DOCSLIB.ORG

Discussion Section 5 October 7, 2011 1.) Minimal Pairs

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Discussion Section 5 October 7, 2011 1.) Minimal Pairs Discussion Section 5 October 7, 2011 To do list: • Go to Kyle’s website (http://courses.umass.edu/kbj/ling201/201.html) and download the Feature Chart and the Guide to Distinctive Features. • Learn all of the features. You will need to know what features which sounds have in order to complete the phonology problems on your next assignments and on you midterm (October 17). o Phonological rules manipulate features. Definitions: • Allophone: Phones created by application of a rule to another sound (a phoneme). • Phoneme: Phones not created by application of a rule. • Minimal pair: Two words with distinct meanings that differ by only one segment found in the same position in each form. 1.) Minimal Pairs initial position final position a. [p] and [b] pie [paɪ] buy [baɪ] lap [læp] lab [læb] b. [t] and [d] toll [towl] dole [dowl] late [leɪt] laid [leɪd] c. [θ] and [t] through [θɹuw] true [tɹuw] with [wɪθ] wit [wɪt] d. [l] and [r] late [leɪt] rate [ɹeɪt] stall [stɑl] star [stɑɹ] • What do you know about [p], [b], [t], [d], [θ], [l], and [r] in English? ⇒ They are all phonemes in English. ⇒ If you can find minimal pairs for two sounds, that means that there is no possible rule that could have applied to turn one sound into the other. In other words, these two sounds are both phonemes. 1 2.) Phonology Practice Problem 1: Finnish The following words show the distribution of voiceless and voiced (non-nasal) alveolar stops in Finnish ([t], [d], [s], [z]). ([VV] represents a long vowel.) a. [kuuzi] ‘six’ b. [kadot] ‘failures’ c. [kate] ‘cover’ d. [liisa] ‘Lisa’ e. [maton] ‘of a rug’ f. [kade] ‘envious’ g. [ratas] ‘wheel’ h. [kuusi] ‘sixty’ i. [radan] ‘of a track’ Goal: Figure out whether [t] / [s] and [d] / [z] are unique phonemes, or whether one pair are allophones of the other. First step: Are there minimal pairs involving the segments [t] and [d]? Yes. [kuuzi] and [kuusi] [kate] and [kade] Because there are minimal pairs, we know that /t/, /d/, /s/, and /z/ are all unique phonemes. 3.) Phonology Practice Problem 2: Italian The following words show the distribution of nasal consonants [n] and [ŋ] in Italian. a. [tinta] ‘dye’ g. [tiŋɡo] ‘I dye’ b. [tenda] ‘tent’ h. [tɛŋɡo] ‘I keep’ c. [dansa] ‘dance’ i. [fuŋɡo] ‘mushroom’ d. [nero] ‘back’ j. [blaŋka] ‘white’ e. [dʒɛnte] ‘people’ k. [aŋke] ‘also’ f. [sapone] ‘soap’ l. [faŋɡo] ‘mud’ 2 Goal: Figure out whether [n] and [ŋ] are unique phonemes or whether one ([n] or [ŋ]) is an allophone of the other. First step: Are there minimal pairs involving the segments [n] and [ŋ]? Note: [tiŋɡo] and [tɛŋɡo] are not a minimal pair: the vowels [i] and [ɛ] are different. ⇒ No. This shows us that either [n] or [ŋ] is an allophone of the other sound. Second step: What is the distribution of [n] and [ŋ] in the list of words above? Make a table with one column for [n] and one column for [ŋ]. Write down the sound that comes before [n] or [ŋ], and the sound that follows [n] or [ŋ]. Put a line to represent where [n] or [ŋ] goes. # represents the edge of a word. [n] [ŋ] a. i___t g. i___g b. ɛ___d h. ɛ___g c. a___s i. u___g d. #___e j. a___k e. ɛ___t k. a___k f. o___e l. a___g Third step: Decide whether [n] is an allophone of [ŋ], or vice versa. How to do this: Look at the table and try to the simplest descriptive statement possible to describe where [n] and [ŋ] occur. • In the problems we give you, one sound will occur in a clearly simpler environment than the other sound. [n] occurs after [i, ɛ, a, #, o] [ŋ] occurs after [i, ɛ, u, a] [n] occurs before [t, d, s, e] [ŋ] occurs before [ɡ, k] Statement: “In Italian, [ŋ] occurs before a velar stop and [n] occurs elsewhere.” • The simplest statement says what rule (following velar stop) gives you [ŋ]. That means that [ŋ] is most plausibly the allophone (it is created from /n/ by an application of a rule). 