Retroflexion and Retraction Revised∗
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Using 'North Wind and the Sun' Texts to Sample Phoneme Inventories
Blowing in the wind: Using ‘North Wind and the Sun’ texts to sample phoneme inventories Louise Baird ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The Australian National University [email protected] Nicholas Evans ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The Australian National University [email protected] Simon J. Greenhill ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The Australian National University & Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History [email protected] Language documentation faces a persistent and pervasive problem: How much material is enough to represent a language fully? How much text would we need to sample the full phoneme inventory of a language? In the phonetic/phonemic domain, what proportion of the phoneme inventory can we expect to sample in a text of a given length? Answering these questions in a quantifiable way is tricky, but asking them is necessary. The cumulative col- lection of Illustrative Texts published in the Illustration series in this journal over more than four decades (mostly renditions of the ‘North Wind and the Sun’) gives us an ideal dataset for pursuing these questions. Here we investigate a tractable subset of the above questions, namely: What proportion of a language’s phoneme inventory do these texts enable us to recover, in the minimal sense of having at least one allophone of each phoneme? We find that, even with this low bar, only three languages (Modern Greek, Shipibo and the Treger dialect of Breton) attest all phonemes in these texts. -
A Brief Description of Consonants in Modern Standard Arabic
Linguistics and Literature Studies 2(7): 185-189, 2014 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/lls.2014.020702 A Brief Description of Consonants in Modern Standard Arabic Iram Sabir*, Nora Alsaeed Al-Jouf University, Sakaka, KSA *Corresponding Author: [email protected] Copyright © 2014 Horizon Research Publishing All rights reserved. Abstract The present study deals with “A brief Modern Standard Arabic. This study starts from an description of consonants in Modern Standard Arabic”. This elucidation of the phonetic bases of sounds classification. At study tries to give some information about the production of this point shows the first limit of the study that is basically Arabic sounds, the classification and description of phonetic rather than phonological description of sounds. consonants in Standard Arabic, then the definition of the This attempt of classification is followed by lists of the word consonant. In the present study we also investigate the consonant sounds in Standard Arabic with a key word for place of articulation in Arabic consonants we describe each consonant. The criteria of description are place and sounds according to: bilabial, labio-dental, alveolar, palatal, manner of articulation and voicing. The attempt of velar, uvular, and glottal. Then the manner of articulation, description has been made to lead to the drawing of some the characteristics such as phonation, nasal, curved, and trill. fundamental conclusion at the end of the paper. The aim of this study is to investigate consonant in MSA taking into consideration that all 28 consonants of Arabic alphabets. As a language Arabic is one of the most 2. -
LINGUISTICS 221 LECTURE #3 the BASIC SOUNDS of ENGLISH 1. STOPS a Stop Consonant Is Produced with a Complete Closure of Airflow
LINGUISTICS 221 LECTURE #3 Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology THE BASIC SOUNDS OF ENGLISH 1. STOPS A stop consonant is produced with a complete closure of airflow in the vocal tract; the air pressure has built up behind the closure; the air rushes out with an explosive sound when released. The term plosive is also used for oral stops. ORAL STOPS: e.g., [b] [t] (= plosives) NASAL STOPS: e.g., [m] [n] (= nasals) There are three phases of stop articulation: i. CLOSING PHASE (approach or shutting phase) The articulators are moving from an open state to a closed state; ii. CLOSURE PHASE (= occlusion) Blockage of the airflow in the oral tract; iii. RELEASE PHASE Sudden reopening; it may be accompanied by a burst of air. ORAL STOPS IN ENGLISH a. BILABIAL STOPS: The blockage is made with the two lips. spot [p] voiceless baby [b] voiced 1 b. ALVEOLAR STOPS: The blade (or the tip) of the tongue makes a closure with the alveolar ridge; the sides of the tongue are along the upper teeth. lamino-alveolar stops or Check your apico-alveolar stops pronunciation! stake [t] voiceless deep [d] voiced c. VELAR STOPS: The closure is between the back of the tongue (= dorsum) and the velum. dorso-velar stops scar [k] voiceless goose [g] voiced 2. NASALS (= nasal stops) The air is stopped in the oral tract, but the velum is lowered so that the airflow can go through the nasal tract. All nasals are voiced. NASALS IN ENGLISH a. BILABIAL NASAL: made [m] b. ALVEOLAR NASAL: need [n] c. -
Phonological Processes
