The Kortlandt Effect
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Vowel Acoustics Reliably Differentiate Three Coronal Stops of Wubuy Across Prosodic Contexts
Vowel acoustics reliably differentiate three coronal stops of Wubuy across prosodic contexts Rikke L. BundgaaRd-nieLsena, BRett J. BakeRb, ChRistian kRoosa, MaRk haRveyc and CatheRine t. Besta,d aMARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney bSchool of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne cSchool of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle dHaskins Laboratories, New Haven Abstract The present study investigates the acoustic differentiation of three coronal stops in the indigenous Australian language Wubuy. We test independent claims that only VC (vowel-into-consonant) transitions provide robust acoustic cues for retroflex as compared to alveolar and dental coronal stops, with no differentiating cues among these three coronal stops evident in CV (consonant-into-vowel) transitions. The four-way stop distinction /t, t̪ , ʈ, c/ in Wubuy is contrastive word-initially (Heath 1984) and by implication utterance-initially, i.e., in CV-only contexts, which suggests that acoustic differentiation should be expected to occur in the CV transitions of this language, including in initial positions. Therefore, we examined both VC and CV formant transition information in the three target coronal stops across VCV (word-internal), V#CV (word-initial but utterance-medial) and ##CV (word- and utterance-initial), for /a / vowel contexts, which provide the optimal environment for investigating formant transitions. Results confirm that these coro- nal contrasts are maintained in the CVs in this vowel context, and in all three posi- tions. The patterns of acoustic differences across the three syllable contexts also provide some support for a systematic role of prosodic boundaries in influencing the degree of coronal stop differentiation evident in the vowel formant transitions. -
For the Third Case. Fairly Detailed Phonetic and Distributional Data Are Also Utilized
nof:J1611tNT nmsohlw ED 030 098 AL 001 858 By-Moskowitz, Arlene I. The Two-Year -Old Stage in the Acquisition of English Phonology. Spons Agency-American Cuunoi of Learned Societies, New Yofk, N.Y.; Social Science Research Council, Washington, D.C. Pub Date 29 Dec 68 Note-24p.. Slightly expanded verzion of i. paper presented at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New York City, December 29, 1968. EDRS Price MF-1025 HC-$1.30 Descriptors -*Child Language, Consonants, Distinctive Features, Early Childhood, Enghsh. Language Development, Language Learning Levels, Language Patterns, Language Typology, Phonemes. Phonetic Analysis. ePhonogi,gy, Vowels The phonologies of three English-speaking children at approximately two years of age are examined. Two of the analyses are based on pOblished:studies. the third is based on observations and recordings made by the author. Summary statements on phonemic inventories and on correspondences with the adult model are presented. For the third case. fairly detailed phonetic and distributional data are also utilized. The paper attempts to draw conclusions about typical difficulties of phonological development at this stage and possible strategies used by children in attaining the adult norms. (Author/JD) . r U.S. DEPARTMENT Of HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE Of EDUCATION TINS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVEDFROM DIE PERSON OR 016ANIZATION 0116INATIN6 IT.POINTS Of VIEW OR OPINIONS STAB DO NOT IIKESSAMLY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFRCEOf EDUCATION POSITION OR POUCY. TR TWO*TIAMOLD SUM IN Mg ACQUISITION orMUSHPHOMOLO0Y1 Arlen* I. Noskovitz AL 001858 0. Introduction. It is a widely held view among linguists and paycholinguists that the phonology of a child's speech at any 2 ilage during the acquisition process is structured. -
A Sociophonetic Study of the Metropolitan French [R]: Linguistic Factors Determining Rhotic Variation a Senior Honors Thesis
A Sociophonetic Study of the Metropolitan French [R]: Linguistic Factors Determining Rhotic Variation A Senior Honors Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with honors research distinction in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University by Sarah Elyse Little The Ohio State University June 2012 Project Advisor: Professor Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza, Department of Spanish and Portuguese ii ABSTRACT Rhotic consonants are subject to much variation in their production cross-linguistically. The Romance languages provide an excellent example of rhotic variation not only across but also within languages. This study explores rhotic production in French based on acoustic analysis and considerations of different conditioning factors for such variation. Focusing on trills, previous cross-linguistic studies have shown that these rhotic sounds are oftentimes weakened to fricative or approximant realizations. Furthermore, their voicing can also be subject to variation from voiced to voiceless. In line with these