DOCSLIB.ORG

ACOUSTIC CHARACTERISTICS of ARABIC FRICATIVES By

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
ACOUSTIC CHARACTERISTICS of ARABIC FRICATIVES By ACOUSTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF ARABIC FRICATIVES By MOHAMED ALI AL-KHAIRY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2005 Copyright 2005 by Mohamed Ali Al-Khairy To my father who did not live to see the fruit of his work. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS After finishing writing this dissertation on a rainy summer night I decided not to bother with a lengthy acknowledgment section. After all I was the one who wrote it. Well, leaving ego and false pride aside, this work could not have been done without the help of many. First and foremost, thanks go to The Almighty GOD for His guidance and blessings without which graduate school would have been a worse nightmare. My gratitude goes also to my wonderful supervisor and mentor Dr. Ratree Wayland whose dedication to her students, teaching, and research is beyond highest expectations. Without her help, guidelines, constant encouragement, and support, this work would not have been possible. Members of my supervisory committee (Dr. Gillian Lord and Dr. Caroline Wiltshire from Linguistics, and Dr. Rahul Shirvastav from Communication Sciences and Disorders) were of the utmost help in the process of finishing this work. My stay in Gainesville introduced me to many people. Most were nice and cheerful and some one could definitively live without. I will skip the latter group to save space. However, among such nice and wonderful people I got to know during this journey are the wonderful students, faculty, and staff of the Linguistics Department who were of tremendous help both personally and academically. My special thanks and gratitude go also to Dr. Aida Bamia and Dr. Haig Der-Houssikian from the Department of African and Asian Languages and Literature. Their supervision, friendship, and encouragement went far beyond the responsibilities of mentors to those of parents. For that I will be eternally grateful. I also would like to thank my study partners, Yousef Al-Dlaigan, who was unjustly forced to change his career, and AbdulWaheed Al-Saadi, who was brave enough iv to finish his Ph.D. I regret to say that I am still unclear of the process of gene transformation in strawberry and citrus. I hope though you learned from me how to read a spectrogram. I tried my best. Now is the fun part: thanking my friends in the phonetics lab. Listed in chronological order of their liberation from school are Rebecca Hill, Jodi Bray, Philip Monahan, Sang-Hee Yeon, HeeNam Park, Victor Prieto, and Manjula Shinge. Yet to feel the wonderful breeze outside Turlington basement are my great friends Andrea Dallas, Bin Li, and Priyankoo Sarmah. I thank them for all the cheerful moments and laughs we shared at the University of Florida. Although life might take us into different routes, our friendship is eternal. Although they are in a different time zone, I thank my friends on the west cost and across the Atlantic for their great advice and emotional support, without which long nights would definitely have been longer. I will send them my phone bills later. I am sure that I left out some names; for those unintentionally missed I extend my apologies and sincere thanks. The acoustic analyses in this dissertaion were carried out in a timely manner thanks to the existence of the wonderful free PRAAT program and the abundant help and suggestion from its authors and the PRAAT user community. Also, I was extremely fortunate to escape the nightmare of typesetting using the popular- but-not-really-friendly commercial software. I thank Ron Smith for making his ufthesis LATEX class freely available. Across oceans and continents, the prayers and encouragement of my parents and siblings were a driving force and endless motivation to finish and join them back home. Although God had other plans for my father and older brother, I am sure they are proud of what their prayers from high above have accomplished. Finally, words fall short in describing my gratitude and thanks toward my wife, Nadaa; and kids, Faisal and Farah. They have suffered through this dissertation v almost as much as I have; maybe even more. Through the many nights I spent at the lab, they have shown endless patience, love, and understanding. I truly cannot imagine having gone through this process without such amazing love and support. Parts of this work were supported by a McLaughlin Dissertation Fellowship from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................. iv LIST OF TABLES ................................. ix LIST OF FIGURES ................................ x ABSTRACT .................................... xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .............................. 1 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................... 5 2.1 Introduction .............................. 5 2.2 Fricative Production ......................... 5 2.3 Acoustic Cues to Fricative Place of Articulation .......... 7 2.3.1 Amplitude Cues ........................ 7 2.3.2 Duration Cues ......................... 13 2.3.3 Spectral Cues ......................... 15 2.3.4 Formant Transition Cues ................... 22 2.4 Studies of Arabic Fricatives ..................... 26 3 METHODOLOGY .............................. 29 3.1 Data Collection ............................ 29 3.1.1 Participants .......................... 29 3.1.2 Materials ............................ 30 3.1.3 Recording ........................... 30 3.2 Data Analysis ............................. 31 3.2.1 Segmentation of Speech .................... 31 3.2.2 Acoustic Analyses ....................... 34 3.3 Statistical Analyses .......................... 40 4 AMPLITUDE AND DURATION ...................... 42 4.1 Amplitude Measurements ....................... 42 4.1.1 Normalized Frication Noise RMS Amplitude ........ 42 4.1.2 Relative Amplitude of Frication Noise ............ 45 vii 4.2 Temporal Measurements ....................... 56 4.2.1 Absolute Duration of Frication Noise ............ 56 4.2.2 Normalized Duration of Frication Noise ........... 59 5 SPECTRAL MEASUREMENTS ...................... 63 5.1 Spectral Peak Location ........................ 63 5.2 Spectral Moments ........................... 69 5.2.1 Spectral Mean ......................... 71 5.2.2 Spectral Variance ....................... 74 5.2.3 Spectral Skewness ....................... 80 5.2.4 Spectral Kurtosis ....................... 89 6 FORMANT TRANSITION ......................... 96 6.1 Second Formant (F 2) at Transition ................. 96 6.2 Locus Equation ............................ 100 7 STATISTICAL CLASSIFICATION OF FRICATIVES .......... 102 7.1 Discriminant Function Analysis ................... 102 7.2 Classification Accuracy of DFA ................... 103 7.3 Classification Power of Predictors .................. 105 7.4 Classification Results ......................... 105 8 GENERAL DISCUSSION .......................... 111 8.1 Temporal Measurement ........................ 112 8.2 Amplitude Measurement ....................... 113 8.3 Spectral Measurement ........................ 115 8.4 Transition Information ........................ 118 8.5 Discriminant Analysis ......................... 119 8.6 Conclusion ............................... 120 REFERENCES ................................... 121 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ............................ 127 viii LIST OF TABLES Table page 1–1 Arabic Fricatives .............................. 3 4–1 Relative Amplitude: Vowel Context ................... 48 4–2 Mean Relative Amplitude ......................... 53 5–1 Spectral Peak Location .......................... 65 5–2 Spectral Moments ............................. 72 5–3 Spectral Skewness: Significant Contrasts for Voiced Fricatives ..... 86 5–4 Spectral Skewness: Significant Contrasts for Voiceless Fricatives .... 86 6–1 Second Formant at Transition ...................... 97 6–2 Locus Equation: Slope and y-intercept .................. 101 7–1 Prior Probabilities for Group Membership ................ 103 7–2 Variance Accounted for by DFA Functions ................ 104 7–3 Overall Voiceless Classification ...................... 107 7–4 Cross-Validated Classification Results .................. 107 7–5 Overall Voiced Classification ....................... 109 7–6 Cross-Validated Voiced Classification .................. 109 7–7 Overall Voiceless Classification ...................... 109 7–8 Cross-Validated Voiceless Classification ................. 110 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 3–1 Example of Segmentation ......................... 