A three-way contrast in rounding

Tania E. Strahan [email protected] La Trobe University

ltwp-v~1.doc page 1 of 11 A three-way contrast in rounding

1. Introduction

Phonologists generally assume binary systems of features, ie [+/–back], [+/–high] (eg Jakobson et al., 1969, Shalev et al., 1993: 98). Indeed, when describing vowels, the three traditional dimensions of front-back, high-low and round-unround can be used to describe vowels in most of the world’s languages. However, work over the past two decades has shown that the features of height and backness are better understood as nonbinary (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1989: 102). Height may be contrasted in up to five values, and backness may be contrasted in three ways. Norwegian is a language that is cited as showing three degrees of backness in the high vowels (eg Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1989, Shalev et al., 1993). I suggest that, for at least Sunnhordlandsk (Western) Norwegian, only 2 degrees of backness are present, while the high front vowels have the more unusual characteristic of contrasting 3 degrees of rounding.

2. Vowels in Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian

Vowels in Sunnhordlandsk (Western) Norwegian include both monophthongs and diphthongs. The monophthongal vowel inventory is shown in Table 1 below. Monophthongs contrast length, with an associated change in quality. Long vowels of monosyllabic words said in isolation tend to be just over 200ms in duration, short vowels around 100ms (this difference is well above the minimum for a just noticeable difference, which is around 50ms). On average short vowels tend to have about 62% of the duration of long vowels (in stressed syllables in monosyllabic words). Where the two vowels in the short-long couplet have different qualities, the short vowel in normally more lax, ie more central, than the long vowel. The five diphthongs are not considered in this paper.

Table 1: Long and short monophthongs in Sunnhordlandsk Long vowels Short vowels

i ʏ ʉ u ɪ ʏ ʉ ʊ

e ø o e œ ɔ

æ ʌ ɛ a

ltwp-v~1.doc page 2 of 11 The number of contrasts in rounding of vowels in the Sunnhordlandsk system differs depending on vowel height, backness, duration and stress. In stressed syllables, there are eight high vowels which contrast in degree of backness, rounding and duration, here represented by

/i, ʏ, ʉ, u/. There are two tense mid-high front vowels that contrast rounding /e/ and /ø/. The front round vowel /ø/ also contrasts in backness with the back round /o/. The low vowels are all unrounded. It is clear from Table 1 that Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian has three phonologically relevant values of height. However, if we plot the formant frequencies, as shown in Figure 1, we can see that, phonetically, there are four values of height that are relevant, with only the short [ʊ] falling not as neatly as the other vowels. The data for Figure 1 is given in Table 1. In Figure 1, the x-axis represents a logarithmically scaled F2-F1, and the y-axis represents F1. The first formant (F1) frequency is indicative of height (300Hz = high, 1,200Hz = low), while the second formant (F2) is generally indicative of some function of rounding and backness (500Hz = back/rounded, 3,000Hz = front/unrounded); a more rounded vowel tends to have a lower F2 value than a less rounded vowel (Ladefoged, 1993). Using the difference between F2 and F1 for the x-axis, rather than F2 alone, is considered a better indicator of vowel backness, since it is the combination of F1 and F2 which produces the auditory effect of backness, not merely the movement of the second formant. The first formant is presented on a logarithmic scale in order to lessen the effect of the greater auditory space in the front region with respect to the articulatory area.

Figure 1. Formant frequencies of long and short vowels in stressed syllables in Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian (the F1 scale is logarithmic).

F2-F1 i: 10000 1000 100 ɪ 100 ʏ: ʏ ʉ: 300 ʉ e: e 500 ø: ø [œ] F1 æ: 700 æ [ɛ] ɑ: [ʌ:] ɑ [a] 900 o: o [ɔ] u: 1100 u [ʊ]

ltwp-v~1.doc page 3 of 11 Table 2: Formant frequencies for long and short monophthongs in Sunnhordlandsk V word gloss F1 F2 F3 F2-F1 iː vin wine 250 2955 3953 2705 ɪ vind wind 519 2455 3169 1936 ʏː hyla scream 275 2384 3903 2109 ʏ hylla shelf 509 2170 3057 1661 ʉː gul yellow 275 2017 3801 1742 ʉ gull gold 500 1681 2850 1181 eː ve(ka) week 509 2282 3189 1773 e vek(ka) wake 754 2241 3322 1487 øː søt sweet (m.) 509 1875 3984 1366 ø [œ] søtt sweet (nt.) 733 1763 3077 1030 æː kjæ(te) cat (m.) 1039 1956 3210 917 æ [ɛ] kjæt(te) cat (f.) 754 1987 3189 1233 ɑː [ʌː] tak roof 743 1192 3790 449 ɑ [a] takk thanks 988 1783 4015 795 oː åte bait 479 723 3780 244 o [ɔ] åtte eight 529 1019 3953 490 uː gjor(de) did 265 509 3719 244 u [ʊ] gjort done 366 540 3780 174

