Ambivalence and ambiguity in laterals and nasals

Abstract

Ambivalent segments are speech sounds whose cross-linguistic patterning is especially variable, creating contradictions for theories of universal distinctive features. This paper examines lateral liquids, whose [continuant] specification has been the subject of controversy because of their ability to pattern both with continuants and with non-continuants, and because phonetically they are situated in the contested ground between two different articulatory definitions for the feature [continuant]. Evidence from a survey of sound patterns in 561 languages shows that lateral liquids, like nasals, pattern with continuants about as often as with non-continuants. Ambivalent phonological behaviour is argued to be natural and expected for phonetically ambiguous segments in a theory of emergent distinctive features where features are the result of sound patterns, rather than the other way around.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 192 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.