The Phonetics-Phonology Interface in Romance Languages José Ignacio Hualde, Ioana Chitoran
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CONNECTED SPEECH IPA Symbols Represent the Correct Pronunciation
CONNECTED SPEECH IPA symbols represent the correct pronunciation of single words or segments of speech. However, we use single words or segments in isolation only occasionally. E.g., we can say “ah!” /ɑː/ to express surprise, or “sh!” /ʃ/ if we want to tell somebody to be quiet. Most commonly we use segments of speech or single words in a sequence, to form phrases or sentences. The sound “ah!” /ɑː/, for example, is likely to be found in whole sentences, to express: - surprise (“Ah, there you are!”) - pleasure (“Ah, this coffee is good.”) - admiration or sympathy (“Ah well, better luck next time.”) - when you disagree with somebody (“Ah, but that may not be true.”) In fact, we commonly use language in continuous, connected speech. Connected speech means speech produced without pauses. A consequence of connected speech is that single segments of speech are influenced by neighbouring segments (that is to say, speech sounds that come before and after them), and may slightly change their place or manner of articulation, or may sometimes totally disappear. Therefore the pronunciation of an isolated word may be different from the pronunciation of the same word in connected speech. These changes fall into two main types: assimilation and elision. ASSIMILATION In assimilation, one sound becomes phonetically similar to an adjacent sound. For example, the two words this and shop in isolation are pronounced - this /ðɪs/ - shop /ʃɒp/. In rapid speech, when the two words are pronounced together, the sound /s/ in this is influenced by the following initial sound and changes to /ʃ/. What we actually hear is: - this shop /ðɪʃʃɒp/. -
Repercussions of the History of a Typological Change in Germanic
Repercussions of the history of a typological change in Germanic. Roland Noske Université Lille 3 / CNRS UMR 8163 [email protected] Abstract. In acoustic experimental phonetic investigations, the distinction made by Pike (1945) and Abercrombie (1967) between syllable-timed and stress timed has been refuted on several occasions. (e.g. by Wenk and Wioland 1982). However, perceptual research (Dauer 1983, 1987) has given rise to re-instalment of this typology by Auer (1993, 2001). Auer proposes a gradual, multi-factorial typology between syllable counting languages (also called simply syllable languages) and stress counting languages (or word languages). In this typology, several indicators are used for positioning a language on the continuous scale between the syllable language prototype and the word language prototype. These indicators include, among others, complexity of syllable structure, the occurrence of geminate clusters, tonality, tonal phenomena, the occurrence of vowel harmony or metaphony, epenthesis, vowel deletion, liaison, the occurrence of internal and external sandhi, as well as morphological reanalyses. In this paper, this typology will be used to show that in the course of time, most West- Germanic dialects have moved gradually from the syllable type to the word type. Evidence for this comes from research done on Old High German and Midlle High German texts, as well as from German dialectology. It will be shown that the contrast between Northern an Southern Dutch with respect to liaison across word boundaries and the vowel deletion promoting regular syllable structure (both indicators for syllable language-hood), is not the result of a French influence (as assumed by Noske (2005, 2006, 2007). -
EVALUATING an INSTRUMENT for ASSESSING CONNECTED SPEECH PERFORMANCE USING FACETS ANALYSIS YOON AH SEONG University of Hawai‘I at M Ānoa
EVALUATING AN INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING CONNECTED SPEECH PERFORMANCE USING FACETS ANALYSIS YOON AH SEONG University of Hawai‘i at M ānoa ABSTRACT In the area of English pronunciation teaching, connected speech is increasingly being introduced and covered in pronunciation textbooks (e.g., Hagen, 2000; Weinstein, 2001). Connected speech is a phenomenon in spoken language that collectively includes phonological processes such as reduction, elision, intrusion, assimilation, and contraction. Several research studies have shown that connected speech instruction can help learners to more easily comprehend rapid speech used by native speakers (e.g., Brown & Hilferty, 2006; Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996; Matsuzawa, 2006). Moreover, use of connected speech features can make learners sound more comprehensible and natural with less marked foreign accent (Brown & Kondo-Brown, 2006a; Dauer & Browne, 1992). However, compared to the growing connected speech literature regarding what forms to teach and how, there seems to be very little information on how to assess connected speech especially in terms of production. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a new test of connected speech performance within the context of an English study abroad program. The multi-faceted Rasch software FACETS was used to examine the effectiveness of the test instrument. The analyses used data from two administrations, a pretest and a posttest, and examined the relationships between examinee scores and various aspects of the testing situation (i.e., facets). The four facets investigated in this study were: (a) the examinees, (b) items, (c) raters, and (d) the rater L1 background. The results indicated that assessing the production of certain connected speech forms using this type of test instrument has potential. -
