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Phonological Vowel Reduction in Four Catalan Varieties

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Phonological Vowel Reduction in Four Catalan Varieties Phonological vowel reduction in four Catalan varieties Dylan Herrick University of California, Santa Cruz E-mail: [email protected] Figure (1) ABSTRACT (a) Central Catalan (b) Western Catalan Stressed Unstressed Stressed Unstressed To test predictions made by theories of phonological vowel LLLL reduction, we require quantitative data to verify and make HHH more precise impressionistic descriptions. Catalan, with (( phonological vowel reduction in several regional varieties, DDD provides an ideal case study. This paper offers a oo quantitative description of the stressed and corresponding RRR unstressed vowels of female speakers representing four XXXX distinct regional varieties of Catalan – that of Berguedà (representative of Central Catalan – the standard variety), (c) Girona Catalan (d) Balearic Catalan Lleida (Western Catalan), Girona (a northern variety), and LLLL Palma (Balearic Catalan). Target vowels appeared in HH nonsense words which were uttered within a carrier phrase. (( The formant values for F1-F3 are reported here and DD compared to impressionistic descriptions. R XXo 1. INTRODUCTION RR XX Regional varieties of Catalan differ with respect to the schwa in Central and Girona Catalan? Or are there makeup of their stressed and unstressed vowel inventories. significant differences between [] which corresponds to Central Catalan allows seven vowels (/LH(DoRX/) stressed [H] or [(] compared with [] which corresponds to in stressed position and three vowels (/LX/) in stressed [a]? In addition to descriptive questions such as unstressed position ([7], [8], [10]). The vowel inventories these, this study serves as the initial building block for a of the other varieties are shown in figure (1) which also larger research project ([4]) which aims to test for a indicates the mapping relationships between stressed and correlation between vocalic inventory size and position of unstressed vowels (based on diagrams and descriptions in vowels within the vowel space (see also Adaptive the work of Mascaró [7], [8], and Recasens [10]). Dispersion Theory [5], [6]). The remainder of this paper describes the methodology and results for a phonetic study The Catalan varieties in figure (1) exhibit vowel reduction of Catalan vowels designed to verify impressionistic in the phonological sense – the number of phonemes found descriptions and serve as a base for further inquiries into in unstressed position is reduced relative to the number of phonological vowel reduction. vowel phonemes found in stressed position. Phonology has no trouble describing vowel reduction, but it does have trouble explaining it. Recent phonological models which 2. METHODOLOGY incorporate phonetic information directly into the theory (such as Dispersion Theory [3], [9] as well as work by For each of the different regional varieties studied, three Crosswhite [2] and Herrick [4]) have had greater native speakers were recorded uttering nonsense verbs explanatory success compared with previous theories. containing the stressed (and corresponding unstressed) However, such phonetically based theories cannot be tested vowels of their variety. All recordings were made in without quantitative phonetic data. Thus, the primary goal Catalonia, all speakers were female college students, and a of this paper is to contribute quantitative data which can be ‘native’ was defined as someone who spoke Catalan as their used to help develop and test a more phonetically oriented primary language and came from a family in which both theory of phonological vowel reduction. An additional parents spoke primarily Catalan. For the recordings, interest is verifying the extent to which the quantitative data speakers were shown several verbs – one for each of the matches the phonological descriptions. How accurate are vowels allowed in stressed position in their variety (seven the mapping relationships shown in figure (1)? For example, for Central and Western, six for Girona, and eight for do the unstressed versions of [H(D] really converge on Balearic Catalan), and they were asked to conjugate each verb into the third person singular form and repeat it ten Central Catalan Vowel Plot Figure (2) times using the carrier phrase …sempre _____ a la nit ([VHPS5 _____ OQLW] “always ____ at night”). After this, the speakers were asked to conjugate the verbs into their infinitival forms and repeat them ten times each within the same carrier phrase. Third person forms were of the shape [ªbVp] (where the target vowel ‘V’ is stressed), and the infinitival forms were of the shape [bVªpa] (target vowel unstressed). More concretely, when native speakers were shown bapes [ªEDSV], they had to produce the third person singular form bapa ([ªEDS]) and