Can mergers-in-progress be unmerged in speech accommodation?

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Phonetics
• Sociolinguistics

Background:

• Examines spontaneous phonetic accommodation in speakers undergoing sound category mergers.
• Focuses on the NEAR-SQUARE lexical set merger in New Zealand English (NZE).
• Investigates mergers-in-progress, highlighting the perception-production asymmetry in sound change.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze spontaneous phonetic imitation of an unmerged dialect (Australian English) by NZE speakers.
• To quantify phonetic imitation using perceptual and acoustic measures.
• To explore the influence of extralinguistic factors on phonetic accommodation.

Main Methods:

• Participants were exposed to an Australian English speaker with unmerged NEAR and SQUARE sets.
• Spontaneous phonetic imitation was measured using perceptual evaluation.
• Acoustic analysis quantified mergedness using the Pillai-Bartlett trace.

Main Results:

• Phonetic imitation was significantly moderated by extralinguistic factors, including assigned condition valence and social bias.
• A decrease in the degree of mergedness was observed in post-exposure productions.
• Both perceptual and acoustic analyses supported these findings.

Conclusions:

• Under specific conditions, New Zealanders exhibit spontaneous phonetic accommodation towards Australian English.
• Speech imitation can lead to a reduction in mergedness for mergers-in-progress, though this effect is not consistent.
• Highlights the dynamic interplay between social factors and phonetic change during language acquisition and contact.