3 Bad statements: o “In Italian, [ŋ] occurs after vowels and [n] occurs elsewhere.” Factually incorrect. o “In Italian, only [n] occurs at the beginning of the word.” Factually correct but doesn’t capture all the data. [n] occurs in other environments, too. o “In Italian, [ŋ] occurs after a vowel and before a velar consonant, and [n] occurs elsewhere.” True but unnecessarily complicated. The inclusion of “after a vowel” isn’t informative because this doesn’t distinguish between [n] and [ŋ]. Both can occur after vowels. o “In Italian, [n] occurs before an alveolar consonant or a vowel, and [ŋ] occurs elsewhere.” True, but more complicated than the best statement. Plus, both [n] and [ŋ] can occur before vowels so that part of the statement isn’t useful. o “In Italian, [ŋ] occurs before [k] or [ɡ] and [n] occurs elsewhere.” True but we miss a generalization: [k] and [ɡ] are similar sounds (they are both “velar stops”). Fourth step: Write a rule with features that accounts for the descriptive statement that you made above. • First think about this: What features characterize the phoneme /n/ and the allophone [ŋ]? What feature(s) differentiate them? /n/ : /+consonantal, +nasal, +sonorant, -labial, -back/ [ŋ] : [+nasal, +back] /n/ is different from [ŋ] because /n/ is /-back/ and [ŋ] is [+back]. • Then think about this: What features characterize both [k] and [ɡ]? [k], [ɡ] : [-continuant, +back] • Then do this: Put your rule together in the following format: When /phoneme/ {precedes, follows, comes in between} [environment], then /phoneme/ [allophone] When /+consonantal, +nasal, +sonorant, -labial, -back/ follows [-continuant, +back], then /+consonantal, +nasal, +sonorant, -labial, -back/ [+back] 4 4.) Phonology Practice Problem 2: Gascon The following list show the distribution of [b] / [d] and [β] / [ð] in Gascon. a. [bux] ‘you’ h. [aβe] ‘to have’ b. [bako] ‘cow’ i. [alaβets] ‘then, well’ c. [umbro] ‘shadow’ j. [saliβo] ‘saliva’ d. [bren] ‘endanger’ k. [noβi] ‘husband’ e. [dilus] ‘Monday’ l. [buðet] ‘gut’ f. [diŋko] ‘until’ m. [eʃaðo] ‘hoe’ g. [duso] ‘sweet’ Goal: Figure out whether [b] / [d] and [β] / [ð] are unique phonemes or whether one pair of sounds are allophones of the other. First step: Are there minimal pairs in the list above? No. This tells us that one pair of sounds is allophones of the other. Second step: What is the distribution of [b] / [d] and [β] / [ð]? [b], [d] [β], [ð] #__u a__e #__a a__e m__r i__o #__r o__i #__i u__e #__u a__o 5 Third step: Decide whether [b] / [d] are allophones of [β] / [ð], or vice versa. Statement: “In Gascon, [β] and [ð] occur between vowels. [b] and [d] occur elsewhere.” • The simplest statement says what rule (occurs between vowels) gives you [β] and [ð]. That means that [β] and [ð] are allophones of [b] and [d], respectively. Fourth step: Write a rule with features that accounts for the descriptive statement that you made above. • First think about this: What features collectively characterize the phonemes /b/ and /d/, and what features collectively characterize the allophones [β] and [ð]. the allophone [ŋ]? What feature(s) differentiate them? /b/, /d/ : /+consonantal, +voice, -nasal, -continuant/ [β], [ð] : [+consonantal, +voice, -nasal +continuant] /b/, /d/ are different from [β], [ð] because the former are /-continuant/ and the latter are [+continuant]. • Then think about this: What is the environment? [vowels] : [+vocalic] • Then do this: Put your rule together in the following format: When /phoneme/ {precedes, follows, comes in between} [environment], then /phoneme/ [allophone] When /+consonantal, +voice, -nasal, -continuant/ comes in between [+vocalic] and [+vocalic], then /+consonantal, +voice, -nasal, -continuant/ [+continuant] 6 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Working Papers in Linguistics and Oriental Studies 1
    Universita’ degli Studi di Firenze Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Studi Interculturali Biblioteca di Studi di Filologia Moderna: Collana, Riviste e Laboratorio Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali Working Papers in Linguistics and Oriental Studies 1 Editor M. Rita Manzini firenze university press 2015 Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali / Working Papers in Linguistics and Oriental Studies - n. 1, 2015 ISSN 2421-7220 ISBN 978-88-6655-832-3 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/QULSO-2421-7220-1 Direttore Responsabile: Beatrice Töttössy CC 2015 Firenze University Press La rivista è pubblicata