ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011
WHY DO GLOTTAL STOPS AND LOW VOWELS LIKE EACH OTHER?
Jana Brunner & Marzena Żygis
Centre for General Linguistics, Berlin, Germany [email protected]; [email protected]
ABSTRACT 1.1. Phonological processes The aim of the present study is two-fold. First, we In Klallam (a Salish language), the non-low will show that glottal stops/glottalization and low vowels /i u ə/ are lowered to /ε o a/, respectively, w vowels are likely to co-occur in typologically when followed by [ʔ]. For example, /pʔíх ŋ/ is w different languages. Second, we will investigate pronounced as [pʔεʔх ŋ] ‘overflow’/‘overflowing’ the question whether this widely attested co- and /šúpt/ as [šóʔpt] ‘whistle’/‘whistling’ [17]. occurrence of glottalization and low vowels could In the reduplication processes in Nisgha (a be due to a perceptual phenomenon; i.e. Tsimshianic language) the quality of the vowel in differences in the perception of vowel quality of the prefix depends on the surrounding segments. If glottalized as compared to non-glottalized vowels. the stem starts with a coronal stop, the vowel in the We hypothesized that vowels are perceived lower prefix is also coronal: /tamʔ/ is reduplicated to in their height if they are glottalized. In order to [tim-tamʔ] ‘to press’ but if the initial-stem test our hypothesis we conducted a perceptual consonant is a glottal stop the vowel in the prefix experiment with two German continua of b[i]ten- is the low vowel [a]: /ʔux/ is pronounced as [ʔax- b[e]ten (‘to offer’, ‘to pray’), a non-glottalized and ʔux] ‘to throw’ ([14], [15]). a glottalized one. 23 German subjects took part in In Tigrinya (Ethio-Semitic language), the mid an identification test in which they were asked to central vowel /ə/ is lowered to [a] following indicate whether they perceived words from these pharyngeals and laryngeals in the regular continua as b[i]ten or b[e]ten. The data show very conjunction pattern. For example, /səbərə/ is clearly that subjects perceive b[e]ten more often pronounced as [ abərə] ‘he broke/he arrested’ than b[i]ten if the vowel is glottalized. This result ʔ ([1]). indicates that the co-occurrence of glottal sounds and low vowels in the languages of the world Lillooet (a Salish language) shows a clear could actually originate in a reinterpretation of coarticulation induced variation in schwa- glottalized higher vowels as lower ones. epenthesis: [ə] changes to [] in between labialized non-uvular/non-pharyngeal consonants (Cw_Cw), to Keywords: glottal stop, glottalization, vowel [] before labialised uvular/pharyngeal sounds, and lowering, perception, sound change to [ɪ] between coronal sounds. However, if a glottal stop follows the schwa, then the schwa 1. INTRODUCTION changes to [a] ([14], [16]). An investigation of phonological phenomena In Besleney (an East Circassian language) the involving glottal stops and vowels shows that the epenthetic schwa [ə] is realized as [i] in the context presence of glottal stops/glottalization influences of palatalized consonants, as [u] in the the quality of the surrounding vowels: the vowels environment of labialized consonants and as [a] are lowered. Such processes take place in several near gutturals including laryngeals ([11], [14]). typologically different languages. Other types of In Karanga and Zezuru (dialects of Shona, a evidence including orthography and phonotactics Bantu language) the hiatus, i.e. the co-occurrence also point to a preference of low vowels rather than of two adjacent vowels is resolved in the following non-low ones to co-occur with glottal way: if the second vowel is /i/ or /e/ a glide [j] is stops/glottalization. inserted between the vowels. If the second vowel is /u/ or /o/ a glide [w] is inserted. However, if the second vowel is /a/, then the glottal stop appears ([9]).
