The functionality of incomplete neutralization in Dutch: The case of the past-tense formation

Abstract

Baayen In many languages, underlyingly voiced obstruents are realized as voiceless in word-final position (Final Devoicing). Previous research has shown that this neutralization of the underlying [voice]-specification may be phonetical-ly incomplete, with underlyingly voiced obstruents being realized as slightly voiced. Listeners are sensitive to incomplete neutralization, since they can tell apart above chance level the phonetic realizations of words underlyingly ending in voiced and voiceless obstruents. This study discusses to what ex-tent incomplete neutralization is functional. It reports a series of experiments showing that incomplete neutralization can be induced in Dutch just by the way words are spelled, and that no minimal word pairs are required for in-complete neutralization to emerge. In addition, these experiments also show that Dutch listeners take advantage of incomplete neutralization, even when there are no task-specific reasons for them to do so. Incomplete neutraliza-tion appears to be a subphonemic cue to past-tense formation, and has a more substantial role in language processing than has been assumed thus far. Finally, our data show that Dutch listeners and speakers dynamically adapt their production and interpretation of the acoustic signal to the voicing prop-erties of the orthographic and acoustic forms encountered previously in the experiment.

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