the corresponding infinitival form bapar ([EªSD]). For Central Catalan, this gives a total of 140 vowel tokens per speaker; 70 stressed tokens (10 for each vowel) and 70 unstressed tokens (10 tokens for each of the corresponding unstressed vowels). Thus, even though [H(D] reduce to [] there are 10 Central Catalan Data (in Hertz) Table (1) tokens for [] corresponding to [H], 10 more corresponding to [(], and another 10 corresponding to [D]. This allows us Stressed Unstressed to confirm whether [H(D] do in fact reduce to the same vowel ([]) or not. F1 F2 F3 F1 F2 F3 All subjects were recorded on a DAT recorder using a 394 2645 3145 413 2502 2919 L L headset microphone. Recordings were digitized at 44.1kHz, (58) (138) (269) (26) (119) (163) (Hahn) band-pass filtered from 0-6000Hz, and measured by LPC analysis with a 25ms window using the PRAAT 503 2265 3015 664 1304 2694 H phonetics software package ([1]). The location for (29) (206) (152) (77) (120) (116) measurement of the three vowel formants (F1-F3) was determined as follows: if F1 had a single peak, F1-F3 were 716 2067 3025 662 1329 2743 measured at the point where F1 reached its peak; if no ( (24) (124) (144) (91) (168) (120) unique max could be found for F1 (if F1 contained multiple peaks or if F1 were a constant cline), the measurement was 886 1472 2915 679 1303 2771 made at the peak (or valley) of F2. If there was no unique D max or min for F2, the measurement was made at the (54) (153) (155) (87) (144) (179) mid-point of the vowel (as determined by eye). 755 1138 2882 435 856 2786 o (56) (104) (201) (30) (96) (243) 3. RESULTS & ANALYSIS 534 971 2913 438 841 2827 The data for the individual speakers have been combined R X within each regional variety and the combined data are (23) (43) (227) (28) (88) (338) presented in two forms; one visual and the other numerical. 439 761 2892 436 828 2777 The visual form plots the mean values of F1 and F2 for each X vowel as a graph (figures (2-5)). The stressed vowels are (55) (46) (307) (34) (76) (244) shown as solid squares, and the corresponding unstressed vowels are shown as solid circles. In some cases, values are thirty tokens. At this point we can begin answering some of nearly identical and the symbols overlap. The data have the questions posed above. First, do the quantitative data also been presented in a table containing the means and for the stressed and unstressed vowels support the standard deviations for F1-F3 (tables (1-4)). Each table has impressionistic descriptions? The answer appears to be a a column for stressed vowel values (with sub-columns for fairly resounding “Yes”. Figures (2-5) reveal solid boxes – F1-F3) and a column for the corresponding unstressed the symbol for stressed vowels – just where we might vowel values (with sub-columns for F1-F3). Each row expect them (in the case of Girona Catalan, figure (4), the contains information about a single vowel – the mean box for stressed [X] is obscured by the overlapping symbols formant values for F1-F3 in stressed position followed by for unstressed [X]). In Western Catalan, figure (3), the the mean values for F1-F3 in unstressed position. In cells boxes for [X] and [R] are closer in proximity than other containing numbers, the upper number is a mean formant vowel pairs, but there is still a significant difference value (in Hertz), and the lower number enclosed in between these two vowels (see below). Furthermore, in parentheses is the standard deviation. Since three speakers Central, Western, and Girona Catalan, the solid circles represent each region and there are ten measurements per (representing unstressed vowels) appear in roughly vowel (per speaker), each cell contains the mean value of expected locations as well, though several of the unstressed Western Catalan Vowel Plot Figure (3) Girona Catalan Vowel Plot Figure (4) Western Catalan Data (in Hertz) Table (2) Girona Catalan Data (in Hertz) Table (3) Stressed Unstressed Stressed Unstressed F1 F2 F3 F1 F2 F3 F1 F2 F3 F1 F2 F3 407 2512 2906 410 2367 2834 L L 397 2568 3158 408 2478 2998 L L (26) (207) (193) (23) (208) (145) (56) (154) (304) (41) (202) (266) 511 2074 2769 530 1911 2732 H 462 2220 2940 622 1346 2792 (52) (107) (88) (53) (126) (53) H H (25) (148) (120) (60) (108) (176) 714 1966 2853 515 1934 2745 707 2036 2924 602 1336 2779 ( ( (44) (75) (70) (39) (109) (66) (22) (131) (139) (56) (92) (156) 817 1426 2678 728 1348 2677 860 1515 2638 624 1330 2798 D D D (45) (107) (101) (48) (90) (92) (79) (151) (172) (49) (113) (154) 709 1122 2747 502 971 2853 o 605 1012 2754 455 863 2735 (37) (55) (121) (36) (90) (97) R R (67) (118) (218) (28) (80) (282) X 516 991 2863 494 985 2784 456 846 2772 454 846 2639 R X (49) (59) (180) (36) (94) (144) (57) (122) (252) (19) (86) (316) 438 866 2817 428 924 2814 X X hand, the character of Palma vowel reduction may be (25) (96) (172) (41) (122) (189) changing.
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