Null-Subjects, Expletives, and Locatives in Romance”
Arbeitspapier Nr. 123 Proceedings of the Workshop “Null-subjects, expletives, and locatives in Romance” Georg A. Kaiser & Eva-Maria Remberger (eds.) Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Konstanz Arbeitspapier Nr. 123 PROCEEDINGS OF THE WORKSHOP “NULL-SUBJECTS, EXPLETIVES, AND LOCATIVES IN ROMANCE” Georg A. Kaiser & Eva-Maria Remberger (eds.) Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft Universität Konstanz Fach 185 D-78457 Konstanz Germany Konstanz März 2009 Schutzgebühr € 3,50 Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Konstanz Sekretariat des Fachbereichs Sprachwissenschaft, Frau Tania Simeoni, Fach 185, D–78457 Konstanz, Tel. 07531/88-2465 Michael Zimmermann Katérina Palasis- Marijo Marc-Olivier Hinzelin Sascha Gaglia Georg A. Kaiser Jourdan Ezeizabarrena Jürgen M. Meisel Francesco M. Ciconte Esther Rinke Eva-Maria Franziska Michèle Oliviéri Julie Barbara Alexandra Gabriela Remberger M. Hack Auger Vance Cornilescu Alboiu Table of contents Preface Marc-Olivier Hinzelin (University of Oxford): Neuter pronouns in Ibero-Romance: Discourse reference, expletives and beyond .................... 1 Michèle Oliviéri (Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis): Syntactic parameters and reconstruction .................................................................................. 27 Katérina Palasis-Jourdan (Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis): On the variable morpho-syntactic status of the French subject clitics. Evidence from acquisition ........................................................................................................ 47 -
Connected Speech in Romanian: Exploring Sound Change Through an ASR System Ioana Chitorana, Ioana Vasilescub, Bianca Vieruc, Lori Lamelb
Connected speech in Romanian: Exploring sound change through an ASR system Ioana Chitorana, Ioana Vasilescub, Bianca Vieruc, Lori Lamelb a Université Paris Diderot and Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie (UMR 7018) b LIMSI CNRS c Vocapia Research Abstract This study explores the hypothesis that traces of sound change can be found in connected speech processes as synchronic variation. To test this hypothesis we study the variation in connected speech through the output of an ASR system (Adda-Decker and Lamel, 1999). The case study is the vowel alternation [e]–[ʌ] after labials, encountered in Romanian historically, as part of a relatively sporadic sound change with unclear conditioning, as well as synchronically, as a phenomenon commonly observed in continuous speech. The specific question we address is whether the synchronic phenomenon in Romanian continuous speech is simply the result of general vowel reduction, or may reflect the sound change, with its apparent sensitivity to a labial consonantal context. We focus on the prepositions [pe] ‘on’ and [de] ‘of’, chosen specifically for their status as function words, more prone to vowel reduction than lexical words. We compare the ASR system’s choice of two transcription variants and their respective contexts. The results of this comparison suggest that the synchronic variation is grounded in the historical sound change, thus motivating a future systematic study of controlled speech, to determine the exact role of segmental contextual factors. The main result is that the selection of transcription variants is significantly different for the two prepositions. This allows us to better understand the conditioning environment of the relevant sound change, and reveals the language-specific articulatory and co-articulatory settings and dynamic patterns that may have led to it, as they emerge and can be observed in continuous speech. -
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. -
The Domain of Liaison: Theories and Data*
The domain of liaison: theories and data* GEERT BOOIJ and DAAN DE JONG Abstract In this paper it is argued that current theories of the domain of liaison are inadequate. It is shown thai 'domain' is a variable intralinguistic constraint on the (variable) rule of liaison. The variable nature of liaison is also apparent from the fact that its rate of application covaries with extralinguis- tic factors such as style and social class. These results also show that rules of sentence phonology should be based on reliable corpora of spoken language. 1. Introduction Liaison can be seen as the phenomenon of latent word-final consonants surfacing phonetically before a vowel-initial word. For instance, in petit ami [p(9)titami] 'little friend' the final / of petit is realized phonetically, whereas it does not surface in petit garςon [p(3)tigars5] 4small boy', because the following word begins with a consonant. These latent consonants also surface in inflectional and derivational morphology, as petite [p(s)tit] 'small', fern, sg., and petitesse [ptites] 'smallness' illustrate. A survey of alternative views of liaison is presented in Klausenburger (1984). The liaison consonant is usually (but not always, see Encreve 1983) tautosyllabic with the next word, the first fragment of the second word, as is illustrated by the syllabification of petit ami: (ρίί)σ(ΐ3)σ(ηιί)á where σ = syllable. That is, liaison usually implies enchamement.1 In this paper, we will focus on one particular problem in the analysis of liaison, its domain of application. It is well known that liaison only applies within certain environments. -