32 3–2 Segmentation of /Q/ ........................... 33 3–3 Hamming vs. Kaiser Window ...................... 35 3–4 Duration .................................. 36 4–1 Frication Noise RMS Amplitude ..................... 43 4–2 Frication Noise RMS Amplitude: Vowel Context ............ 44 4–3 Frication Noise RMS Amplitude: Place and Voicing .......... 45 4–4 Relative Amplitude ............................ 47 4–5 Relative Amplitude: Place and Voicing ................. 49 4–6 Relative Amplitude; Place and Short Vowels .............. 51 4–7 Relative Amplitude; Place and Long Vowels .............. 52 4–8 Relative Amplitude: Voicing and Short Vowels ............. 54 4–9 Relative Amplitude: Voicing and Long Vowels ............. 55 4–10 Fricative Duration: Place and Voicing .................. 57 4–11 Fricative Duration: Place and Voicing Interactions ........... 58 4–12 Fricative Duration: Vowel Context .................... 59 4–13 Normalized Frication Noise: Place and Voicing
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Towards a Practical Phonology of Korean
    Towards a practical phonology of Korean Research Master programme in Linguistics Leiden University Graduation thesis Lorenzo Oechies Supervisor: Dr. J.M. Wiedenhof Second reader: Dr. A.R. Nam June 1, 2020 The blue silhouette of the Korean peninsula featured on the front page of this thesis is taken from the Korean Unification Flag (Wikimedia 2009), which is used to represent both North and South Korea. Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... iii 0. Conventions ............................................................................................................................................... vii 0.1 Romanisation ........................................................................................................................................................ vii 0.2 Glosses .................................................................................................................................................................... viii 0.3 Symbols .................................................................................................................................................................. viii 0.4 Phonetic transcription ........................................................................................................................................ ix 0.5 Phonemic transcription.....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • And [W] Distinction in Back Round Vowel Contexts
    BRITISH ENGLISH [KW], [K], AND [W] DISTINCTION IN BACK ROUND VOWEL CONTEXTS Helena Beeley University of Oxford [email protected] ABSTRACT the effect of labialization on rounded vowel transi- tions was not discussed in these studies, nor were Corpus data from the Audio British National Cor- English stops with secondary labialization the focus pus was used to compare the acoustics of British of study. This paper aims to analyse the acoustics English stops with velar and/or labial articulation in of phonemic secondary labialization of stops and onset positions preceding back rounded vowels. The approximants and of non-phonemic coarticulatory acoustics of labialized velar stops in British English labialization of stops in back vowel contexts. Due have not commonly been described due to their fre- to the absence of a contrast between labialized velar quent phonological analysis as clusters. Labialized stops and /kw/ clusters in syllable onsets in English velars have been characterized cross-linguistically the question of the exact phonological status of the in terms of low second formant frequency, but it sounds is not considered very relevant to the present was found that third formant frequency is a more discussion. significant cue to differentiation in back rounded vowel contexts. Plain velars with non-phonemic 2. THE CORPUS labialization resulting from proximity to a follow- ing back rounded vowel did not differ significantly The Audio British National Corpus [2] consists of from labialized velars in formant transition frequen- approximately 7 million words of spontaneous En- cies. Lower F3 in labial-velar approximants indi- glish speech. Recordings were collected during the cates more lip-rounding but higher F2 suggests a period 1991 to 1994 using analogue audio casette more fronted tongue position.
