Sussman H M
Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1196, USA.
Brain Lang. 1999 Nov;70(2):294-304. doi: 10.1006/brln.1999.2182.
Velar stops are phonetically characterized by two allophones-a palatal "g" when produced in front-vowel contexts and a velar "g" when produced in back-vowel contexts. Acoustic characterizations of velar stops based on plotting the onset and offset frequencies of the second formant transition clearly reveal two acoustically separated allophonic groups. Using cross-linguistic acoustic data, it is shown that alveolar stops fall precisely within the acoustic void created by the velar allophones. A neural-based mapping hypothesis is put forth claiming that the bimodal distribution of velars is an instance of articulatory behavior acting in the service of auditory representation.