on-line ad accesso aperto al seguente indirizzo: www.fupress.com/bsfm-qulso The products of the Publishing Committee of Biblioteca di Studi di Filologia Moderna: Collana, Riviste e Laboratorio (<http://www.lilsi.unifi.it/vp-82-laboratorio-editoriale-open-access-ricerca- formazione-e-produzione.html>) are published with financial support from the Department of Languages, Literatures and Intercultural Studies of the University of Florence, and in accordance with the agreement, dated February 10th 2009 (updated February 19th 2015), between the De- partment, the Open Access Publishing Workshop and Firenze University Press. The Workshop promotes the development of OA publishing and its application in teaching and career advice for undergraduates, graduates, and PhD students in the area of foreign languages and litera- tures, and of social studies, as well as providing training and planning services. The Workshop’s publishing team are responsible for the editorial workflow of all the volumes and journals pub- lished in the Biblioteca di Studi di Filologia Moderna series. QULSO employs the double-blind peer review process.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/ Amber King St
    Linguistic Portfolios Volume 1 Article 12 2012 An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/ Amber King St. Cloud State University Ettien Koffi St. Cloud State University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling Part of the Applied Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation King, Amber and Koffi, Ettien (2012) "An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/," Linguistic Portfolios: Vol. 1 , Article 12. Available at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling/vol1/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by theRepository at St. Cloud State. It has been accepted for inclusion in Linguistic Portfolios by an authorized editor of theRepository at St. Cloud State. For more information, please contact [email protected]. King and Koffi: An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/ AN ACOUSTIC ACCOUNT OF THE ALLOPHONIC REALIZATIONS OF /T/ AMBER KING AND ETTIEN KOFFI 1.0 Introduction This paper is a laboratory phonology account of the different pronunciations of the phoneme /t/. Laboratory phonology is a relatively new analytical tool that is being used to validate and verify claims made by phonologists about the pronunciation of sounds. It is customary for phonologists to predict on the basis of auditory impressions and intuition alone that allophones exist for such and such phonemes. An allophone is defined as different realizations of the same phoneme based on the environments in which it occurs. For instance, it has been proposed that the phoneme /t/ has anywhere from four to eight allophones in General American English (GAE). To verify this claim Amber, one of the co-author of this paper recorded herself saying the words <still>, <Tim>, <kit>, <bitter>, <kitten>, <winter>, <fruition>, <furniture>, and <listen>.
    [Show full text]
  • Efficacy of the Treatment of Developmental Language
    brain sciences Review Efficacy of the Treatment of Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review Sara Rinaldi 1,2,* , Maria Cristina Caselli 3, Valentina Cofelice 4, Simonetta D’Amico 5,6,†, Anna Giulia De Cagno 2, Giuseppina Della Corte 7, Maria Valeria Di Martino 8, Brigida Di Costanzo 9,10, Maria Chiara Levorato 6,11,†, Roberta Penge 12, Tiziana Rossetto 2, Alessandra Sansavini 6,13,† , Simona Vecchi 14 and Pierluigi Zoccolotti 15,16 1 Developmental Neurorehabilitation Service, UOC Infancy, Adolescence, Family Counseling, AULSS 6 Euganea—Padua Bacchiglione District, Via Dei Colli 4/6, 35143 Padua, Italy 2 Federazione Logopedisti Italiani, Via Daniello Bartoli, 00152 Rome, Italy; [email protected] (A.G.D.C.); [email protected] (T.R.) 3 Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, CNR, 00185 Rome, Italy; [email protected] 4 “Iuvenia” Rehabilitation Centre, C.da Piana, 86026 Morcone, Italy; [email protected] 5 Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L’Aquila, P.le S. Tommasi, 1, 67100 Coppito, Italy; [email protected] 6 CLASTA—Communication & Language Acquisition Studies in Typical & Atypical Population, Piazza Epiro 12D, 00183 Rome, Italy; [email protected] (M.C.L.); [email protected] (A.S.) 7 Centro Panda, Via Antonio Gramsci, 38, 80022 Arzano, Italy; [email protected] 8 Health Professions Integrated Service, Azienda Ospedaliera dei Colli di Napoli, 80131 Napoli, Italy; [email protected] 9 Division
