Texas Tech University

Aaron Braver

Associate Professor & Director of Linguistics
Linguistics (Phonetics and Phonology)

Email: aaron.braver@ttu.edu

Dr. Braver's research interests include phonetics, phonology, and their interface; laboratory phonology; incomplete neutralization; and South African Bantu languages (especially Xhosa).  His research investigates the ways in which speech sounds are organized, produced, perceived, and manipulated by our linguistic system. 

Dr. Braver also runs the TTU Phonetics and Phonology Linguistics Lab.  

For a full list of publications and more up-to-date information, visit www.aaronbraver.com.

Ph.D. Rutgers, 2013 

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Selected Publications

Aaron Braver (2023). Naturalness as a heuristic for (in)complete neutralization: Xhosa’s ‘unnatural' labial palatalization. Proceedings of NELS 53, vol. 1, pp. 119–128. [PDF] 

Will Bennett and Aaron Braver (2020). Different Speakers, different grammars: Productivity and representation of Xhosa labial palatalization.  Phonological Data and Analysis 2(6). [PDF]  

Takehiro Iizuka, Kimi Nakatsukasa, and Aaron Braver (2020). The efficacy of gesture on second language pronunciation: An exploratory study of handclapping as a classroom instructional tool. Language Learning 70(4). [PDF]  

Aaron Braver (2019). Incomplete neutralization as paradigm uniformity with weighted phonetic constraints. Phonology 36(1):1–36. [PDF]  

Aaron Braver and Will Bennett (2016). Phonotactic c(l)ues to Bantu noun class disambiguation. Linguistics Vanguard 2(1):1–11. [PDF]  

Will Bennett and Aaron Braver (2015). The productivity of 'unnatural' labial palatalization in Xhosa. Nordlyd 42(1):33–44 (special issue on palatalization). [PDF]  

Aaron Braver (2014). Imperceptible incomplete neutralization: Production, non-identifiability, and non-discriminability in American English flapping. Lingua 152:24–44. [PDF]  

Shigeto Kawahara and Aaron Braver (2014). Durational Properties of Emphatic Consonants in Japanese. JIPA 44(3):237–260. [PDF]  

Last updated April 2025