Laboratory Phonology

Update for the #LabPhon community: From now on, the ALP will focus its microblogging on BlueSky. Find us there! bsky.app/profile/labpho…

We're delighted to announce that #LabPhon20 will be held in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in the (North American) summer of 2026, with the theme “Looking back and looking forward.” Dates, thematic sessions, invited speakers, and more will be announced by the organizers. #LabPhon

How marginal can phonological contrasts be? In Zongozotla #Totonac, phonation type and glottal stops are phonologically contrastive, but they are weakly differentiated phonetically and the glottal stops only surface phrase-finally. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Vowel & consonant duration vary inversely in Australian #Yolngu language Djambarrpuyŋu, so what’s contrastive? A pair of production & perception studies show that V length is contrastive, though both V & C duration influence perception #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

How is #pharyngealization implemented? In #Tashlhiyt, it's signaled in #coronals by a lowered tongue body and lowered F2 in nearby vowels, which can extend into larger phonetic domains. doi.org/10.16995/labph… #openaccess #LabPhon @phbuech @dejliglejlighed @rachid_ridouane

Most models of #word recognition assume that the input is faithful to the #phonological specifications in the #lexicon, but this is not always the case. How does word recognition work in such unusual cases? #Mawng #Iwaidja #lenition #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

How does dialect exposure affect perceptual adaptation to a novel vowel shift? New results from regional US dialects explore listeners' behaviors via lexical decision tasks to understand the mechanisms governing generalization ability. #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/labph…

In #Chicago the #vowels LOT/THOUGHT are in flux—how do speakers maintain their contrast? Articulatory & perceptual results show that lip rounding, not necessarily tongue position, provides auditory & visual differentiation. @jhavenhill #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Linguists have often observed prosody-syntax interactions in #informationstructure marking, but do speakers rely less on #prosody when #clefting can mark focus? In #Mandarin, such tradeoffs aren't found in production or perception: doi.org/10.16995/labph… #LabPhon #openaccess

In word shadowing tasks, do participants imitate formant frequencies or vowel shifts? Given the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, talkers imitate normalized phonetic properties of NCVS vowels, not the model talker's high F1,F2 frequencies. #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Prosody encodes multiple types of information simultaneously. How do focus & constituency interact to shape prosody in speech production? Results from #Mandarin & #English suggest they are encoded orthogonally via F0, duration, dB. #openaccess #LabPhon doi.org/10.16995/labph…

How is phonological alternation represented in the brain? Analysis of brain event-related potentials during processing of lexical tone alternations in #Cantonese and #Mandarin links cross-linguistic differences to lexical distribution. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Is Lyman’s Law sensitive to a distance-and-decay effect, as observed for dissimilation in other languages? New research by @PhoneticsKeio shows #rendaku in #Japanese is sensitive to a locality effect, despite an absence of lexical evidence. doi.org/10.16995/labph… #openaccess

How can researchers diagnose whether word #stress is stored lexically? A comparison of listeners' stress recall ability across #PapuanMalay and #German highlights perceptual differences in fixed-stress and free-stress systems. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Is #wordstress stored as an abstract structure in our minds, or instead as #phonetic detail? In this #LabPhon article, speakers choosing #stress for novel words are influenced by abstract, not phonetic, stress patterns of previous novel words. #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Can syllable weight & word minimality distinguish metrical structure in #English & #Portuguese? Experimental analysis reveals significant representational differences, w/robust support for metrical feet in English but not Portuguese. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

How reliable is #remote recording for #prosody research? @congprosody's new #LabPhon study compares acoustic features over time for a lab-quality recorder vs three #remote options using #dynamic methods. Read more to learn its recommendations! #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Can we signal prosodic #prominence when we speak loudly? A new #LabPhon article by members of the @SpeeDy_Lab explores the flexibility and robustness of #articulatory and #acoustic signatures of focus structure across speaking styles. doi.org/10.16995/labph… #openaccess

How much do you know about an utterance before you speak it? An eye-tracking study shows that #Estonian speakers' knowledge includes phrasal structure & words, enabling them to adjust pitch in long utterances even on the first word. #LabPhon #openaccess doi.org/10.16995/labph…

Do British choirs sing with an #SSBE accent? @E_JMarshall @jhstuartsmith & @Beniskeys analyze #classical #choral #singing to show that front vowels lower & retract over the 20th century, while Scottish choirs use SSBE vowel phonology. doi.org/10.16995/labph… #openaccess #labphon