Incipient tonogenesis in Phnom Penh Khmer: Acoustic and perceptual studies

Abstract Unlike many languages of Southeast Asia, Khmer (Cambodian) is not a tone language. However, in the colloquial speech of the capital Phnom Penh, /r/ is lost in onsets, reportedly supplanted by a range of other acoustic cues such as aspiration, a falling- or low-rising f0 contour, breathy voice quality, and in some cases diphthongization, e.g. /krɑː/ ‘poor’>[kɑ], [khɔˇɑ], [k ɔ ¨ ɑ ¨ ], /kruː/  ‘teacher’>[k u ` ː], [khuˇː], [k u ¨ ː ]. This paper presents the results of production and perception studies designed to shed light on this unusual sound change. Acoustic evidence shows that colloquial /CrV/ forms differ from reading pronunciation forms in terms of VOT, f0, and spectral balance measures, while a pair of perceptual studies demonstrate that f0 is a sufficient cue for listeners to distinguish underlying /CrV/-initial from /CV/-initial forms, but that F1 is not. I suggest that this sound change may have arisen via the perceptual reanalysis of changes in spectral balance, coupled with the coarticulatory influence of the dorsal gesture for /r/.

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