    [Show full text]
  • A Dispersion-Theoretic Account of Taiwanese CV Phonotactics Sheng-Fu Wang New York University
    A Dispersion-Theoretic Account of Taiwanese CV phonotactics Sheng-Fu Wang New York University 1 Introduction Incorporating the notion of contrast in explaining the structure of sound inventories and sound distributions has been an important development in phonological theory. As summed up by Flemming (2004), from the ‘Theory of Adaptive Dispersion’ (Lindblom, 1986, 1988) to ‘Dispersion Theory’ (Flemming, 1996, 2002), three functional goals have been assumed to determine the structure of phonological contrasts: (1) a. Maximise the distinctiveness of contrasts b. Minimise articulatory effort c. Maximise the number of contrasts Flemming’s (2004) work formalizes the notion of maximal distinctiveness with constraints on contrasts, and demonstrates that such constraints better explain sound inventories than markedness constraints that evaluate individual sounds. The major difference is that constraints on contrasts capture the generalization that certain contrasts are absent because of a lack of distinctiveness, not because of inherent markedness of the segments in contrast. In addition to accounting for the structure of inventories, the notion of distinctive contrast has been shown to capture generalization in different phonological phenomena, such as co-occurrence restrictions (Gallagher, 2010) and segmental alternation that preserves phonemic contrasts (Stanton, 2016). Along this line, this study presents data on the surface phonotactics of voicing and nasality in Taiwanese, and aims to demonstrate that perceptual distinctiveness can provide an account for the distribution of segments, and the configuration of these constraints on contrasts is grounded in language-specific phonetic details, in this case, realization of contrastive vocalic nasality. Taiwanese has a phonemic nasal contrast in vowels (i.e., pi55 ‘sad’ vs.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonetics and Phonology Seminar Introduction to Linguistics, Andrew
    Phonetics and Phonology Phonetics and Phonology Voicing: In voiced sounds, the vocal cords (=vocal folds, Stimmbände) are pulled together Seminar Introduction to Linguistics, Andrew McIntyre and vibrate, unlike in voiceless sounds. Compare zoo/sue, ban/pan. Tests for voicing: 1 Phonetics vs. phonology Put hand on larynx. You feel more vibrations with voiced consonants. Phonetics deals with three main areas: Say [fvfvfv] continuously with ears blocked. [v] echoes inside your head, unlike [f]. Articulatory phonetics: speech organs & how they move to produce particular sounds. Acoustic phonetics: what happens in the air between speaker & hearer; measurable 4.2 Description of English consonants (organised by manners of articulation) using devices such as a sonograph, which analyses frequencies. The accompanying handout gives indications of the positions of the speech organs Auditory phonetics: how sounds are perceived by the ear, how the brain interprets the referred to below, and the IPA description of all sounds in English and other languages. information coming from the ear. Phonology: study of how particular sounds are used (in particular languages, in languages 4.2.1 Plosives generally) to distinguish between words. Study of how sounds form systems in (particular) Plosive (Verschlusslaut): complete closure somewhere in vocal tract, then air released. languages. Examples of phonological observations: (2) Bilabial (both lips are the active articulators): [p,b] in pie, bye The underlined sound sequence in German Strumpf can occur in the middle of words (3) Alveolar (passive articulator is the alveolar ridge (=gum ridge)): [t,d] in to, do in English (ashtray) but not at the beginning or end. (4) Velar (back of tongue approaches soft palate (velum)): [k,g] in cat, go In pan and span the p-sound is pronounced slightly differently.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
    UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Title Cross-Linguistically Shared and Language-Specific Sound Symbolism for Motion: An Exploratory Data Mining Approach Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2s01d8pf Journal Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 35(35) ISSN 1069-7977 Authors Saji, Noburo Akita, Kimi Imai, Mutsumi et al. Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Cross-Linguistically Shared and Language-Specific Sound Symbolism for Motion: An Exploratory Data Mining Approach Noburo Saji ([email protected]) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/Keio University, 4-1-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8521 Japan Kimi Akita ([email protected]) Studies in Language and Culture, Osaka University, 1-8 Machikaneyama-cho Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043 Japan Mutsumi Imai ([email protected]) Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, 5322 Endo Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-0882 Japan Katerina Kantartzis ([email protected]), Sotaro Kita ([email protected]) School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT UK Abstract smallness more frequently than words containing /a/. Another celebrated example of sound symbolism is the This paper demonstrates a new quantitative approach to identify what is behind universally sensed sound symbolism association between sonorancy and roundness (Köhler, and sound symbolism detected only by speakers of a 1929/1947). It has been repeatedly observed that speakers of particular language. We presented 70 locomotion videos to many languages prefer a round shape for maluma and an Japanese and English speakers and asked them to create a angular shape for takete (Brenner, Caparos, Davidoff, word that would sound-symbolically match each action, then Fockert, Linnell, & Spence, 2013; Davis, 1961; Holland & to rate the action on five semantic dimensions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1
    Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures The Tiberian Pronunciation Khan Tradition of Biblical Hebrew (Vol. I) The Tiberian Pronunciation Geoffrey Khan Tradition of Biblical Hebrew The form of Biblical Hebrew that is presented in printed edi� ons, with vocaliza� on and Tradition of Biblical Hebrew Vol. I accent signs, has its origin in medieval manuscripts of the Bible. The vocaliza� on and Volume I accent signs are nota� on systems that were created in Tiberias in the early Islamic period The Tiberian Pronunciation The by scholars known as the Tiberian Masoretes, but the oral tradi� on they represent has roots in an� quity. The gramma� cal textbooks and reference grammars of Biblical Hebrew in use today are heirs to centuries of tradi� on of gramma� cal works on Biblical Hebrew in GEOFFREY KHAN Europe. The paradox is that this European tradi� on of Biblical Hebrew grammar did not have direct access to the way the Tiberian Masoretes were pronouncing Biblical Hebrew. In the last few decades, research of manuscript sources from the medieval Middle East has made it possible to reconstruct with considerable accuracy the pronuncia� on of the Tiberian Masoretes, which has come to be known as the ‘Tiberian pronuncia� on tradi� on’. This book presents the current state of knowledge of the Tiberian pronuncia� on tradi� on of Biblical Hebrew and a full edi� on of one of the key medieval sources, Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ ‘The Guide for the Reader’, by ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn. It is hoped that the book will help to break the mould of current gramma� cal descrip� ons of Biblical Hebrew and form a bridge between modern tradi� ons of grammar and the school of the Masoretes of Tiberias.
    [Show full text]
  • Formant Characteristics of Malay Vowels
    International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE) Vol. 9, No. 1, March 2020, pp. 144~152 ISSN: 2252-8822, DOI: 10.11591/ijere.v9i1.20421 144 Formant characteristics of Malay vowels Izzad Ramli1, Nursuriati Jamil2, Norizah Ardi3 1,2Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia 3Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: The purpose of this study was to investigate and examined the eight vowels formant characteristic of Malay language. Previous research of Malay Received Dec 3, 2019 language only investigated six basic vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /ə/. Revised Jan 28, 2020 The vowels /ɔ/, /ε/ that usually exist in a dialect were not included in Accepted Feb19, 2020 the previous investigations. In this study, the vowels sound were collected from five men and four women producing the vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /ə/, /ɔ/, /ε/ from different regions and dialects in Malaysia. Formant contours, F1 Keywords: until F4 of the vowels were measured using interactive editing tool called Praat. Analysis of the formant data showed numerous differences between Acoustic phonetic vowels in terms of average frequencies of F1 and F2, and the degree of Formant analysis overlap among adjacent vowels. When compared with the International International phonetic alphabet Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), most pronunciation of the Malay vowels were at Malay vowels the same position but the vowel /ε/ seen more likely to become a front vowel Vowel chart instead of a central vowel. Consequently, vowel features of the two Malay allophones /ɔ/ and /ε/ were documented and added to the IPA vowel chart.