Phonological Processes Phonological processes are patterns of articulation that are developmentally appropriate in children learning to speak up until the ages listed below. PHONOLOGICAL PROCESS DESCRIPTION AGE ACQUIRED Initial Consonant Deletion Omitting first consonant (hat → at) Consonant Cluster Deletion Omitting both consonants of a consonant cluster (stop → op) 2 yrs. Reduplication Repeating syllables (water → wawa) Final Consonant Deletion Omitting a singleton consonant at the end of a word (nose → no) Unstressed Syllable Deletion Omitting a weak syllable (banana → nana) 3 yrs. Affrication Substituting an affricate for a nonaffricate (sheep → cheep) Stopping /f/ Substituting a stop for /f/ (fish → tish) Assimilation Changing a phoneme so it takes on a characteristic of another sound (bed → beb, yellow → lellow) 3 - 4 yrs. Velar Fronting Substituting a front sound for a back sound (cat → tat, gum → dum) Backing Substituting a back sound for a front sound (tap → cap) 4 - 5 yrs. Deaffrication Substituting an affricate with a continuant or stop (chip → sip) 4 yrs. Consonant Cluster Reduction (without /s/) Omitting one or more consonants in a sequence of consonants (grape → gape) Depalatalization of Final Singles Substituting a nonpalatal for a palatal sound at the end of a word (dish → dit) 4 - 6 yrs. Stopping of /s/ Substituting a stop sound for /s/ (sap → tap) 3 ½ - 5 yrs. Depalatalization of Initial Singles Substituting a nonpalatal for a palatal sound at the beginning of a word (shy → ty) Consonant Cluster Reduction (with /s/) Omitting one or more consonants in a sequence of consonants (step → tep) Alveolarization Substituting an alveolar for a nonalveolar sound (chew → too) 5 yrs. -
The Violability of Backness in Retroflex Consonants
The violability of backness in retroflex consonants Paul Boersma University of Amsterdam Silke Hamann ZAS Berlin February 11, 2005 Abstract This paper addresses remarks made by Flemming (2003) to the effect that his analysis of the interaction between retroflexion and vowel backness is superior to that of Hamann (2003b). While Hamann maintained that retroflex articulations are always back, Flemming adduces phonological as well as phonetic evidence to prove that retroflex consonants can be non-back and even front (i.e. palatalised). The present paper, however, shows that the phonetic evidence fails under closer scrutiny. A closer consideration of the phonological evidence shows, by making a principled distinction between articulatory and perceptual drives, that a reanalysis of Flemming’s data in terms of unviolated retroflex backness is not only possible but also simpler with respect to the number of language-specific stipulations. 1 Introduction This paper is a reply to Flemming’s article “The relationship between coronal place and vowel backness” in Phonology 20.3 (2003). In a footnote (p. 342), Flemming states that “a key difference from the present proposal is that Hamann (2003b) employs inviolable articulatory constraints, whereas it is a central thesis of this paper that the constraints relating coronal place to tongue-body backness are violable”. The only such constraint that is violable for Flemming but inviolable for Hamann is the constraint that requires retroflex coronals to be articulated with a back tongue body. Flemming expresses this as the violable constraint RETRO!BACK, or RETRO!BACKCLO if it only requires that the closing phase of a retroflex consonant be articulated with a back tongue body. -
Sociophonetic Variation in Bolivian Quechua Uvular Stops
Title Page Sociophonetic Variation in Bolivian Quechua Uvular Stops by Eva Bacas University of Pittsburgh, 2019 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 Committee Page UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This thesis was presented by Eva Bacas It was defended on November 8, 2019 and approved by Alana DeLoge, Quechua Instructor, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh Melinda Fricke, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh Gillian Gallagher, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, New York University Thesis Advisor/Dissertation Director: Claude Mauk, Senior Lecturer, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by Eva Bacas 2019 iii Abstract Sociophonetic Variation in Bolivian Quechua Uvular Stops Eva Bacas, BPhil University of Pittsburgh, 2019 Quechua is an indigenous language of the Andes region of South America. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, Quechua and Spanish have been in contact for over 500 years. In this thesis, I explore sociolinguistic variation among bilingual speakers of Cochabamba Quechua (CQ) and Spanish by investigating the relationship between the production of the voiceless uvular stop /q/ and speakers’ sociolinguistic backgrounds. I conducted a speech production study and sociolinguistic interview with seven bilingual CQ-Spanish speakers. I analyzed manner of articulation and place of articulation variation. Results indicate that manner of articulation varies primarily due to phonological factors, and place of articulation varies according to sociolinguistic factors. This reveals that among bilingual CQ-Spanish speakers, production of voiceless uvular stop /q/ does vary sociolinguistically. -
Vowel Acoustics Reliably Differentiate Three Coronal Stops of Wubuy Across Prosodic Contexts
