P-trac Procedure: The Dispersion and Neutralization of Contrasts in Lexicon

TL;DR

This paper introduces the P-trac procedure to analyze how phonological contrasts disperse across lexicon contexts, supporting phonetic basis theories of language structure.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel P-trac procedure for tracking contrast dispersion in lexicon, validated on Persian phonological data.

Findings

P-trac effectively reveals contrast dispersion in lexicon.

Contrast dispersion varies across different phonological contexts.

Results support phonetic basis theories of contrast dispersion.

Abstract

Cognitive acoustic cues have an important role in shaping the phonological structure of language as a means to optimal communication. In this paper we introduced P-trac procedure in order to track dispersion of contrasts in different contexts in lexicon. The results of applying P-trac procedure to the case of dispersion of contrasts in pre- consonantal contexts and in consonantal positions of CVCC sequences in Persian provide Evidence in favor of phonetic basis of dispersion argued by Licensing by Cue hypothesis and the Dispersion Theory of Contrast. The P- trac procedure is proved to be very effective in revealing the dispersion of contrasts in lexicon especially when comparing the dispersion of contrasts in different contexts.