    [Show full text]
  • Some Proper Names Are More Equal Than Others. the Sound Symbolic Value of New Names », Cahiers De Lexicologie, N° 113, 2018 – 2, Néologie Et Noms Propres, P
    ELSEN (Hilke), « Some Proper Names are more Equal than Others. The Sound Symbolic Value of New Names », Cahiers de lexicologie, n° 113, 2018 – 2, Néologie et noms propres, p. 79-94 DOI : 10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-08791-5.p.0079 HILKE ELSEN SOME PROPER NAMES ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS The sound symbolic value of new names RESUME – Cet article traite de la valeur symbolique des sons des nouveaux noms propres. Après avoir précisé la signification des termes clés, il présente un test portant sur l’interprétation des noms de médicaments ainsi qu’une expérience effectuée sur des noms de créatures fantastiques. Il montre enfin que certains noms “sonnent” mieux que d’autres, les créateurs de ces noms tentant de livrer des informations par le biais de leur structure phonologique. MOTS-CLES – Noms littéraires, noms artificiels, symbolique phonétique ABSTRACT – This paper is about the sound symbolic value of new names. After discussing the relevant terms and problems concerning the present state of definitions, a test on the interpretation of names of drugs is outlined, followed by an experiment with names for fantastic creatures. As will be shown, some names are better than others, and possible explanations are offered. Name creators do not build their names arbitrarily but try to deliver information via sound structure. KEY-WORDS – Literary names, artificial names, sound symbolism. Introduction Questions concerning sound symbolism are usually not tackled by modern linguists, probably because of the dominance of Western European and US-American research and de Saussure’s conclusion that the relation between form and meaning of the linguistic sign is arbitrary – except for just a few onomatopoetic terms such as cuckoo.
    [Show full text]
  • Effects of Articulatory Training on English Middle-School Learners’ Production and Perception of SENĆOŦEN Uvular Stops
    Effects of articulatory training on English middle-school learners’ production and perception of SENĆOŦEN uvular stops Sarah Smith University of Victoria This study examines the effects of linguistic training (explicit training on the nature of the target sounds) on the perception and production of difficult sound contrasts for middle-school learners of SENĆOŦEN, a Central Salish language. Also, the motivation and attitude towards learning is examined through a self-reporting survey. The participants completed a survey on language attitude and motivation, a production task and a perception task before and after a training session. The training focused on explicitly teaching the physical properties of the production of the target sound (e.g. where the tongue moves in a particular sound). The training did have a positive effect on the production and perception of the difficult sound in SENĆOŦEN in the posttest, but attitude and motivation towards learning language did not change as a result of explicit training in the language. 1 Introduction1 Although much effort has been expended on second language learning and training effects of certain languages, less attention has been paid to the effects of explicit linguistic training. That is, training which involves direct attention to how certain sounds are made in a language. This paper will examine the effects of linguistic training on middle-school learners’ perception and production of a First Nations language—SENĆOŦEN. SENĆOŦEN is a Central Salish language spoken in the Northern Straits around the southern tip of Vancouver Island (Bird & Leonard, 2009a). The phonology of this Central Salish dialect is rich in its consonant inventory (35 consonants) with few vowels (only four) (Montler, 1986).
    [Show full text]
  • Sound to Meaning Mappings in the Bouba-Kiki Effect
    Sound to Meaning Mappings in the Bouba-Kiki Effect Kelly McCormick ([email protected]) Department of Psychology, 36 Eagle Row Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA Jee Young Kim ([email protected]) Department of Psychology, 36 Eagle Row Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA Sara List ([email protected]) Neuroscience Program Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 1462 Clifton Road Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA Lynne C. Nygaard ([email protected]) Department of Psychology, 36 Eagle Row Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA Abstract systematically related to the meanings they represent? Research has found that certain classes of sounds are more Sound to meaning correspondences in spoken language are assumed to be largely arbitrary. However, research has likely than others to appear in words with particular identified a number of exceptions to the arbitrariness meanings and that language users are sensitive to these non- assumption. In particular, non-arbitrary mappings between arbitrary sound to meaning mappings. Cross-linguistic sound and shape, the bouba/kiki effect, have been research has identified systematic sound-to-meaning documented across diverse languages and both children and mappings in terms describing a range of perceptual adults are sensitive to this type of sound symbolic mapping. experiences such as brightness/lightness (Hirata & Kita, The cognitive basis for the associations between nonword labels and particular shapes remains poorly understood 2011; Kunihira, 1971), texture (Dingemanse, 2011; Kita, making it difficult to predict how findings generalize beyond 1997; Magnus, 2001), and size (Nuckolls, 1999; Ultan, the limited stimuli tested. To identify systematic bases for 1978).