Teaching Romance Linguistics with On-Line French, Italian
Burr, Elisabeth (2001):"Romance Linguistics and Corpora of French, Italian and Spanish Newspaper language", in: Fiormonte, Domenico / Usher, Jonathan (eds.): New Media and the Humanities: Research and Applications. Proceedings of the first seminar Computers, Literature and Philology, Edinburgh 7-9 September 1998. Oxford: Humanities Computing Unit, University of Oxford 85-104. ROMANCE LINGUISTICS AND CORPORA OF FRENCH, ITALIAN AND SPANISH NEWSPAPER LANGUAGE Was allein geeignet ist, als Leitstern, durch das ganze Labyrinth der Sprachkunde hindurchzuführen, findet auch hier Anwendung. Die Sprache liegt nur in der verbundenen Rede, Grammatik und Wörterbuch sind kaum ihrem todten Gerippe vergleichbar. Die bloße Vergleichung selbst dürftiger und nicht durchaus zweckmäßig gewählter Sprachproben lehrt daher viel besser den Totaleindruck des Charakters einer Sprache auffassen, als das gewöhnliche Studium der grammatischen Hülfsmittel. [...] Freilich führt dies in eine mühevolle, oft ins Kleinliche gehende Elementaruntersuchung, es sind aber lauter in sich kleinliche Einzelheiten, auf welchen der Totaleindruck der Sprachen beruht, und nichts ist mit dem Studium derselben so unverträglich, als bloss in ihnen das Grosse, Geistige, Vorherrschende aufsuchen zu wollen. (Humboldt 1827-1829/1963: 186 and 200). 1. Introduction Since 1990 a computer corpus-based course for students of Romance linguistics has been gradually established at Duisburg University. When the course was started, there was only an Italian newspaper corpus, but now there are newspaper corpora for each of the three languages: French, Italian and Spanish. All of these have been enriched with tags which represent the structural features of newspapers and text. To date, the tagging is in the COCOA-Format. These corpora can be used to study grammatical and stylistic features in general or the variation present inside each corpus. -
On the Production of Sandhi Phenomena in French: Psycholinguistic and Acoustic Data
On the production of sandhi phenomena in French: psycholinguistic and acoustic data Odile Bagou1, Violaine Michel1, Marina Laganaro1 1 Groupe NeuroPsychoLinguistique, FLSH, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland [email protected], [email protected] Abstract detect than word-initial consonants (see also, [3]). Therefore, one might consider that liaison consonants have This preliminary study addresses two complementary a perceptual status that facilitates lexical access on W2. questions about the production of sandhi phenomena in French. First, we investigated whether the encoding of At least two hypotheses can be proposed to integrate enchaînement and liaison enchaînée involves a processing these two main results. First, liaison and enchaînement cost compared to non-resyllabified sequences. This consonants might be acoustically less salient than word- question was analyzed with a psycholinguistic production initial consonants. Indeed, liaison consonants [7, 8, 4, 5] time paradigm. The elicited sequences were then used to and enchaînement consonants [9, 10] have been reported to be shorter than word-initial consonants. Hence, the address our second question, namely how critical V1CV2 sequences are phonetically realized across different processing of the misalignement might be facilitated by boundary conditions. We compared the durational the presence of subtle acoustic cues that allow the listeners properties of critical sequences containing a word-final to discriminate resyllabified consonants from word-initial consonants. However, phoneme detection studies coda consonant (enchaînement: V1.C#V2), an additional consonant (liaison enchaînée: V +C#V ) and a similar established that only liaison consonants perceptually differ 1 2 from word-initial consonants [6]. Therefore, the effects onset consonant (V1#CV2). Results on production latencies suggested that the encoding of liaison enchaînée involves found in phoneme detection tasks cannot be explained by an additional processing cost compared to the two other acoustic differences only. -
Variable and Invariable Liaison in a Corpus of Spoken French