Vowel acoustics reliably differentiate three coronal stops of Wubuy across prosodic contexts Rikke L. BundgaaRd-nieLsena, BRett J. BakeRb, ChRistian kRoosa, MaRk haRveyc and CatheRine t. Besta,d aMARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney bSchool of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne cSchool of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle dHaskins Laboratories, New Haven Abstract The present study investigates the acoustic differentiation of three coronal stops in the indigenous Australian language Wubuy. We test independent claims that only VC (vowel-into-consonant) transitions provide robust acoustic cues for retroflex as compared to alveolar and dental coronal stops, with no differentiating cues among these three coronal stops evident in CV (consonant-into-vowel) transitions. The four-way stop distinction /t, t̪ , ʈ, c/ in Wubuy is contrastive word-initially (Heath 1984) and by implication utterance-initially, i.e., in CV-only contexts, which suggests that acoustic differentiation should be expected to occur in the CV transitions of this language, including in initial positions. Therefore, we examined both VC and CV formant transition information in the three target coronal stops across VCV (word-internal), V#CV (word-initial but utterance-medial) and ##CV (word- and utterance-initial), for /a / vowel contexts, which provide the optimal environment for investigating formant transitions. Results confirm that these coro- nal contrasts are maintained in the CVs in this vowel context, and in all three posi- tions. The patterns of acoustic differences across the three syllable contexts also provide some support for a systematic role of prosodic boundaries in influencing the degree of coronal stop differentiation evident in the vowel formant transitions. -
Lecture 5 Sound Change
An articulatory theory of sound change An articulatory theory of sound change Hypothesis: Most common initial motivation for sound change is the automation of production. Tokens reduced online, are perceived as reduced and represented in the exemplar cluster as reduced. Therefore we expect sound changes to reflect a decrease in gestural magnitude and an increase in gestural overlap. What are some ways to test the articulatory model? The theory makes predictions about what is a possible sound change. These predictions could be tested on a cross-linguistic database. Sound changes that take place in the languages of the world are very similar (Blevins 2004, Bateman 2000, Hajek 1997, Greenberg et al. 1978). We should consider both common and rare changes and try to explain both. Common and rare changes might have different characteristics. Among the properties we could look for are types of phonetic motivation, types of lexical diffusion, gradualness, conditioning environment and resulting segments. Common vs. rare sound change? We need a database that allows us to test hypotheses concerning what types of changes are common and what types are not. A database of sound changes? Most sound changes have occurred in undocumented periods so that we have no record of them. Even in cases with written records, the phonetic interpretation may be unclear. Only a small number of languages have historic records. So any sample of known sound changes would be biased towards those languages. A database of sound changes? Sound changes are known only for some languages of the world: Languages with written histories. Sound changes can be reconstructed by comparing related languages. -
Part 1: Introduction to The
PREVIEW OF THE IPA HANDBOOK Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet PARTI Introduction to the IPA 1. What is the International Phonetic Alphabet? The aim of the International Phonetic Association is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. For both these it is necessary to have a consistent way of representing the sounds of language in written form. From its foundation in 1886 the Association has been concerned to develop a system of notation which would be convenient to use, but comprehensive enough to cope with the wide variety of sounds found in the languages of the world; and to encourage the use of thjs notation as widely as possible among those concerned with language. The system is generally known as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Both the Association and its Alphabet are widely referred to by the abbreviation IPA, but here 'IPA' will be used only for the Alphabet. The IPA is based on the Roman alphabet, which has the advantage of being widely familiar, but also includes letters and additional symbols from a variety of other sources. These additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in languages is much greater than the number of letters in the Roman alphabet. The use of sequences of phonetic symbols to represent speech is known as transcription. The IPA can be used for many different purposes. For instance, it can be used as a way to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech. -
Relativized Contiguity: Part II: Contiguity and Metrical Prosody”
