Date Thesis Awarded
5-2022
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Open Access
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Linguistics
Advisor
Anya Hogoboom
Committee Members
Daniel Parker
Kaitlyn Harrigan
Erin Webster
Abstract
This thesis examines the production and perception of aspiration in all possible levels of stress and word positions attested under the left-edge prosodic description theorized by Kiparsky (1979), Withgott (1982), and Jensen (2000), as well as in all attested environments for unaspirated voiceless stops. Through the metric of voice onset time (VOT), I phonetically test the realization of aspiration and examine its perception as categorical in several environments that are not acoustically salient. Through a production study and two linked perception studies I provide acoustic evidence in support of the phonological definition of categorical aspiration as prosodically-motivated in English, and clarify the behavior of aspiration in two related stress lapse environments.
Recommended Citation
Sprinkle, McKinley, "In Search of Phonetic Evidence for Prosodically-Motivated Aspiration" (2022). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 1749.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1749
