In this paper we revise the claim made by Halle & Stevens [1] and Maddieson & Ladefoged [2] that the Polish alveolo-palatal fricatives [˛, ¸] are palatalized postalveolars [SJ, ZJ]. On the basis of perceptual experiments we show that alveolo-palatal fricatives and palatalized post-alveolars are two separate sounds which are distinguished not only by Polish native speakers but also by German ones. This claim is partly attested by centre of gravity measurements of the two sibilants. 1.

The present study probes perception of place distinctions among Polish sibilants using an AX discrimination task, and compares results of thirteen Polish- and ten English-speaking subjects. Besides providing information on the relative discriminability of the sibilants, the perceptual study is designed to investigate the claim that a particular kind of diachronic change which has taken place in Polish and other languages, as well as related facts about sibilant inventories, could be perceptually motivated. The results lend support to this claim and to the general view that a principle of dispersion plays a role in explaining sound change tendencies, and therefore in shaping phonological tendencies, for consonants as well as vowels.

The present study poses the question on what phonetic and phonological grounds postalveolar fricatives in Polish can be analyzed as retroflex and whether postalveolar fricatives in other Slavic languages are retroflex as well. Velarization and incompatibility with front vowels are introduced as articulatory criteria for retroflexion, based on crosslinguistic data. According to these criteria, Polish and Russian have retroflex fricatives, whereas Bulgarian and Czech do not. In a phonological representation of these Slavic retroflexes, the necessity of perceptual features is shown. Lastly, it is illustrated that palatalization of retroflex fricatives both in Slavic languages and more generally causes a phonetic and phonological change to a non-retroflex sound. 1