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Similarity and Enhancement: Nasality From SIMILARITY AND ENHANCEMENT: NASALITY FROM MOROCCAN ARABIC PHARYNGEALS AND NASALS by GEORGIA EVE ZELLOU B.A., University of Florida, 2005 M.A., Stony Brook University, 2007 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics 2012 ! This thesis entitled: Similarity and Enhancement: Nasality from Moroccan Arabic Pharyngeals and Nasals written by Georgia Eve Zellou has been approved for the Department of Linguistics Rebecca Scarborough (Committee Chair) Esther Brown Bhuvana Narasimhan Rachid Ridouane David Rood Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. IRB protocol #11-0122 ! Zellou, Georgia Eve (Ph.D., Linguistics) Similarity and Enhancement: Nasality from Moroccan Arabic Pharyngeals and Nasals Thesis directed by Dr. Rebecca A. Scarborough ABSTRACT Experimental studies of the articulation, acoustics, and perception of nasal and pharyngeal consonants and adjacent vowels were conducted to investigate nasality in Moroccan Arabic (MA). The status of nasality in MA is described as coarticulatorily complex, where two phoneme types (pharyngeal segments and nasal segments) yield similar non-contrastive coarticulatory information (nasality) on adjacent vowels. The production and perception of the coarticulatory complexity of nasality in MA is the focus of this dissertation. An aerodynamic study demonstrated that nasal airflow is reliably present during the production of pharyngeal consonants, yet to a degree less than nasal consonants. This study also indicated this nasality is coarticulated on vowels adjacent to pharyngeal and nasal consonants. An acoustic study confirmed the patterns of coarticulatory nasality from nasals and pharyngeals and explored how nasality as a coarticulatory complex feature, a feature associated with two distinct segment types, affects its patterning in the language. This study reveals that vowel nasality is perceptually associated with pharyngeal, as well as nasal, consonants in MA, as evidenced by faster reaction times when vowel nasality was present in a lexical repetition task, compared to a condition where there was no vowel nasality, evidence that non-contrastive coarticulatory information is indeed perceptually informative not only in the context of phonologically nasal segments, but also in the context of pharyngeal consonants. Furthermore, there is evidence of perceptual compensation for nasality, wherein in the context of pharyngeal consonants listeners show patterns that suggest they do not “hear” vowel nasality but rather attribute it to its source. Together, this is evidence of partial compensation since listeners retain sensitivity to and facilitation from vowel nasality, revealed by faster response times in the lexical repetition task. The results of the experiments outlined in this dissertation suggest 1) that nasality is a property of pharyngeal consonants and adjacent vowels that is highly controlled by speakers in order to maintain distinctiveness between pharyngeal and nasal consonant nasality and 2) that nasality is being utilized as a secondary, enhancement feature for pharyngeal consonants, potentially to maintain the distinctiveness of pharyngeal segments from the other guttural phonological class consonants in MA. iii! ! ! ! God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage the change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. -Niebuhr Dedicated to my father, Paul Morton Weissman, whose strength inspires me. ! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ! My passion for linguistics has stemmed from my love of languages. Yet, since language is a uniquely human behavior, my love of languages ultimately originates from my interest in people. I am grateful to the following people for their support during the completion of this dissertation, in addition to enriching the journey along the way. My sincerest gratitude goes to my advisor, Rebecca Scarborough. I am continually motivated by Rebecca’s unwavering optimism and fresh perspective. Without her support, guidance, and unwavering encouragement this dissertation would not have been possible. I am also indebted to my other committee members. I thank Esther Brown for always welcoming me into her office to discuss my research and for being so helpful and supportive. I thank Bhuvana Narasimhan for bringing a different perspective. I thank Rachid Ridouane for his insights, as well as his thorough attention to detail. And, I thank David Rood (who once said everything I say is interesting) for being so thoughtful and kind. My research has benefitted from my committee members’ invaluable suggestions and advice. Additionally, I am thankful to other mentors who encouraged me along the way, including Barabara Fox, Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Amina Mettouchi and Erin Shay. Also, I am indebted to the professors from my time at Stony Brook who had an important role in my academic development, specifically: Ellen Broselow, Alice Harris and Bob Hoberman. And, I thank our program administrators, Cynthia Clark and Paula Dufour, whose helpfulness and cheer always make a day brighter. My fellow graduate students have taught me many things over the years, as well. Many thanks to Will Styler for not only being a friendly and supportive fellow lab member, but also for providing most of the Praat scripts used in this dissertation. Thanks to Hyun-ju Kim for sharing meals during our time at Stony Brook and for being a model grad student/mom for me. Thanks v! also to David Harper (lunches), Sam Beer (always available on gchat), Luciana Marques (brightening up the lab), Alison Hilger (inspiring me to run), Niloofar Khalili (yummy Iranian food) and others for their support and encouragement. Many thanks are due to Alaina Feltenberger at the CU writing center who helped with editing, writing strategies, and general motivation-building. Also, I am grateful to the individuals who participated in this study. Most of all, I am thankful to my family. I thank my dad, Paul, for being my inspiration to go into academia. The memories I have of him standing in front of a chemistry lab full of students are etched in my mind with pride. Further evidence that I follow in his footsteps is the fact that as I defend my dissertation I am the same age that he was when he defended his. Thank you to my mom, Karen, for teaching me my first words of French and for being the first to show me how to write the Arabic alphabet, initially ignited my interest in these languages. I thank my big brother Roland and my little sister Margot for being only a phone call away and for keeping my life full of laughter. Also, many thanks are due to my extended family, especially Habiba and Ahmed Zellou, for their open-mindedness and generosity. I thank my husband, Abdel-Moughit, for his love, joy, patience, and friendship. I am grateful for his constant and unwavering confidence in me—it has helped me through both the external and self-inflicted obstacles. Also, his effortless and hands-on co-parenting approach to raising our children has been invaluable to my success. And, I am proud of him for completing his own graduate work in tandem with me—that we both finish at the same time is remarkable. Finally, I thank my precious children, Faisal and Amelia, for being, alternatively when needed, my greatest motivation and my best distraction. vi! TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1 - Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 1. Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................................ 1 2. Goals of this Dissertation ............................................................................................................ 2 3. Background .............................................................................................................................. 3 3.1. Pharyngeal Coarticulation ............................................................................................................. 3 3.1.1. Pharyngeal vs. Pharyngealized Consonants ............................................................................ 4 3.1.2. Pharyngeal Consonants in MA ............................................................................................... 6 3.2. Nasal Coarticulation ...................................................................................................................... 7 3.2.1. Nasality Associated with Pharyngeals and other Non-Buccal Obstruents ............................. 8 3.2.2. Directionality .......................................................................................................................
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