2.1 Too many high front vowels?

It is generally possible to predict which vowels a language has a part of its phonological inventory. Engstrang and Krull (1994) state that if a language has a certain number of vowels, then a ‘principle of sufficient contrast’ will predict fairly well which vowels these are. The Adaptive Dispersion Theory states that in any system, the vowels will be ‘spread’ throughout the articulatory region, to maintain contrast between vowels. That is to say that any given language will have more vowels in the regions that allow maximal dispersion, ie the high vowel series and the front vowels, as the phonetic ‘area’ is greater in these places. This prediction holds true for Sunnhordlandsk. However, there is also the suggestion, that for languages which contrast nine vowel qualities, as indeed Sunnhordlandsk does, there will be maximally four values of vowel height or ‘sonority’ and three values of backness or ‘chromicity’ is a matter of some speculation. Vowels in Sunnhordlandsk do have four (phonetic) values of height, but it is difficult to ascertain how many degrees of backness are employed. Let us address this question now. As can be seen in Figure 1, there are four high vowels, represented in Table 1 with the symbols /i, ʏ, ʉ, u/. I will refer to these as Vowel 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively (as illustrated in Table 3) in the following discussion, to avoid confusion with the IPA symbols.

ltwp-v~1.doc page 4 of 11 Table 3: The (long) high vowels in Sunnhordlandsk. The IPA characters are approximate,

and do not necessarily reflect actual pronunciation (in particular ʉ is not a central vowel).

Vowel 1 iː Vowel 2 ʏː Vowel 3 ʉː Vowel 4 uː

Vowel 1 is a front, unrounded vowel, with an F2 value of 3,000Hz. Vowel 2 has a type of rounding known variously as ‘protrusive’ (Vanvik, 1978) or ‘exo-rounding’ (Catford, 1988). Its F2 value is around 2,500Hz. Vowel 3 has a type of rounding known as ‘flat’ rounding (Jakobson et al., 1969) or ‘compression’ (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996), with an F2 value around 2,000Hz. Vowel 4 is a back vowel with compression, and an F2 value of around 500Hz. The question is then: Is there some three-way contrast being exhibited here, and if so, is it in the dimension of backness or rounding? Let us start this discussion with the traditional view in Norwegian linguistics, namely that Vowels 2, 3 and 4 show a three-way contrast in degree of backness.

2.2 Backness

There are pairs of vowels in Sunnhordlandsk that contrast only in backness, eg (1) and (2).

(1) a. /oː/ [ʃoː] ‘see’

b. /øː/ [ʃøː] ‘sea’

(2) a. /uː/ [duː] ‘loo’ (Vowel 4)

b. /ʉː/ [dʉː] ‘you (sg.)’ (Vowel 3)

Referring to Table 4, we see that there is a difference of 1100Hz between the F2-F1 difference of the front and back mid-high rounded vowels and 1500Hz between the F2-F1 difference of Vowels 3 and 4. The greater difference between the high vowels is expected, based on the vowel Dispersion Theory. Now, if Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian has a three-way contrast in backness in the high vowels (between Vowels 2, 3 and 4), it might be expected that the F2-F1 value of Vowel 3 would lie approximately half-way between Vowels 2 and 4. Yet if we include the third rounded vowel (Vowel 2) and compare it with Vowels 3 and 4, we see that its F2-F1 value is

ltwp-v~1.doc page 5 of 11 367Hz greater than Vowel 3, which is only around 20-25% of the expected difference, if the difference in these three vowels were only in backness.

Table 4: F2-F1 differences for selected long monophthongs. Bolded figures are those referred to in the text.

