ScholarWorks@성균관대학교

초록

This study demonstrates that a muscle-based approach provides an explanatory account of the affrication and palatalization of Japanese /t/ that are difficult to explain using conventional phonological approaches. The central asymmetry is that /t/ becomes [tc] with a posterior place before front high /i/, whereas it becomes [ts] without change in place of articulation before non-front high /w/. The results of the simulations using the 3D tongue model of ArtiSynth show that the shape of the tongue for the letter /t/ varies depending on the coarticulated tautosyllabic vowels. This is because the activated muscle bundle of the tongue differs based on the vowels. In the context of /i/, a muscle activation lowering the tip of the tongue is essential to keep the tip of the tongue from going out of the mouth. The palatalization of /t/ is characterized by a lowered tongue tip and an elevated tongue body. In the coarticulation of tautosyllabic /t/ and /w/, the activated tongue muscle raised the entire tongue without significantly lowering the tongue tip, causing affrication of /t/. The affrication and palatalization of Japanese /t/ are formally captured in an Optimality-Theoretic (OT) analysis as assimilations of constriction orientation (CO) between the tongue tip and body in tautosyllabic onset-vowel sequences, grounded in a muscle-based account and gestural representations. The proposed OT grammar that uses AGREE(CO) and IDENT(CO) can derive the Japanese /t/ alternation patterns. (Sungkyunkwan University)

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