjbaker.bsky.social #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/lab...