V iː ʏː ʉː uː eː øː oː

iː 0

ʏː 596 0

ʉː 963 367 0

uː 2461 1865 1498 0

eː 932 336 -31 1529 0

øː 1339 743 376 1122 407 0

oː 2461 1865 1498 316 1529 1122 0

An objection to these arguments can be raised, namely that F2 is representative of backness and rounding, not backness alone. More rounded vowels tend to have a lower F2 than less rounded vowels, thus appearing more back on a formant-based chart than they are actually articulated. The F2 values for Vowel 3 then, might make the vowel appear further forward than it really is, compared with Vowel 2, if Vowel 2 has somehow ‘greater rounding’ than Vowel 3. That is, if Vowel 2 is articulated further forward, but more rounded than Vowel 3, then that might explain the F2 values we see. While the acoustic characteristics of lip protrusion and lip compression are not yet known (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 2001), it can be stated that, impressionistically, Vowel 3 sounds ‘more rounded’ and/or ‘more back’ than Vowel 2 by a large margin, which is the opposite of what we expect based upon the F2 values. This leads to the conclusion that there is a problem with the idea that Vowels 2, 3 and 4 differ mainly in backness. Another problem is that Vowels 2 and 3 have clearly different types of rounding. Vowel 2 is articulated with obviously protruding lips, while Vowel 3 is articulated with the lips in a ‘cat’s bum face’ compressed state. [I have photos I can include, if that’s possible]. Native speakers report that their tongue does not move between Vowels 2 and 3, while there is clear movement when moving from either of these vowels to Vowel 4. The movement between Vowels 3 and 4 can be felt with the fingers below the jaw, while this movement is

ltwp-v~1.doc page 6 of 11 absent when moving between Vowels 2 and 3. Unfortunately, no instrumental recordings have been made of this, and it remains impressionistic at this stage. A further point of interest here, is that the F2-F1 difference between Vowels 1 and 2 (600Hz) is quite similar to that between Vowels 2 and 3 (367Hz), especially when we keep in mind the F2-F1 difference between the mid-high front unrounded and rounded vowels /e/ and /ø/ of 450Hz. It seems that an F2-F1 difference of around 500Hz is enough to speakers to hear the difference, and to interpret that difference as one of rounding.

In addition, the negative value in the difference between Vowel 3 and /eː/ indicates that

Vowel 3 is more front/less round than the front unrounded /eː/. This adds weight to the argument that Vowel 3 is not actually a central vowel, but is properly a front vowel.

In passing, it may be noted that the apparent central position of /aː/ and /ɔ/ may be due to the fact that they are neither rounded nor unrounded, and may best be described as having

‘neutral lips’. This also applies to /a/, /æː/and /æ/. Finally, phonologically, Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian may be describable with only a binary feature for backness, if we allow more complexity in the types of rounding.

2.3 Rounding as a multivalue feature

It is a well documented fact that vowels may be front, central or back. The low vowel of most inventories, /a/, is often neither front nor back, rather it is best described as being central. This is the case for eg Italian, Yoruba, Dravidian languages, for example. The unstressed schwa found in many languages, eg English and German, is also usually described as central. Thus, multivalued features are commonly accepted. It is generally accepted that although the binary feature [+/–round] is sufficient in the phonological description of languages, it does not provide an adequate phonetic description of the different types of rounding that are possible. For example, in Japanese, the high back vowel has often been thought of an unrounded, although a better description would be ‘having compressed lips’ (Pulleyblank, cited in Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996: 295). Thus, two types of rounding have been identified, known variously as labial protrusion and compression (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1989: 93), exolabial and endolabial or ‘outer rounding’ and ‘inner rounding’ (Catford, 1988: 150), and plain versus flat in the Jakobsonian model (Jakobson et al., 1969: 31). In the Oslo dialect, Vanvik (1978), noted that /u/ and /ʉ/

(corresponding to Vowels 4 and 3) share the same lip position, whereas /ʏ/ (Vowel 2) has protrusion (see Figure 1 below, which shows similar lip rounding in Swedish). The three high

ltwp-v~1.doc page 7 of 11 Vowels 1, 2 and 3 in Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian do not differ merely in backness, but also in degree or type of rounding.

Figure 1. Tongue and lip position of four Swedish vowels, from Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996). This lip rounding also occurs in Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian.

rounding compression.

