Wubuy coronal stop perception by speakers of three dialects of Bangla

We tested native speakers from three major dialect groups of Bangla, on their discrimination of a four-way coronal stop contrast from the Australian Indigenous language Wubuy. Bangla is generally assumed to have a two-way contrast in coronal stops, with an additional place distinction in affricates. The results show that Bangla speakers are able to discriminate the Wubuy contrasts, but also that certain contrasts are more difficult to discriminate than others. We discuss these results with respect to the Bangla coronal inventory, and importantly, with respect to the variation in the phonetic realisation of coronals between the dialects of Bangla. We argue that the phonetic realisation of what is regarded to be the 'same' phonemic inventory can have implications for the perceptual behaviour of speakers.