observations, descriptions of French show that its uvular rhotic, traditionally a uvular trill, can display all of these realizations across the different dialects. Focusing on Metropolitan French, i.e., the dialect spoken in Paris, Webb (2009) states that approximant realizations are preferred in coda, intervocalic and word-initial positions after resyllabification; fricatives are more common word-initially and in complex onsets; and voiceless realizations are favored before and after voiceless consonants, with voiced productions preferred elsewhere. However, Webb acknowledges that the precise realizations are subject to much variation and the previous observations are not always followed. Taking Webb’s description as a starting point, this study explores the idea that French rhotic production is subject to much variation but that such variation is conditioned by several factors, including internal and external variables. -
Phones and Phonemes
NLPA-Phon1 (4/10/07) © P. Coxhead, 2006 Page 1 Natural Language Processing & Applications Phones and Phonemes 1 Phonemes If we are to understand how speech might be generated or recognized by a computer, we need to study some of the underlying linguistic theory. The aim here is to UNDERSTAND the theory rather than memorize it. I’ve tried to reduce and simplify as much as possible without serious inaccuracy. Speech consists of sequences of sounds. The use of an instrument (such as a speech spectro- graph) shows that most of normal speech consists of continuous sounds, both within words and across word boundaries. Speakers of a language can easily dissect its continuous sounds into words. With more difficulty, they can split words into component sounds, or ‘segments’. However, it is not always clear where to stop splitting. In the word strip, for example, should the sound represented by the letters str be treated as a unit, be split into the two sounds represented by st and r, or be split into the three sounds represented by s, t and r? One approach to isolating component sounds is to look for ‘distinctive unit sounds’ or phonemes.1 For example, three phonemes can be distinguished in the word cat, corresponding to the letters c, a and t (but of course English spelling is notoriously non- phonemic so correspondence of phonemes and letters should not be expected). How do we know that these three are ‘distinctive unit sounds’ or phonemes of the English language? NOT from the sounds themselves. A speech spectrograph will not show a neat division of the sound of the word cat into three parts. -
Marginal Phonology: Phonotactics on the Edge1
Marginal phonology: Phonotactics on the edge1 ELLEN BROSELOW Abstract As has long been recognized, the isomorphism between word edges and word- internal syllable edges is far from perfect. This paper examines the fit between an Optimality-Theoretic account of edge/interior asymmetries, using position- specific faithfulness constraints to protect edges or interiors of morphological constituents, and the actual typology of attested edge/interior asymmetries. A detailed analysis of the Indonesian language Balantak, in which the first mem- ber of a CC cluster is severely restricted unless that first C is root-final, is com- patible with the positional faithfulness account, but is problematic for accounts that explain greater freedom at edges solely in terms of licensing by higher prosodic structure or by phonetic context. I argue that a theory of edge/interior asymmetries must incorporate two possible functions of phonotactic restric- tions: to facilitate recovery of segmental contrasts, and to facilitate the parsing of strings into morphemes. 1. Introduction: Edge-interior asymmetries One argument for including the syllable in phonological representations ap- peals to parallels between medial phonotactics and the phonotactics of word 1. This work was supported by in part by NSF grant SBR-9729108 to the author and Daniel Finer and by funding from the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelik Onderzoek NWO. Portions of this paper were presented at the 8th Manchester Phonology Meeting, UK, May 2000, the 8th Biennial Workshop on Phonology, University of Utrecht, June 2000; 6th Annual SWOT (South Western Optimality Theory) Conference, USL Los Angeles, April 2001; and at SUNY Stony Brook, March 2001. I am grateful to those audiences, particularly Yoonjung Kang and Ricardo Bermudez-Otero, and to an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments and suggestions. -
UC Berkeley Phonlab Annual Report