    [Show full text]
  • Perceptual and Acoustic Analysis of Lexical Stress in Greek Speakers with Dysarthria
    Perceptual and acoustic analysis of lexical stress in Greek speakers with dysarthria Ioannis Papakyritsis and Nicole Müller Linköping University Post Print N.B.: When citing this work, cite the original article. Original Publication: Ioannis Papakyritsis and Nicole Müller, Perceptual and acoustic analysis of lexical stress in Greek speakers with dysarthria, 2014, Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, (28), 7-8, 555-572. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/02699206.2014.926993 Copyright: Informa Healthcare http://informahealthcare.com/ Postprint available at: Linköping University Electronic Press http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-109597 Perceptual and acoustic analysis of lexical stress in Greek speakers with dysarthria Ioannis Papakyritsis1 and Nicole Müller2 1Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL, USA 2 Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden (Received 4 February 2014, accepted 25 April 2014) Address for Correspondence: Dr. Ioannis Papakyritsis Dept. Communication Sciences and Disorders Western Illinois University 240 Memorial Hall, 1 University Circle Macomb, IL 61455 [email protected] Abstract The study reported in this paper investigated the abilities of Greek speakers with dysarthria to signal lexical stress at the single word level. Three speakers with dysarthria and two unimpaired control participants were recorded completing a repetition task of a list of words consisting of minimal pairs of Greek disyllabic words contrasted by lexical stress location only. Fourteen listeners were asked to determine the attempted stress location for each word pair. Acoustic analyses of duration and intensity ratios, both within and across words, were undertaken to identify possible acoustic correlates of the listeners’ judgments concerning stress location. Acoustic and perceptual data indicate that while each participant with dysarthria in this study had some difficulty in signaling stress unambiguously, the pattern of difficulty was different for each speaker.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonology of Kunming Chinese
    Phonology of Kunming Chinese Ruolan Li [email protected] University of Rochester 1. Introduction Yunnan is a province in Southern China. Although the province is ethnically and linguistically diverse, the variant from standard Mandarin, Yunnanese, is spoken at many, if not most places. As one of Southwestern Guanhua (lit. court language), it diverged from a common ancestor of Mandarin in early Ming dynasty (14–15th century). When soldiers and government officials were sent from Nanjing to Yunnan, at that time relatively remote and undeveloped, they carried Nanjing Mandarin to the province (Hammarström, Forkel, and Martin, 2017; Zeng, 2018). Over the several hundred years, the Yunnan dialect became mutually unintelligible with modern standard Mandarin (Gui, 1990) and diverse locally in many difference cities and counties. In this project, I will focus on Kunming Chinese, a branch of Yunnanese. Kunming is the capital city of Yunnan province, and Kunming Chinese is used everywhere on the street. The choice of Kunming Chinese, rather than other Yunnanese sub-dialects, is made not because of any prestige reasons, but only because it is more accessible to me. The Kunming dialect has a speaker population of about 650, 000 (Gui, 1990). It is highly analytic, and belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Syntactically, it has some grammatical particles (/gə31/, /gɑ53/, both question particles, and /nə44/, as a possessive particle) that is distinct from standard Mandarin (Gao, 2004). Lexically, Kunming Chinese also has many unique nouns and verbs. It has several different phonological contrast from other branches of Yunnanese, but is overall unified within the dialect.
