A Hierarchy of Phonetic Constraints on Palatality in Russian

Alexei Kochetov


	This paper investigates the factors responsible for neutralization of 
plain-palatalized contrasts focusing on the phonotactics of Russian. I adopt an 
approach that derives neutralization from phonetic perceptual and articulatory 
factors (Licensing by Cue: Steriade 1997). Based on acoustic properties of 
palatalized stops and their distributional facts I determine the relative 
salience of contextual cues to Russian palatalized stops and propose a 
perceptibility scale, which is formalized as harmonic ranking of constraints 
requiring neutralization of palatality in different environments. Constraints on 
gesture combinations that result in fewer cues are ranked higher, and those with 
more cues are found lower. Ranking the faithfulness constraint PRESPAL (Preserve 
a palatalized contrast) against the fixed hierarchy yields a language-particular 
type of neutralization allowing for different patterns of places of 
articulation. The paper provides additional support for the view that phonetics 
plays an important role in determining environments for the neutralization of 
phonological contrasts.

Key words: 
constraints, phonetics, phonology, phonotactics, neutralization, phonetic cues, 
palatalized, stops, Russian, Optimality Theory.