The role of speech perception in phonology. Ed. by Elizabeth Hume and Keith Johnson. San Diego: Academic Press, 2001. Pp. xviii, 282. ISBN 0123613515. $74.95 (Hb).

Reviewed by: The role of speech perception in phonology ed. by Elizabeth Hume and Keith Johnson Hope C. Dawson The role of speech perception in phonology. Ed. by Elizabeth Hume and Keith Johnson. San Diego: Academic Press, 2001. Pp. xviii, 282. ISBN 0123613515. $74.95 (Hb). This volume grew out of a satellite meeting on ‘The role of perceptual phenomena in phonology’ held in conjunction with the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. The meeting’s general goal ‘was to provide a forum for interaction among speech perception researchers and phonology researchers’, and specific goals included identifying ‘classes of perceptual mechanisms that may offer promising insights into phonological patterns, and classes of phonological models that can capture language-specific auditory/perceptual generalizations’ (xvi). The volume is divided into two sections, the first of which is on ‘The interplay of speech perception and phonology’. In Ch. 1, Elizabeth Hume and Keith Johnson present ‘A model of the interplay of speech perception and phonology’, acknowledging that phonology has traditionally been approached from the articulatory perspective, and attributing the renewed interest in the perceptual side to rapid technological advances and the development of optimality theory. In Ch. 2, ‘The interplay of phonology and perception considered from the perspective of perceptual organization’, Robert E. Remez discusses both unimodal (auditory) and multimodal perceptual organization of speech. One of the conclusions he draws is that there must be ‘a lawful relation between linguistic phonological intentions in speech production and the sensory consequences of phonetic expressions’ (48). Section 2 deals with ‘The perceptual basis of phonological systems’. In Ch. 3, ‘Patterns of perceptual compensation and their phonological consequences’, Patrice Speeter Beddor, Rena Arens Krakow, and Stephanie Lindemann focus on ‘how perceptual phenomena become part of, or are incorporated into, phonological systems’ (56), linking, for example, the perception of vowel-to-vowel coarticulatory effects with vowel harmony systems. Steve S. Chang, Madelaine C. Plauché, and John J. Ohala discuss ‘Markedness and consonant confusion asymmetries’ in Ch. 4, using experimental studies to support their argument that ‘it is the physical, acoustic properties of the sounds themselves that give rise to consonant confusion asymmetries and not markedness effects’ (100). Other topics covered include ‘Effects of vowel context on consonant place identification: Implications for a theory of phonologization’ (Ch. 5, by Jennifer Cole and Khalil Iskarous) and ‘Adaptive design of sound systems: Some auditory considerations’ (Ch. 6, by Randy L. Diehl, Michelle R. Molis, and Wendy A. Castleman). In Ch. 7, Larry Hyman revisits *NC in discussing ‘The limits of phonetic determinism in phonology’, emphasizing that predictions of what is and what is not attested cannot be made on a single dimension alone (174). Jaye Padgett discusses ‘Contrast dispersion and Russian palatalization’ in Ch. 8, and Donca Steriade addresses phonological processes such as apical assimilation in Sanskrit with regard to ‘Directional asymmetries in place assimilation’ (Ch. 9). In the final chapter, ‘Perceptual cues in contrast maintenance’ (Ch. 10), Richard Wright presents experimental evidence in support of considering phonetic cues not as abstract entities but rather as they occur in natural language, with noise and distractions. [End Page 200] The studies presented in this volume offer a good introductory perspective on this area of study and an intriguing look at some of the possibilities that this vein of research offers. A foreword by Björn Lindblom and an index are also included. Hope C. Dawson The Ohio State University Copyright © 2006 Linguistic Society of America