UC Berkeley UC Berkeley PhonLab Annual Report Title Turbulence & Phonology Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4kp306rx Journal UC Berkeley PhonLab Annual Report, 4(4) ISSN 2768-5047 Authors Ohala, John J Solé, Maria-Josep Publication Date 2008 DOI 10.5070/P74kp306rx eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2008) Turbulence & Phonology John J. Ohala* & Maria-Josep Solé # *Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley [email protected] #Department of English, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain [email protected] In this paper we aim to provide an account of some of the phonological patterns involving turbulent sounds, summarizing material we have published previously and results from other investigators. In addition, we explore the ways in which sounds pattern, combine, and evolve in language and how these patterns can be derived from a few physical and perceptual principles which are independent from language itself (Lindblom 1984, 1990a) and which can be empirically verified (Ohala and Jaeger 1986). This approach should be contrasted with that of mainstream phonological theory (i.e., phonological theory within generative linguistics) which primarily considers sound structure as motivated by ‘formal’ principles or constraints that are specific to language, rather than relevant to other physical or cognitive domains. For this reason, the title of this paper is meant to be ambiguous. The primary sense of it refers to sound patterns in languages involving sounds with turbulence, e.g., fricatives and stops bursts, but a secondary meaning is the metaphorical turbulence in the practice of phonology over the past several decades. -
An Emergent Approach to the Guttural Natural Class John Sylak-Glassman
An Emergent Approach to the Guttural Natural Class John Sylak-Glassman (University of California, Berkeley) The post-velar consonants (uvulars, pharyngeals/epiglottals, and glottals) have been claimed to form the guttural natural class. Hayward and Hayward (1989; hereafter H & H) and McCarthy (1994) argue on the basis of evidence from the Semitic and Cushitic stocks that a guttural natural class must be formally recognized in phonological theory. H & H propose a ‘zone of constriction’ feature [GUTTURAL]. McCarthy (1994) renames this feature [PHARYNGEAL], refines its ‘zone of constriction’ basis in terms of orosensory perception, and integrates it into standard feature geometry by placing it under the PLACE node on par with ORAL place and its termini ([LAB], [COR], [DORS]). The claim is that the guttural natural class is an innate part of Universal Grammar. This study argues that while there is clear and persuasive evidence for the guttural natural class, it should be viewed as emergent and language-specific rather than innate and universal. H & H (1989:179-183) and McCarthy (1994:207-213) show that all the post-velar consonants lower or back vowels in phonological processes in Arabic, Hebrew, several Ethiopic languages, and D’opaasunte (Cushitic), and this is taken as strong cross-linguistic evidence for the guttural natural class. Supposing an innate and universal guttural natural class, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants are predicted to lower or back vowels regardless of whether another guttural consonant occurs in a given language. Of the 628 language varieties (549 Ethnologue languages) in P-base (Mielke 2008), 13 varieties possess at least one uvular, but no glottals or pharyngeals. -
The Phonetics of English Pronunciation - Week 3
Version SS 2008 The Phonetics of English Pronunciation - Week 3 W.Barry Institut für Phonetik Universität des Saarlandes IPUS 1 How far have we got, and what did I ask you to do? 1. I suggested that we need to be able to describe sounds if we are going to be able to deal with differences! - We looked briefly at consonants acccording to their place & manner of articulation and their voicing. And the homework question was: - What are the dimensions used for classifying consonants? Answer: No problem (for MOST of you!) - For each dimension, give example German word pairs with two consonants that are different ONLY because of a switch in that dimension. Some of you clearly didn't consult the script: It is corrct that we distingish obstruents and sonorants, but they are not the basis for classifying consonants in general. Some of you started at a finer level than place, manner and voice, giving the different places of articulation (without actually saying that "place" was the dimension they belong to). 2 Example word-pairs Place: mein vs nein; Laus vs. Lauch; kicken vs. kippen /x/ (Why aren't "fad" vs. "Bad" or "Hut" vs. "gut" good examples?) Manner: mein vs Bein; Laus vs. laut; lacken vs. lachen /x/ (Why isn't "Saat" vs. "Tat" a good example?) Voicing: Bein vs. Pein; Wein vs. fein; reisen vs. reißen /v/ /z/ /s/ (Why isn't "Sand" vs. "Hans" a good example?) We started with German words to make it clear that there is nothing very special about the descriptive categories we are talking about. -
Voicing of Glottal Consonants and Non-Modal Vowels