    [Show full text]
  • Minimal Pair Approaches to Phonological Remediation
    Minimal Pair Approaches to Phonological Remediation Jessica A. Barlow, Ph.D.,1 and Judith A. Gierut, Ph.D.2 ABSTRACT This article considers linguistic approaches to phonological reme- diation that emphasize the role of the phoneme in language. We discuss the structure and function of the phoneme by outlining procedures for de- termining contrastive properties of sound systems through evaluation of minimal word pairs. We then illustrate how these may be applied to a case study of a child with phonological delay. The relative effectiveness of treat- ment approaches that facilitate phonemic acquisition by contrasting pairs of sounds in minimal pairs is described. A hierarchy of minimal pair treat- ment efficacy emerges, as based on the number of new sounds, the number of featural differences, and the type of featural differences being intro- duced. These variables are further applied to the case study, yielding a range of possible treatment recommendations that are predicted to vary in their effectiveness. KEYWORDS: Phoneme, minimal pair, phonological remediation Learning Outcomes: As a result of this activity, the reader will be able to (1) analyze and recognize the con- trastive function of phonemes in a phonological system, (2) develop minimal pair treatment programs that aim to introduce phonemic contrasts in a child’s phonological system, and (3) discriminate between different types of minimal pair treatment programs and their relative effectiveness. Models of clinical treatment for children cognition given our need to understand how with functional phonological delays have been learning takes place in the course of interven- based on three general theoretical frameworks. tion. Still other approaches are grounded in Some models are founded on development linguistics because the problem at hand in- given that the population of concern involves volves the phonological system.
    [Show full text]
  • Velar Segments in Old English and Old Irish
    In: Jacek Fisiak (ed.) Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1985, 267-79. Velar segments in Old English and Old Irish Raymond Hickey University of Bonn The purpose of this paper is to look at a section of the phoneme inventories of the oldest attested stage of English and Irish, velar segments, to see how they are manifested phonetically and to consider how they relate to each other on the phonological level. The reason I have chosen to look at two languages is that it is precisely when one compares two language systems that one notices that structural differences between languages on one level will be correlated by differences on other levels demonstrating their interrelatedness. Furthermore it is necessary to view segments on a given level in relation to other segments. The group under consideration here is just one of several groups. Velar segments viewed within the phonological system of both Old English and Old Irish cor relate with three other major groups, defined by place of articulation: palatals, dentals, and labials. The relationship between these groups is not the same in each language for reasons which are morphological: in Old Irish changes in grammatical category are frequently indicated by palatalizing a final non-palatal segment (labial, dental, or velar). The same function in Old English is fulfilled by suffixes and /or prefixes. This has meant that for Old English the phonetically natural and lower-level alternation of velar elements with palatal elements in a palatal environ ment was to be found whereas in Old Irish this alternation had been denaturalized and had lost its automatic character.
    [Show full text]
  • Perception of Consonant Length
    Journal of Phonertcs(1989) 17,283-298 Perceptionof consonantlength: voicelessstops in Turkish and Bengali Jorge Hankamer Uniuersityof Califurniaat Sorn Cruz, Departnentof Linguistics,Santa Cruz, CA 95M, U.S.A. Aditi Lahiri Max-Planck-Institutefor Psycholinguistics,Wundtlaan 1, 6525XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands and JacquesKorenan Uniuercity of Nijmegen, Itut'rtute of Phonetics, Erasmusplein 1, 65m HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands Receiued23rd September 1988, and in reuisedform 2 Junc 1989 The goal of the present researchwas to investigate the extent to which acousticcues other than the silent gap cbrrespondingto closure duration might figure in the discrimination cif geminate and non- geminatevoiceless stops. The method, adapted from earlier studies on duration cues, w:rsto create two setsof stimuli $'ith the length of the silent interval varying incrementally between that of a non- geminate and that of a geminate. One set was made by artfficially lengtheningthe silent interval of an original non-geminate in 10ms stepsup to the length of a geminate, and the other set was made by shortening an original gerninatein the samemanner. Starting with recorded minimal word pain with geminate and non-geminatestops in Turkish and Bengali, sets of stimuli were constructed as described above. These stimuli were presentedto native speaken of the respectivelanguages in a word identification task, and the results were charted to seewhether the identification curves were the same for the original geminatesas for the original non-geminates.The result was that the curves did differ, the original geminatesbeing identified as geminatesslightly more frequently than original non- geminatesat closure durations between 120 and 160ms. The difference was statistically significant for at least some poinS on the curve.
