ABSTRACT
Without exception, phonological contrasts (e.g., the voicing distinction in medial stop consonants) are realized by a multiplicity of acoustic correlates, and these correlates tend to be rather uniform across languages, often approximating phonetic universals. This universality has typically prompted phoneticians to seek explanations based on physical or physiological constraints on speech production. Correspondingly, some theoriests have argued that phonetic trading relations (where the perception of one acoustic-phonetic dimension is affected by the setting of another acoustic parameter) result primarily from the listener’s tacit knowledge of the regularities of speech production and their acoustic consequences. We offer the alternative hypothesis that many cue-covariation universals and phonetic trading relations are based on properties of the human auditory system. We suggest that acoustic correlates of a phonological contrast covary as they do because speech communities tend to select cues that have mutually reinforcing auditory effects. To evaluate this auditory hypothesis, our strategy has been to demonstrate a given trading relation between acoustic dimensions that signal a phonological contrast and then to determine whether the same type of trading relation occurs for analogous acoustic dimensions when they signal perceptual distinctions among nonspeech stimuli.
