Phonological features and representations meet the Munchausen syndrome

Abstract

Phonetic/phonological analytic techniques are applied to an unusual method of speaking developed by an English-speaking patient with the Munchausen syndrome. This patient's phonetic output was restricted to vowels, nonlateral voiced approximants, and the glottal stop. An analysis of this class of sounds, especially the glottal stop, is provided from the points of view of articulatory phonetics and segmental/autosegmental generative phonology. The preferred solution is seen to require the articulatory definitions of the manner features (Halle and Clements, 1983) - [sonorant], [continuant] - and the source features (Halle and Stevens, 1971) - [spread], [constricted], [stiff], [slack] - as well as the multitiered representations in autosegmental theory (Goldsmith, 1979).