    [Show full text]
  • Comparative Analysis of American English and Mexican Spanish Consonants for Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training*
    REVISTA SIGNOS. ESTUDIOS DE LINGÜÍSTICA ISSN 0718-0934 © 2017 PUCV, Chile DOI: 10.4067/S0718-09342017000200195 50(94) 195-216 Comparative analysis of American English and Mexican Spanish consonants for Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training* Análisis comparativo de las consonantes del inglés americano y español mexicano para la enseñanza de la pronunciación del inglés asistida por computadora Olga Kolesnikova INSTITUTO POLITÉCNICO NACIONAL MÉXICO [email protected] Recibido: 17-X-2014 / Aceptado: 30-VIII-2016 Abstract The objective of this work is two-fold. Firstly, we aim at detecting similarities and differences between the consonant systems of two languages, namely, American English and Mexican Spanish. To achieve this, we perform a theoretic comparative analysis of consonants of the two languages at the level of both phonemes and allophones. Secondly, a possible practical usage of our results is considered; therefore, as an example of an application, we consider computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) for teaching American English pronunciation to Mexican Spanish speakers. In particular, we took advantage of the results of our analysis to define some hypothetic error patterns which can be used as a starting point for diagnosing possible mispronunciations, their posterior verification, and adjustment taking into account the principles of phonotactics and empirical phonetic analysis of the English learners’ speech. The latter will result in error rules to be applied in a CAPT system for error identification and generation of appropriate corrective feedback. An adequate choice of correcting techniques will improve English pronunciation acquisition and help learners to develop less accented speech. Also, similarities found between the two consonant systems make it possible to organize and present the pronunciation teaching material using a stress-free method of helping learners to adjust their speech organs to new sounds building on the phonetic habits of their first language.
    [Show full text]
  • Studies in African Linguistics Volume 21, Number 3, December 1990
    Studies in African Linguistics Volume 21, Number 3, December 1990 CONTEXTUAL LABIALIZATION IN NA WURI* Roderic F. Casali Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible Translation and UCLA A spectrographic investigation into the non-contrastive labialization of consonants before round vowels in Nawuri (a Kwa language of Ghana) sup­ ports the notion that this labialization is the result of a phonological, feature­ spreading rule and not simply an automatic transitional process. This as­ sumption is further warranted in that it allows for a more natural treatment of some other phonological processes in the language. The fact that labial­ ization before round vowels is generally not very audible is explained in terms of a principle of speech perception. A final topic addressed is the question of why (both in Nawuri and apparently in a number of other Ghanaian languages as well) contextual labialization does tend to be more perceptible in certain restricted environments. o. Introduction This paper deals with the allophonic labialization of consonants before round vowels in Nawuri, a Kwa language of Ghana.! While such labialization is gener­ ally not very audible, spectrographic evidence suggests that it is strongly present, * The spectrograms in this study were produced at the phonetics lab of the University of Texas at Arlington using equipment provided through a grant of the Permanent University Fund of the University of Texas system. I would like to thank the following people for their valuable comments and suggestions: Joan Baart, Don Burquest, Mike Cahill, Jerry Edmondson, Norris McKinney, Bob Mugele, Tony Naden, and Keith Snider. I would also like to express my appreciation to Russell Schuh and an anonymous referee for this journal for their helpful criticism of an earlier version, and to Mary Steele for some helpful discussion concerning labialization in Konkomba.
    [Show full text]
  • The Phonology and Phonetics of Kaifeng Mandarin Vowels
    INTERSPEECH 2020 October 25–29, 2020, Shanghai, China The phonology and phonetics of Kaifeng Mandarin vowels Lei Wang School of Foreign Languages, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China [email protected] distinguished by only one segment. For instance, in Mandarin, Abstract [ph] and [p] are phonemes because they distinguish a minimal h 55 55 In this present study, we re-analyze the vowel system in pair [p a ] ‘to lie prone’ and [pa ] ‘eight’. The same sounds h Kaifeng Mandarin, adopting a phoneme-based approach. Our [p ] and [p] may be allophonic in another language, for analysis deviates from the previous syllable-based analyses in instance, English. That is, they are context-dependent variations of the same phoneme in the sense that in English [ph] a number of ways. First, we treat apical vowels [ɿ ʅ] as syllabic approximants and analyze them as allophones of the retroflex only appears syllable-initially, while [p] occurs elsewhere. Thus, allophones are in complementary distribution. approximant /ɻ/. Second, the vowel inventory is of three sets, monophthongs, diphthongs and retroflex vowels. The Allophones of the same phoneme also share phonetic classification of monophthongs and diphthongs is based on the similarity. phonological distribution of the coda nasal. That is, In this study, we intend to provide a phonemic analysis on monophthongs can be followed by a nasal coda, while Kaifeng Mandarin, a Mandarin variety spoken in east central diphthongs cannot. This argument has introduced two new Henan Province to see what it would tell us about the opening diphthongs /eɛ ɤʌ/ in the inventory, which have theoretical analysis of vowels in Mandarin.
    [Show full text]