Quantifying the Sonority Hierarchy

Parker measures the acoustic correlates of sonority and proposes a universal hierarchy of sixteen classes (Table 5.28), which languages conflate by merging adjacent classes. The modal hierarchy of five classes, Clements's, is such a conflation (Class.coarsens_toSonority).

Within the obstruents, fricatives outrank stops and voiced obstruents voiceless ones, two orders Parker takes as fixed. An obstruent class is its values of [continuant] and [voice], and the two orders together are the product order. A ranking strictly monotone for it is then fixed by how it compares the voiceless fricatives with the voiced stops, so that (3.6) lists every such ranking (le_iff_hierarchy_le). However the classes are ranked, [continuant] and [voice] do not both divide them into contiguous classes (not_contiguous_continuant_and_voice): (3.6a) keeps those of [continuant] contiguous, Parker's default (3.6b) those of [voice], and the tie (3.6c) none (contiguous_hierarchy). Unlike the four features of the modal hierarchy, then, [continuant] and [voice] cannot both cut the sonority hierarchy at one point.

Main definitions

• Parker2002.Obstruent: an obstruent class, by its values of [continuant] and [voice], ordered by the product order.
• Parker2002.hierarchy: the rankings of the obstruents in (3.6), indexed by how they compare the voiceless fricatives with the voiced stops.
• Parker2002.Class, Parker2002.Class.rankWith: the classes of Table 5.28 and their ranks, with the obstruents ranked by a hierarchy of (3.6); Class.rank takes Parker's default.

References

• Parker 2002, Quantifying the Sonority Hierarchy