Perception of glottalization and phrase-final creak

Area of Science:

• Phonetics
• Sociolinguistics
• Acoustic Phonetics

Background:

• American English exhibits multiple sources of creaky voice, including /t/-glottalization and phrase-final creak.
• /t/-glottalization involves producing /t/ as a glottal stop or with creaky voice.
• Phrase-final creak is another common creaky voice phenomenon in English.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether English listeners perceive /t/-glottalization and phrase-final creak as distinct phonetic phenomena.
• To determine if these two types of creaky voice remain perceptually separable when they co-occur.

Main Methods:

• A two-alternative forced choice listening task was employed.
• Sixteen native English listeners identified words in (near-) minimal pairs.
• Stimuli included words with and without /t/-glottalization, presented with and without phrase-final creak.

Main Results:

• Listeners demonstrated high accuracy in identifying words, with minimal errors.
• /t/-glottalization was accurately identified even when co-occurring with phrase-final creak.
• The presence of phrase-final creak did not impede the perception of /t/-glottalization.

Conclusions:

• /t/-glottalization and phrase-final creak are perceptually distinct for English listeners.
• These findings support the view that creaky voice is not a monolithic category.
• Creaky voice encompasses multiple, distinct voice qualities that are separable in perception.