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Pharyngealization in Assiri Arabic: an Acoustic Analysis

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Pharyngealization in Assiri Arabic: an Acoustic Analysis SST 2010 Pharyngealization in Assiri Arabic: an acoustic analysis. Saeed Shar, John Ingram School of Languages and Cross Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia [email protected], j.ingram @uq.edu.au capital of the southern region of Saudi Arabia. The Assiri Abstract dialect serves as a standard dialect for speakers of other local Five native speakers of Assiri Arabic read word lists dialects in the region. The study is part of a wider comprising contrasting pairs of plain and emphatic investigation of the acoustic and articulatory mappings of (pharyngealized) consonants in three vocalic environments guttural sounds in Assiri Arabic, using MRI. (/i/, /a/, /u/). Although considerable individual variation in expression was apparent from auditory and acoustic analysis 2. Method of the tokens, the most consistent acoustic correlate of the plain-emphatic contrast appeared to lie in the transition phase 2.1. Subjects of the accompanying vowel formant trajectories, involving a The subjects were five male native speakers of the Assiri raising of F1 and lowering of F2. A statistical analysis dialect of Arabic, one of them is the first author of this paper. (ANOVA) of the formant targets involving interactions of The age range of the subjects is 30 - 35 years. All have normal pharyngealization with, consonant , vowel, and subject factors neurological history and no apparent speech or hearing is presented, with discussion of implications for articulatory disorders. All recorded data were taken in Australia using the targets for the plain-emphatic contrast, as assessed by MRI same computer, microphone and other settings. During imaging in the same group of subjects. recording, subjects were asked to read words casually as normal speech. Index Terms: Arabic, emphatics, pharyngealization, formants, MRI. 2.2. Stimuli 1. Introduction The target sounds to be examined in this study are the set of Arabic emphatic consonants; [sˤ], [tˤ], [ðˤ] and [dˤ], and their All dialects of Arabic have minimal or near-minimal pairs of plain ones; [s], [t], [ð] and [d]. A set of real Arabic words were contrasting ‘emphatic’ vs. ‘plain’ consonants. The total chosen and arranged in four groups according to minimal pair number of emphatics in Standard Arabic is four; [sˤ], [tˤ], [ðˤ] contrast. Target sounds are pronounced in different positions; and [dˤ],. Emphatics contrast with their plain equivalent initially and medially. Each minimal pair is followed by sounds /s/, /t/, /ð/ and /d/, as shown in the following examples vowels [a] [i] and [u], which are a subgroup of the Arabic of minimal pairs: vowels. In this acoustic experiment, there are eight emphatics and plain sounds in two different positions followed by three /s/ & /sˤ/ /sa:r/ ‘walked’ vs. / sˤa:r/ ‘became’ vowels and uttered by five subjects. This yielded 240 tokens /t/ & /tˤ/ /ti:n/ ‘fog’ vs. /tˤi:n/ ‘mud’ for measurement (2 [plain-emphatic] x 4 [consonants] x 2 /ð/ & /ðˤ/ /ðall/ ‘cringed’ vs. /ðˤall/ ‘still’ [initial-medial] x 3 [vowels] x 5 [subjects]). /d/ & /dˤ/ /da:l/ ‘guiding’ vs. /dˤa:l/ ‘mislead’ 2.2. Procedures The emphatic consonants are usually characterised phoneti- cally as `pharyngealized’, involving a secondary constriction Subjects were recorded using a microphone attached directly in the pharynx, produced more or less simultaneously with the to the computer, and acoustic data were stored as .wav files primary place of articulation for the consonant, but spreading digitized at 44.1 KHz on a personal computer using the into the adjacent vowel, predominantly rightward but bi- “Praat” speech manipulation software to measure formant directionally, and in some cases beyond the target syllable frequencies. Measurements were stored in an Excel containing the pharyngealized consonant. The well known spreadsheet and statistically analysed using the S-plus acoustic effect of emphatics on neighbouring vowels is, ‘em- statistical graphics package. phasis spread’, and the most reported influence is raising F1 and lowering F2 (either at the transition only or through the Praat formant tracking was used with standard settings to whole vowel) because of retracted tongue root and raising estimate the formant trajectories of F1 and F2. The whole larynx (Shahin,1997, Trigo, 1991, Zawaydeh,1999, Muqbil, trajectory of the vowel following the consonant (both 2006) . Al-Ani (1970) reported large F2 drops in vowels fol- transition and steady state portions) was used in calculating lowing emphatics consonants as opposed to non-emphatic the mean value of a formant trajectory. ones; the vowel [a] shows the greatest fall of F2. The same result was found by Ghazeli (1977), Also he found that F1 of all vowels is raised by emphatics. Younes (1982) found similar patterns