Chronicle of a linguistic form foretold

It’s a well-known fact that words in many languages, like Dutch, begin with a lip sound (p b m f v w) relatively often, but frequently end with a tongue tip sound (l n d r t s). Many words in the first phrase of this piece start with a lip sound, for example, and more than half of them end with a tongue tip sound. The question is why. 

This dissertation addresses this phenomenon in Spanish, English and Dutch, and argues that it’s to do with ease of articulation for the language user, and optimal clarity for the listener. Lip sounds are not only audible, but also visible for a conversation partner (you see the lips move) and therefore clearer. Tongue tip sounds are probably easier to make. 

 A word is often recognised before it is completed. If you hear “I’d like a cup of c…” you probably know enough after the first sound. It is not surprising, then, that the first sound of a word needs to be clearer (many lip sounds), but you make less of an effort at the end of a word (many tongue tip sounds). 

A new finding is that word stress also influences the proportion of lip sounds and tongue tip sounds. In Spanish, however, less is known about the relevance of word stress for word recognition than in Dutch in English. Our experiment shows that Spanish speakers have a keen ear for word stress.

Dissertation: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/ccf14224-65b7-4753-aace-7623162c672a