    [Show full text]
  • Sound Symbolism, Sonority, and Swearing: an Affect
    SOUND SYMBOLISM, SONORITY, AND SWEARING: AN AFFECT INDUCTION PERSPECTIVE Brandon John Yardy B.Sc. University of Western Ontario A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of the University of Lethbridge in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF SCIENCE Department of Psychology University of Lethbridge LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA, CANADA © Brandon John Yardy, 2010 ABSTRACT The relationship between word form and word meaning has been debated since early Greek philosophy. Conventionally, the relationship is held to be arbitrary: that there is no natural connection between a word and what it represents (de Saussure 1959). In contrast, examples of sound symbolism undermine this linguistic tenet by demonstrating non-arbitrary word meanings conveyed in details of the acoustic signal of the words themselves. The Affect Induction model of animal communication offers a natural explanation for some forms of sound symbolism in language. According to the Affect Induction model, the physical properties of signals influence receiver affect and behavior in specific ways through relatively direct effects on core sensory, psychological and affective processes. To investigate the possible implications of this model for sound symbolism in human language, a set of studies was conducted on the classic “bouba- kiki” phenomenon. An analysis was subsequently undertaken to extend the results of experiments to several corpuses of real words classically associated with divergent affective themes. Results suggest that the Affect Induction model might account for some forms of sound symbolism, as instantiated in real word usage. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to sincerely thank faculty members, students and friends who supported me during the tenure of my stay at the University of Lethbridge.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonemes (44) Vowels (20) Consonants (24)
    Phonetics and Phonology Phonemes (44) Consonants (24) Vowels (20) Diphthongs(8) Triphthongs (1) Single vowels (12) aI eI ɔɪ eə I ə aʊ əʊ ʊə Short vowels (7) Long vowels (5) _strong _week are combinations of three sounds- / i: / / ɑ: / / ᴐ: / / u: / / З: / / I / /e/ /æ/ /Λ/ /o/ /ʊ/ /ə/ English has 1 triphthong (a diphthong + a schwa sound) Height _ Frontness _ Roundedness / ( rounded / spread / neutral ) Single vowels Height Frontness shape of lips examples 1. / i: / high vowel front vowel spread 2. / ɑ: / low vowel back vowel neutral 3. / ᴐ: / mid vowel back vowel rounded 4. / u: / high vowel back vowel rounded 5. / З: / high vowel central vowel neutral 1. / I / high vowel front vowel slightly spread 2. /e/ mid vowel front vowel 3. /æ/ low vowel front vowel spread wide open 4. /Λ/ mid vowel central vowel neutral 5. /o/ mid vowel back vowel rounded 6. /ʊ/ high vowel back vowel more rounded 7. /ə/ mid vowel central vowel neutral ~Queen~ / دعوات الغاليين♥ Phonetics and Phonology consonants place of articulation manner of articulation Voiced / Voiceless examples passive active 1. p p Bilabial Stops Voiceless(-) 2. b b Bilabial Stops Voiced (+) 3. t t alveolar Stops Voiceless(-) 4. d d alveolar Stops Voiced (+) 5. ch tʃ palatal Affricates Voiceless(-) 6. j dʒ palatal Affricates Voiced (+) 7. k k Velar Stops Voiceless(-) 8. g g Velar Stops Voiced (+) 9. f f labiodentals Fricatives Voiceless(-) 10. v v labiodentals Fricatives Voiced (+) 11. th θ dental Fricatives Voiceless(-) 12. dh ð dental Fricatives Voiced (+) 13. s s alveolar Fricatives Voiceless(-) 14. z z alveolar Fricatives Voiced (+) 15.
    [Show full text]