Assibilated laterals in acoustics and typology

Typological studies on sound change, palatalization and consonant harmony consider lateral consonants among liquids and do not pay much attention to lateral fricatives. Researchers show that palatalization transforms lateral sonorants to j or rhotics, whereas lateral fricatives receive only “secondary” palatalization, or additional articulation of palatalization. In this article, I focus on several cases of lateral-to-sibilant change, as a result of palatalization and of high acoustic variability of both laterals and sibilants. Lateral consonants are characterised by certain invariant properties of their spectrum; however, these consonants are generally characterised by a high degree of cross-linguistic variation. The voiceless alveolar fricative consonant i, which is the most common voiceless lateral, varies cross-linguistically more than any other fricative. I believe that the articulatory properties of laterals predispose them to high variability. Several acoustic characteristics can make laterals and sibilants similar: high intensity, high frequencies, “flat” spectrum. As a result, in some languages laterals can have- either across the board, or conditionally, or sporadically-realisations with a high degree of sibilant noise. In my article, I present three steps of the process: acoustic variation that is neglected in descriptions (Chukchi, Ubykh, Khanty, Andi), alternations in modern languages (Koryak) and reconstructed sound change (Turkic and Abkhaz-Adyghe). The analysis of linguistic reconstructions shows that in the Abkhaz-Adyghe, Turkic and Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages scholars suggest that lateral fricatives changed to alveolar or postalveolar sibilants. In modern Chukotka-Koryak languages there are pairs of words and morphemes similar or identical in meaning and distinguished by the “alternating” lateral or sibilant. To assess sporadic assibilation, field recordings in Khanty, Chukchi, Andi, and Ubykh were analyzed. Spectra and dynamic spectrograms show similarity between i and s, i and f While numerous examples of acoustic similarity and overlapping between laterals and sibilants can be found in modern languages, they are not discussed in linguistic descriptions or even in specialized phonetic papers. Among the reasons I can suggest perceptual correction that allows the listener to ignore sporadic assibilations of laterals, which are an intermediate step between the variability of the typical lateral consonant and the assibilations that the phonetic description captures. The author expresses her gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and the editorial board of the journal for their valuable comments and assistance. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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