The goal of this dissertation is to explore the phonetic bases of intervocalic lenition-
specifically, voicing and spirantization of intervocalic stops. A traditional understanding of …

Despite the pervasiveness of lenition in the sound systems of natural language, this class of
patterns has eluded adequate characterization in previous theories of phonology …

This paper argues that processes traditionally classified as lenition fall into at least two
subsets, with distinct phonetic reflexes, formal properties and characteristic contexts. One …

De scriptions of lenition have often assumed that connected speech reductions are the
phonetic precursors of phonological lenition processes. In this article, production of …

There is considerable tacit agreement among phonologists and phoneticians about the
prototypical uses of the terms 'lenition'and 'fortition'. However, in the phonetic dimension the …

Despite differences in parsimony and philosophical orientation, physical and abstract
theories of phonology often make similar empirical predictions. This study examines a case …

Experimental evidence suggests that syllable-final devoicing is often 'incomplete': devoiced
obstruents are phonetically subtly different from underlyingly voiceless ones, and speakers …

Many speech sounds undergo weakening, or lenition. Flapping of English/t/intervocalically
is one well-documented example (eg write vs. writer), as is the shift of the series/t:, t, d/to/t, d …

This paper argues that consonants are not lenited to reduce articulatory effort, but instead to
increase their intensity and thereby reduce the extent to which they interrupt the stream of …

This book analyzes 153 languages from a large variety of families to establish a previously
unexplored relationship between phonetically conditioned sound changes such as lenitions …