Erschienen in: Journal of French Language Studies ; 25 (2015), 3. - S. 367-396 https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0959269515000186 Journal of French Language Studies 25 (2015), 367–396, © Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0959269515000186 Variable and invariable liaison in a corpus of spoken French JUDITH MEINSCHAEFERa,SVENBONIFERb AND CHRISTINE FRISCHc aFreie Universitat¨ Berlin bFormerly Universitat¨ Konstanz cFormerly Universitat¨ Wurzburg¨ (Received June 2013; revised October 2014) abstract Using texts selected from the C-Oral-Rom corpus, this study considers how linguistic and sociolinguistic variables affect liaison. In the majority of cases, liaison appears on monosyllabic function words. Individual lexemes differ greatly in rate of liaison. With regard to sociolinguistic variation, female speakers realize liaison consonants more often than male speakers, younger speakers realize it more often than older speakers, and liaison rates for speakers without university degree are higher than for speakers with university degree. Results are discussed in the light of models of prosodic structure and with respect to their implications for models of socio-linguistic variation. 1 introduction French liaison is a phrasal phonological phenomenon that consists in the pronunciation of a word-final consonant that is followed by a vowel-initial word, see (1a), where this consonant is otherwise not pronounced when the word is realised in isolation or before a pause,1 (1b). Here and in all following examples, realization of a liaison consonant is indicated in the orthographic representation by an underscore (‘_’), and word boundaries are indicated in the phonetic transcription by a hash (‘#’). (1) Liaison vs. absence of liaison for petit, Adj Masc ‘little’ a. -
Assimilation in English Connected Speech
Assimilation in English Connected Speech Assist. Lecturer Iman Farhan Mohammed Al-Mustansiriya University/ College of Arts/ Department of English Language البريد اﻹليكتروني: [email protected] 303 Abstract The current study focuses on one of the most significant problems of English phonemic analysis that is the phenomenon of assimilation. The notion assimilation is discussed, by many phoneticians and phonologists like Roach, Carr and many others, as a phonological process when there is a change of one sound into another because of adjacent segments. Assimilation has many types with different forms. It also has its own rules that constraint sounds and how a feature of a sound spreads to an adjacent sound. The aim of this paper is an attempt to provide an adequate background knowledge for those who are interested in this phonetic phenomenon. Keywords: (assimilation - speech – rules) 1.1 Assimilation: Overview Broadly speaking, Crystal (2011:39) states that assimilation means the effect that is expressed by one sound segment upon the production of another, so that the sounds become more similar. In this regard, Trask (2000:30) argues that the term assimilation is any syntagmatic change in which some sound seems more identical in nature to another sound in the same sequence, usually within one phonological word or phrase. Besides, Carr, (2008:16) assumes that assimilation is a process in which two, usually adjacent, segments appear more identical to each other. An instance of assimilation for place of articulation can be seen in sequences such as ten boys in 304 English, where the /n/ of ten seems to assimilate to the place of articulation of the following bilabial stop /tembɔɪz/. -
Jurij Kusmenko Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin 1
SCANDINAVIAN UMLAUT, SÁMI METAPHONY AND SWEDISH- NORWEGIAN LEVELLING (JAMNING): A WANDERING SCANDINAVIAN-SÁMI FEATURE Jurij Kusmenko Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 1. Introduction The Scandinavian tradition distinguishes two kinds of distant regressive vowel assimilation. The earlier of the two, dating back to Common Nordic, and corresponding to similar changes in the West Germanic languages, is called umlaut. The second one is found only in the north-eastern Swedish and eastern Norwegian dialects and dates from the sixteenth century. It is commonly referred to, in Swedish, as tilljämning, Bokmål tiljevning, Nynorsk jamning, “levelling”. Finno-Ugric languages usually have vowel harmony, yet the Sámi languages have instead a rule which corresponds to the Germanic umlaut and Swedish-Norwegian levelling. The traditional term for this phenome- non is metaphony. The similarities between Scandinavian umlaut and Sámi metaphony (Hesselman 1945, 7; Korhonen 1967, 21), as well as those between Sámi metaphony and Swedish-Norwegian levelling (Bergsland 1992, 8-9), have been noted earlier. However, these have been regarded as no more than typological parallels. Kylstra, who does not mention the Swedish-Norwegian levelling, considers two possible explanations for the similarity between Sámi metaphony and Germanic umlaut. He wavers between a parallel develop- ment and the influence of an unidentified substrate (Kylstra 1983, 161- 171), admitting, however, that the assumption of the latter is too hypotheti- cal and “nicht wissenschaftlich” (ibid., 161). Yet Kylstra does not mention a third possibility, arguably the most obvious one: Sámi-Scandinavian language contact. But in order to specify the kind and direction of the po- tential borrowing, we have to take into consideration a number of criteria, apart from geographical neighbourhood, namely: 1.