[Preprint of paper accepted for publication in Journal of the International Phonetic Association] VOICING OF GLOTTAL CONSONANTS AND NON-MODAL VOWELS Marc Garellek, Yuan Chai, Yaqian Huang, and Maxine Van Doren UC San Diego [email protected] ABSTRACT Variation in voicing is common among sounds of the world’s languages: sounds that are analyzed as voiceless can undergo voicing, and those analyzed as voiced can devoice. Among voiceless glottal sounds in particular, voicing is widespread: linguists often expect the voiceless glottal stop [ʔ] and fricative [h] to be fully voiced, especially between vowels. In this study, we use audio recordings from Illustrations of the International Phonetic Alphabet to explore the extent to which glottal consonants and non-modal (breathy and creaky) vowels differ in terms of percentage voicing and voicing intensity in three phrasal positions. We find that voiceless [h] is only slightly less voiced than voiced [ɦ] in initial position. Between two vowels, both [h] and [ɦ] are as voiced as breathy vowels. Glottal stops and creaky vowels are both characterized by high percentages of voicing, but they differ in voicing intensity: in all phrasal positions, glottal stops generally have periods of strong and weak voicing, whereas creaky vowels are strongly voiced. In contrast, vowels described as ‘rearticulated,’ ‘checked,’ or ‘glottalized’ show similar drops in voicing intensity to glottal stops. We interpret these results through an articulatory lens: glottal consonants and non-modal vowels are both modulations in phonation resulting from laryngeal constriction and vocal fold spreading. We argue further that, because voicing during [ʔ] and [h] is largely predictable from respiratory and prosodic constraints, many cases of [ʔ] and [h] can be considered to be phonetically underspecified for voicing. -
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Student Name: an Xiaohui Course: LT5401 Phonetics and Phonology Assignment Title: Comparison of the Sound Systems of British English and Mandarin Chinese
Student name: AN Xiaohui Course: LT5401 Phonetics and Phonology Assignment title: Comparison of the Sound Systems of British English and Mandarin Chinese There is a common practice for Chinese-speaking English beginners in China, that is, to use the similar Mandarin pinyin letters to signal the pronunciation of the English sounds in words. Although to some degree it helps to memorize some new pronunciations effectively, some of the Mandarin pinyin letters are not the same as the corresponding English letters in the indication of the phonetic properties of the sounds. In this essay, we will discuss the subtle differences of the phonetic characteristics of the consonants and vowels between British English and Mandarin Chinese. 1. Consonants As shown in Table 1, there are 24 consonants in British English and 22 in Mandarin Chinese. Among these consonants, only some of them, namely the bilabial stops [p]/[], alveolar stops [t]/[], velar stops [k]/[], bilabial nasal [m], alveolar nasal [n], velar nasal [], labio-dental fricative [f] and alveolar lateral approximant [l], are the same in the two languages. It should be noted that all the consonants of each language presented in Table 1 can occur in the word- or syllable-initial position, except for the velar nasal []. Table 1: Consonant sounds in British English and Mandarin Chinese. labio- Post- (alveolo-) bilabial dental alveolar retroflex velar glottal dental alveolar palatal BE stop MC BE nasal MC BE fricative MC BE affricate MC BE approximant MC lateral BE approximant MC Notes: 1. BE stands for British English and MC stands for Mandarin Chinese. 2. The classification of the consonants in English and Chinese is based on Ladefoged and Johnson (2015) and Hu (1981). -
Linguistic Typology 2019; 23(2): 263–302
Linguistic Typology 2019; 23(2): 263–302 Joan Bybee and Shelece Easterday Consonant strengthening: A crosslinguistic survey and articulatory proposal https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2019-0015 Received April 16, 2018; accepted December 07, 2018 Abstract: Given the common intuition that consonant lenition occurs more often than fortition, we formulate this as a hypothesis, defining these sound change types in terms of decrease or increase in oral constriction. We then test the hypothesis on allophonic processes in a diverse sample of 81 languages. With the hypothesis confirmed, we examine the input and output of such sound changes in terms of manner and place of articulation and find that while decrease in oral constriction (weakening) affects most consonant types, increase in oral constriction (strengthening) is largely restricted to palatal and labial glides. We conclude that strengthening does not appear to be the simple inverse of weakening. In conclusion we suggest some possible avenues for explaining how glide strengthening may result from articulatory production pressures and speculate that strengthening and weakening can be encompassed under a single theory of sound change resulting from the automatization of production. Keywords: phonology, consonant strengthening, lenition and fortition, allopho- nic variation, sound change, automatization 1 Introduction It is generally agreed that lenition is much more common than fortition in sound changes as well as phonological processes across the languages of the world.1 This asymmetry suggests the need for special attention to fortition in order to determine if it is the simple inverse of lenition or a different phenomenon. The Author Contribution Statement: Joan Bybee and Shelece Easterday contributed equally to the data collection, analysis, and writing of this paper 1 See Section 3 for references and discussion.