RELATIVIZED CONTIGUITY Part I: Contiguity and Syllabic Prosody* Greg Lamontagne University of British Columbia Often processes which truncate or augment a string are simply reflections of prosodic organization. Principles of syllabification, for example, are the major catalyst for the string modifications in (1): In (1a), a consonant deletes due to a prohibition on syllable Codas (see Steriade, 1982; Prince, 1984; Levin, 1985; Itô, 1986, ‘89; etc.); in (1b) a vowel deletes due to a prohibition on Onsetless syllables (see Prince & Smolensky, 1993; McCarthy & Prince, 1993; Rosenthall, 1994; Lamontagne and Rosenthall, 1996; etc.); in (1c), a vowel shortens due to a restriction on syllable size- - i.e., the two mora max. limit (see McCarthy & Prince ,1986; Myers ,1987; Broselow,1992; Tranel, 1992; Sherer, 199; etc.); and finally, in (1d), a vowel is inserted to provide a syllable for the stray consonant C’ (see Broselow, 1980, ‘82, ‘92; Selkirk, 1981; Steriade, 1982; Itô, 1986, ‘89; Mester & Padgett, 1994; etc.)1 . *This is a first installment in a series of articles investigating the effects of contiguity restrictions in Optimality Theoretic grammars. The second part (Lamontagne, in progress) investigates the effects of contiguity restrictions on metrical prosody, while a third part (Lamontagne & Rosenthall, 1996) looks at various segmental fusion processes. I would like to thank audiences at Rutgers University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for insightful comments on various parts of this work. Thanks go to John Alderete, Eric Bakovic, John McCarthy, Alan Prince, Samuel Rosenthall, Lisa Selkirk, and Tom Wilson for discussions of the issues raised here. Of course I alone am responsible for any errors or omissions in this work. -
Nasal Consonant the Basic Characteristic of a Nasal Consonant Is That the Air Escapes Through the Nose
Nasal Consonant The basic characteristic of a nasal consonant is that the air escapes through the nose. For this to happen, the soft palate must be lowered; in the case of all the other consonants, and all vowels, the soft palate is raised and air cannot pass through the nose, in nasal consonants, hoever, the air does not pass through the mouth; it is prevented by a complete closure in the mouth at some point. /m/ and /n/ are simple , straightforward consonants with distributions like those of the plosives. There is in fact little to describe. However, /η/ is a different matter. It is a sound that gives considerable problems to foreign learners, and one that is so unusual in its phonological aspect that some people argue that it is not one of the phonemes of English at all. There are three phonemes in English which are represented by nasal consonants, /m/ , /n/ and /η/. In all nasal consonants the soft palate is lowered and at the same time the mouth passage blocked at some point, so that all the air pushed out of the nose. /m/ and /n/ All languages have consonants which are similar to / m/ and /n/ in English. Notice: 1- the soft palate is lowered for both /m/ and /n/. 2- for /m/ the mouth is blocked by closing the two lips, for /n/ by pressing the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, and the sides of the tongue against the sides of the palate. 3- Both sounds are voice in English, as they are in other languages, and the voiced air passes out through the nose. -
Chapter 9 Consonant Substitution in Child Language (Ikwere) Roseline I
Chapter 9 Consonant substitution in child language (Ikwere) Roseline I. C. Alerechi University of Port Harcourt The Ikwere language is spoken in four out of the twenty-three Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Rivers State of Nigeria, namely, Port Harcourt, Obio/Akpor, Emohua and Ikwerre LGAs. Like Kana, Kalabari and Ekpeye, it is one of the major languages of Rivers State of Nigeria used in broadcasting in the electronic media. The Ikwere language is classified asan Igboid language of the West Benue-Congo family of the Niger-Congo phylum of languages (Williamson 1988: 67, 71, Williamson & Blench 2000: 31). This paper treats consonant substi- tution in the speech of the Ikwere child. It demonstrates that children use of a language can contribute to the divergent nature of that language as they always strive for simplification of the target language. Using simple descriptive method of data analysis, the paper identifies the various substitutions of consonant sounds, which characterize the Ikwere children’s ut- terances. It stresses that the substitutions are regular and rule governed and hence implies the operation of some phonological processes. Some of the processes are strengthening and weakening of consonants, loss of suction of labial implosives causing them to become labial plosives, devoicing of voiced consonants, etc. While some of these processes are identical with the adult language, others are peculiar to children, demonstrating the relationships between the phonological processes in both forms of speech. It is worthy of note that high- lighting the relationships and differences will make for effective communication between children and adults. 1 Introduction The Ikwere language is spoken in four out of the twenty-three Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Rivers State of Nigeria, namely, Port Harcourt, Obio/Akpor, Emohua and Ik- werre LGAs.