in Northern Palestinian. Zawaydah (1999) confirmed this result; furthermore, she found that F2 is lowered more by emphatics than by gutturals which are primarily produced in the pharyngeal region. This study investigates the acoustic features that distinguish emphatic consonants from their plain counterparts in Assiri Arabic. This dialect is spoken in the city of Abha which is the ISBN 978-0-9581946-3-1 © 2010 ASSTA Accepted after peer review of full paper 5 14-16 December 2010, Melbourne, Australia statistically significant (p < .002) was relatively small in comparison with the effect of vowel type or pharyngealization. A posteriori paired comparisons (t-tests) showed that there were significant differences between pharyngealized and plain consonants for the voiced but not for the voiceless consonants ([ðˤ] - [ð]: t=3.7323, p = 0.0009 and [dˤ] - [d]: t= 2.3181, p = 0.028). The two-way interaction plot, (see Fig.3) between consonant and vowel type was difficult to interpret. /sˤ a b i r/ /s a b i r/ Figure 1: Spectrogram of / sˤabɪr/ and /sabɪr/, with pharyngealized [sˤ] and plain [s] in initial position. 3. Results A graphical summary of the formant changes to the following vowel associated with pharyngealization of the preceding consonant is shown in Figure 2 (end of report), where formant Fig. 3 Interaction of consonant and vowel on F2 transition trajectories of individual subjects are color coded and the formant change from plain to emphatic form is indicated by The interaction plot (Fig. 3) suggested that the phonetic target the direction of the arrowhead. A series of 3-way ANOVAS for the /i/ vowel is quite centralized following the voiced inter- was conducted on the formant measurements, to assess the ð ð ðɨ statistical significance of factors influencing F1 and F2 dental fricative / / (i.e.: / i/ is realized as [ ]). This lowering measurements. of F2 for the interdental fricative might be expected to influence F2 lowering for plain – emphatic contrast for this 3.1. ANOVA (1) Effects of Pharyngealization consonant, thereby yielding a 3-way interaction of Consonant by Vowel by Pharyngealization. However, no such significant The first series of ANOVAs was undertaken to assess the main 3-way interaction was observed. and interaction effects of Pharyngealization, Consonant, and The 2-way interaction of Pharyngealization by Vowel type Vowel separately on the dependent variables F1 and F2. The (see Fig. 4) and post-hoc t-test comparisons showed a greater summary findings are presented in Tables 1 and 2. lowering of F2 under pharyngealization for the low vowel [a] than the high vowels [i] and [u]. ([aˤ] – [a]: t=16.7761, p = Table 1 ANOVA Dependent variable: F1 Source Df S of Sq F Value Pr(F) 0.0000, [iˤ] - [i]: t= 2.3374, p = 0.0248 and [uˤ] - [u]: t= phary. 1 106327 28.6949 0.0000006 2.3026, p = 0.0269). cons 3 15801 1.4215 0.2412642 vow 2 604222 216.4699 0.0000000 phary:cons 3 2744 0.2469 0.8633677 phary:vow 2 199 0.0269 0.9734836 cons:vow 6 39908 1.7950 0.1081491 Vowel phary:cons:vow 6 11989 0.5392 0.7771630 i u Residuals 96 355720 a Apart from the expected main effects of vowel ([i], [a], [u]) and pharyngealization, there were no other significant main or interaction effects upon F1. Pharyngealization raised F1 by a mean of F2 mean value of 59 Hz, a highly significant effect (p<.00001). Table 2 ANOVA Dependent variable: F2 Source Df S of Sq F Value Pr(F) phary. 1 2381774 69.5563 0.0000000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 cons 3 573508 5.5828 0.0014242 nph ph vow 2 14806062 216.1949 0.0000000 pharyng phary:cons 3 83155 0.8095 0.4916597 phary:vow 2 513505 7.4981 0.0009424 Figure 4. Interaction of Pharyngealization by Vowel on F2. cons:vow 6 1300816 6.3314 0.0000122 phary:cons:vow 6 117576 0.5723 0.7515039 Residuals 96 3287270 This additional lowering of F2 in the low vowel [a] for pharyngealized consonants was not unexpected (see discussion 3.3). In addition to the highly significant main effects of vowel and pharyngealization which were observed upon F1, F2 3.2. ANOVA (2) Individual Differences showed a main effect of consonant and two significant 2-way interaction effects: 1) an interaction effect of consonant and Inspection of the formant plots (Fig. 1) and MRI imaging data vowel type, and 2) an interaction of pharyngealization and (discussed below) indicated that individual differences in vowel. The main effect of consonant type upon F2, though articulation targets may be present in the data. Consequently, a 6 second series of 3-way ANOVAS was conducted with F1 and The effect of pharyngealization on F2 was stronger for F2 as dependent variables and subjects (df = 4), vowel and the low vowel [a] than it was for [i] or [u]. The change in pharyngealization as factors. The results are summarized in F2 for /a/ is perceptually more salient than for the high Tables 3 and 4. vowels, producing a categorically distinct vowel quality [ɑ].
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