Explaining Phonetic Variation of Consonants in Vocalic Context

This paper aims to provide preliminary evidence that (at least part of) phonetic phenomena are not simply automatic or arbitrary, but are explained by the functional guidelines, ease of articulation and maintenance of contrasts. The first study shows that languages with more high vowels (e.g., French) allow larger consonantal deviation from its target than languages with less high vowels (e.g., English). This is interpreted as achieving the economy of articulation to a certain extent in order to avoid otherwise extreme articulatory movement to be made in CV syllables due to strict demand on maintaining vocalic contrasts. The second study shows that Russian plain bilabial consonant allows less amount of undershoot due to the neighboring vowels than does English bilabial consonant. This is probably due to the stricter demand on maintaining the consonantal contrasts, plain vs. palatalized, existing only in Russian.