Affricates as Noncontoured Stops

G.N. Clements (1)

1 LPP - LPP - Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie - UMR 7018

This paper reviews evidence that affricates are simple stops bearing no feature [+continuant] and involving no subsegmental contouring at any level of the phonology. The fricative noise associated with the affricate release can usually be regarded as the phonetic implementation of the feature [+strident], as originally proposed by Jakobson, Fant, and Halle (1952). This analysis is strongly confirmed by the principle of Plosive-Affricate Complementarity, according to which the simple-stop analysis of affricates predicts just the attested set of plosive-affricate contrasts and no others, given a rather small set of widely-accepted features. The common process of affrication before high vowels and glides does not involve [+continuant] spreading but reanalysis of the intrusive fricative segment created by aerodynamic conditions at the stop-to-vowel transition.

Mots clés: phonology; affricates; affrication; Plosive-Affricate Complementarity; contour segments

Domaines: Linguistique

G.N. Clements. Affricates as Noncontoured Stops. O. Fujimura, B. Joseph, & B. Palek. Proceedings of LP '98: Item Order in Language and Speech, Prague: The Karolinum Press, pp.271-299, 1999. ⟨halshs-00180381⟩