The Laryngeal Specifications of Fricatives

Though laryngeal features have been a central concern of phonologists for more than 25 years (see Kim 1970, Halle and Stevens 1971, Thráinsson 1978, Iverson 1983, Keating 1984, Lombardi 1991, Blevins 1993, Kingston and Diehl 1994, Iverson and Salmons 1995), little attention has been given to the laryngeal specifications of fricatives. Halle and Stevens (1971) suggest that fricatives are generally [1spread glottis] (roughly equivalent to ‘‘unaspirated’’ in traditional terms), but can exceptionally be [`spread], as in Burmese. The same view is tacitly accepted by many phonologists and phoneticians (see, e.g., Maddieson 1984, Catford 1988). Recent phonetic work by among others Kingston (1990) and Stevens (1991) has suggested, however, that at least voiceless fricatives are generally produced with a spread glottis. According to Stevens, a voiceless fricative cannot be produced without spreading the glottis, because this glottal adjustment is necessary in order to build up sufficient pressure behind the constriction formed by the primary articulator for the fricative. On the basis of this observation, Halle (1995) proposes that all fricatives are [`spread]. Halle’s proposal also encounters a number of problems, however. It is difficult, for example, to distinguish Burmese plain s from aspirated s, both of which must be [`spread] in his model. Halle’s generalization also fails to account for Catford’s observation that voiced obstruents are accompanied by a narrowing of the glottis (1977:112). In this article I propose a system of laryngeal specifications that accounts both for the phonetic observations of Kingston, Stevens, and Catford and for the phonological behavior of fricatives in a number of languages with rich systems of laryngeal contrasts: the New Julfa dialect of Armenian, Pali, Sanskrit, Greek, and Thai. The phonological phenomena to be considered here strongly suggest that the unmarked specification for voiceless fricatives is [`spread], and the specification for voiced fricatives is [1spread].