The perception of lenis and fortis plosives in French. A critical re-evaluation

This paper presents a re-evaluation of the data contained in two articles by W. van Dommelen published in Phonetica 40 (1983) and 42 (1985). It is argued that greater generalization is possible for lenis/fortis perception in French C1C2 stop-obstruent clusters. First of all, they follow single stops in that the extent of voicing in the whole cluster has the strongest cue value and that the release feature of C1 is also important; its absence results in less clearly defined response functions. This means, secondly, that stop-stop and stop-fricative sequences produce the same results when the characteristic plosive aspiration features are absent in the former and merged into the fricative in the latter. Thirdly, a fortis obstruent in second position heightens lenis perception in the preceding stop by auditory contrast, not by its phonological status.