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1.2. Other types of evidence perceptual reinterpretation of glottalized vowels as vowels with a lower vowel quality, e.g. a Besides phonological processes there are also other glottalized [i] is perceived as [e] (cf. [10] for a types of evidence suggesting that low vowels are listener as a source of a sound change (cf. [10] for likely to occur with glottal stops/glottalization. a listener as a source of a sound change). One piece of evidence comes from voice quality If glottalized vowels are generally perceived as which shows preferences regarding the quality of having a lower quality this should also be true for the vowel. For example, in the Mon-Khmer high vowels. The aim of the present study is there- register a breathy voice quality corresponds to a fore to investigate the perception of vowel quality raised vowel but a tense voice quality corresponds of high glottalized and non-glottalized vowels. to a lowered vowel ([4]). Even orthography provides evidence regarding 2. METHODS the co-occurrence of glottal stops and low vowels. In Amharic some stems have an initial /a/ which is A trained male native German speaker was interpreted as a historical remnant of a lost recorded speaking the words b[i]ten
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beten (i.e. where the beten-responses first fixed effects and subject and repetition as random outnumbered the bieten-responses) was effects. 23 German native informants (5 males, 18 determined. This sample will be called post- females) aged between 18 and 29 took part in the crossover sample. If there was more than one experiment. crossover point, a mean over the first and the last Figure 2: Result of the main experiment for the same post-crossover sample was calculated. subject as in figure 1. Grey: bieten-responses. Black: Figure 1 shows the result of this pre-test for one beten-responses, solid: non-glottalized stimuli, subject. The stimulus numbers of the continuum dashed: glottalized stimuli. are given on the abscissa. Stimulus 1 is the bieten- anchor and stimulus 31 is the beten-anchor. The 100 subject classified all five repetitions of stimuli 1, 4, 80 7 and 10 as bieten (grey line), but only three of the five repetitions of stimulus 13 and none of the 60 bieten beten remaining stimuli. The post-crossover sample is 40
thus sample 16 for this speaker, although it might responses% in be different for other speakers. 20 Figure 1: Result of the pre-test for determining the 0 approximate location of the boundary between /i/ and 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 /e/ for one subject. Grey: number of bieten-responses stimulus number per stimulus. Black: number of beten-responses per stimulus. 3. RESULTS
6 Figure 3 shows the distribution of the post- crossover samples for the non-glottalized 5 (abscissa) and glottalized continuum (ordinate) for 4 all subjects. Letters ‘m’ and ‘f’ represent male and
3 female subjects, respectively. bieten beten 2 Figure 3: Post-crossover sample for the non- glottalized (abscissa) vs. the glottalized continuum 1 (ordinate) for all subjects. ‘m’: male subject, ‘f’: numberresponsesof female subject. Some noise was added in order to 0 make all data points visible.
-1 1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 stimulus number 20 In the second part (the main experiment) perception around the post-crossover sample was 18 tested by presenting stimuli from both continua in
16 f the range post-crossover sample-7 samples and the f post-crossover sample+6 samples. In this second f 14 m ff f 10-block experiment glottalized and non- f f f glottalized variants were presented in randomized m
12 f order. Figure 2 shows the data for the same subject f ff f postcrossover sample for glottalizedstimuli for sample postcrossover f fm as in Figure 1. The solid lines show the results for the non-glottalized stimuli, the dashed ones show 10 f mf the results for the glottalized stimuli. 10 12 14 16 18 20 postcrossover sample for nonglottalized stimuli The classification is now less clear than in the pre-test since in the main experiment stimuli If all the subjects had the same post-crossover around the crossover were tested. The post- sample both for the non-glottalized and the crossover sample for the non-glottalized glottalized continuum they should all be on the continuum is now 14, for the glottalized it is 12. diagonal line. However, most data points are below A generalized linear mixed model was the line indicating that the subjects’ post-crossover calculated with response (bieten or beten) as the sample is more towards the beten end of the dependent variable, glottalization (glottalized or continuum for the non-glottalized variants than for non-glottalized) and sample (on the continuum) as
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the glottalized variants. The subjects thus perceive reinterpretation of higher glottalized vowels as more often beten if the vowel was glottalized than lower in their perceived height. if it was not. Figure 4 summarizes a detail of what can be 5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS seen in Figure 3; i.e. how far apart the post- This study was supported by the German Federal crossover samples for the non-glottalized and the Ministry for Education and Research (grant glottalized continua were for different subjects. On 01UG0711). We would like to thank Phil Hoole the horizontal axis the difference in steps can be for a program for carrying out the perception tests found, on the vertical axis the number of subjects and to Holger Mitterer for a script for creating with a certain distance is given. There are four continua. subjects who did not hear the stimuli differently (difference=0). All the others switched between 1 6. REFERENCES and 6 steps earlier from bieten to beten on the [1] Berhane, G. 1991. Issues in the Phonology and glottalized than on the non-glottalized continuum. Morphology of Tigrinya. PhD dissertation, UQAM. [2] Boersma, R., Weenink, D. 2011. Praat: doinig phonetics Figure 4: Differences in post-crossover samples by computer. http://www.praat.org/ between the glottalized and the non-glottalized stimuli [3] Gobl, C. 1989. A preliminary study of acoustic voice for all subjects. quality correlates. Speech Transmission Lab. 4, 9-27.
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