Retroflex fricatives in Polish
Silke Hamann and Marzena Żygis
ZAS, Berlin
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This study is concerned with the articulatory, acoustic and phonological status of the postalveolar fricatives in Polish and makes three claims. Firstly, we posit that the so-called postalveolars [ʃ ʒ] in Polish (and in Russian) are retroflexes, i.e. [ʂ ʐ], in contrast to the prevailing view (e.g. Rubach 1984, Dogil 1990). Secondly, we show that the palatalized variants of the retroflexes, which occur in Polish foreign words, are not retroflex but palatalized postalveolars, i.e. [ʃj ʒj]). Lastly, we prove that the claim made by Hume (1994) and Halle & Stevens (1997) that alveolopalatals [ɕ] are palatalized postalveolars [ʃj] is wrong, since Polish contrasts the two classes.
Evidence for the first point, that the postalveolars in Polish are retroflex, comes from articulatory phonetics, acoustics and phonology. Articulatorily, this class has a flat, retracted tongue (see Wierzchowska 1980) which is comparable to the retroflex [ʂ] in Mandarin (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996). The same holds for the Russian postalveolars, see Bolla (1981). The postalveolar in Bulgarian is different from Polish and Russian since it has a similar place of articulation and the same domed tongue shape as the English [ʃ] (Bojadziev 1982).
Thus, the criterion for retroflexion employed here is not the traditional bending backwards of the tongue tip (as e.g. Catford 1994), but instead tongue body retraction and flat tongue middle (following Hamann 2003, to appear). The retroflexivity of the Polish postalveolar is confirmed acoustically: its centre of gravity (COG) values are lower than the COGs of the corresponding Bulgarian sibilant and similar to those of the retroflex sibilant in Russian (Zygis 2003). Phonologically, the Polish and Russian retroflex fricatives show an incompatability with front vowels similar to retroflex consonants in other languages such as Norwegian (Kristoffersen 2000), Molinos Mixtec (Hunter & Pike 1969) and Chácobo (Prost 1967). Postalveolar fricatives in Bulgarian, on the other hand, occur frequently with front vowels.
Our second claim that a secondarily palatalized retroflex is realized as a palatalized postalveolar [ʃj] is based on articulatory and phonological evidence. Neither retraction nor flat tongue shape, i.e. our criteria for retroflexion, are present in the palatalized counterpart of the plain retroflex, as x-ray data for e.g. Russian show (Bolla 1981). Thus we argue that for secondarily palatalized fricatives a change in primary articulation from retroflex to postalveolar takes place. Phonologically this claim is supported by the fact that no language contrasts the sounds [ʃj] and [ʂj] (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996).
The third claim, that alveolopalatals and palatalized postalveolars are distinct and not identical as Hume (1994) and Halle & Stevens (1997) claim, is proven by a perceptual and acoustic experiment (Zygis & Hamann 2003). In this test, the two sound classes could be distinguished by Polish and German native speakers. They furthermore show different COG values. Phonologically, Polish has minimal pairs contrasting the two sounds, e.g. siwa [ɕiwa] 'grey' versus Shiva [ʃjiwa] 'Shiva'.
In sum, the articulatory, acoustic and phonological arguments discussed here provide strong evidence for the correctness of the claims made in this paper.
References:
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Hamann, S. (to appear) "Retroflex fricatives in Slavic Languages”. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34,1
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Żygis, M. & S. Hamann (2003) "Perceptual and acoustic cues of Polish coronal fricatives.” Proceedings of the 15th International Conference of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, pp. 395-398.