Ladefoged and Maddieson (2001: 16) suggest that rounding can be further split into compression (either compressed or separated lips) and protrusion (with protruded or retracted lips). However, in Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian, this distinction is irrelevant, as /ʏ/ is articulated with separated and protruded lips, while /ʉ/ and /u/ are articulated with compressed and retracted lips (although the back vowel is very slightly more rounded that the front vowel, as expected). I have now demonstrated that the difference between Vowels 2, 3 and 4 in Sunnhordlandsk is not due to backness alone, and I have indicated that the main difference between Vowels 2 and 3 is in the type of lip rounding. An example of a minimal set contrasting Vowels 1, 2 and 3 is given in (3).

ltwp-v~1.doc page 8 of 11 (3) a. /i/ [ʃi] ‘ski’

b. /ʏ/ [ʃʏ] ‘cloud’

c. /ʉ/ [ʃʉ] ‘seven’

The post-alveolar fricative /ʃ/ is also articulated with labial protrusion that is very similar to that associated with Vowel 2. Coarticulation of /ʃ/ on the following vowel has a noticeable effect on Vowel 1, as it clearly diphthongises into Vowel 2 + Vowel 1. The extra rounding of Vowel 3 also produces slight diphthongisation. These effects are clearly visible on spectrograms of the words in (3), given in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Spectrograms of the words ski /ʃi/ ‘ski’ (Vowel 1),

sky /ʃʏ/ ‘cloud’ (Vowel 2), sju /ʃʉ/ ‘seven’ (Vowel 3).

2.4 Other languages with ‘too many high front vowels’

There is at least one precedent for this three-way contrast in the back-front dimension, found in Ngwe (Niger-Congo), which has three high, unrounded vowels (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996). Some varieties of Swedish may also have a three-way contrast in rounding, for the three vowels comparable to Vowels 1, 2 and 3. Gunnar Fant’s x-ray data for the three vowels in Swedish which are equivalent to Vowels 1, 2 and 3, were reanalysed by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 295). They concluded that these vowels have ‘similar (but not identical) tongue positions’. Yet it seems that the tongue positions are similar enough to warrant being classified with the same degree of backness (ie front). Such instrumental investigation has not be conducted in Western Norwegian dialects, but on the basis of the data presented here, it looks like there is reasonable evidence to indicate that such an investigation would definitively support the claim that Sunnhordlandsk

ltwp-v~1.doc page 9 of 11 Norwegian has a three-way contrast in high front vowels, and not a three-way backing contrast in the high series.

3. Conclusion

In conclusion then, vowels in Sunnhordlandsk Norwegian show a binary contrast in duration [+/–long] and backness [+/–front], and multivalued contrasts in height [1 high, 2 mid-high, 3 mid-low, 4 low] and rounding [spread, protruded, close, neutral]. These features are shown in Table 5 below for each of the monophthongs in the Sunnhordlandsk system.

Table 5: Features of Sunnhordlandsk monophthongs V back long height round iː – + 1 spread ɪ – – 2 spread ʏː – + 1 protruded ʏ – – 2 protruded ʉː – + 1 close ʉ – – 2 close eː – + 2 spread e – – 3 spread øː – + 2 close ø [œ] – – 3 close æː – + 4 neutral æ [ɛ] – – 3 neutral ɑː [ʌː] + + 3 neutral ɑ [a] + – 4 neutral oː + + 2 close o [ɔ] + – 2 neutral (?) uː + + 1 close u [ʊ] + – 1 close

4. References

Catford, J. C. 1988. A practical introduction to phonetics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Engstrang, Olle, and Krull, Diana. 1994. Durational correlates of quantity in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian: Cross language evidence for a theory of adaptive dispersion. Phonetica 51:80-91. Jakobson, Roman C., Fant, Gunnar, and Halle, Morris. 1969. Preliminaries to speech analysis, the distinctive features and their correlates. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Ladefoged, Peter, and Maddieson, Ian. 1989. Vowels of the world's languages. Journal of Phonetics 18:93-122. Ladefoged, Peter. 1993. A course in phonetics. Florida: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Ladefoged, Peter, and Maddieson, Ian. 1996. The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell.

ltwp-v~1.doc page 10 of 11 Ladefoged, Peter, and Maddieson, Ian. 2001. Vowels of the world's languages. In Phonology: Critical concepts in linguistics, ed. Charles W. Kreidler, 5-39. London and New York: Routledge. Shalev, Michael, Ladefoged, Peter, and Bhaskararao, Peri. 1993. Phonetics of Toda. In Fieldwork studies of targeted languages, eds. Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson: UCLA WFP. Vanvik, Arne. 1978. Some remarks on Norwegian prosody. In Nordic Prosody - Papers from a Symposium, eds. Eva Gårding, Gösta Bruce and Robert Bannert, 161-163. Malmö, Sweden: Department of Linguistics, Lund University.

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