The Two Types of Transcription (The Buryat Language Database)

The two types of transcription (The Buryat Language Database)

Ljubov D. Radnaeva The Department of Phonetics and Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages, Saint - Petersburg State University, Russia

E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT transcription represents each meaningful unit as a sequence of minimal units, which form the phonological The Buryat Language Database is being created at system (Bondarko 1998 [1], p.17). One should make note the Department of Phonetics and Methods of Teaching that this type of transcription may be realized if the Foreign Languages and the Laboratory of Experimental number of the phonemes of the language is known to the Phonetics, the Saint – Petersburg State University researcher (Zinder 1979 [6], p. 291). (Radnaeva 2001 [3], p. 146-148, 2002 [4], p. 320-324). It contains a corpus of the Buryat read speech material of The phonetic transcription demonstrates the syllables, words and the phonetically representative pecurlarities of the realization of the phonemes depending experimental text of 2 male and 2 female informants. on different phonetic conditions and distribution, like stressed or unstressed positions, influence of neighbour All the material is transcribed with the help of the sounds and others. The phonetic transcription allows to International Phonetic Alphabet by means of the two types show the connection between the system rules of the of transcription: phonemic and phonetic. The orthographic allophone changes and concrete realizations which depend symbols are transformed into the symbols of the upon a large number of factors (Bondarko 1998 [1], p. 17). International Phonetic Alphabet by means of the All the allophones are marked with different symbols algorithms of automatic transcription. within the phonetic transcription. This paper describes the system of vowels and The starting point to demonstrate the phonological consonants, the way the speech sounds are transcribed and conception of a phoneme is to understand the fact that a presented in the Buryat Language Database. listener and a speaker realizes that speech may be segmented into meaningful units. L.V. Scherba introduced 1. INTRODUCTION the idea about the meaningful function of the phoneme in his well-known research about Russian vowels. According The two types of transcription: (phonemic and to his idea, all the meaningful units are associated with the phonetic) are created hn the basis of the theoretical speech sounds. Thanks to this association the phoneme principals of the Saint-Petersburg Phonological School becomes independent and therefore may be segmented out following the conception of the academicion L.V.Scherba of speech as the smallest sound unit of the language that and his pupils: L.R.Zinder, L.V.Bondarko, can not be segmented any more (Scherba 1912 [7], p. 6). L.A.Verbitskaya, M.V.Gordina and others. Any oral and written form of the language may be Being the system of special phonetic symbols and transcribed. The problem concerns with it is what rules, the transcription reflects phoneme and allophoneme pronounciation variant you choose to transcribe. For the structure of oral and written speech. Special studies on Buryat Language Database we have chosen the Received speech processing prove the correlation between the Prounounciation which is based on one of the dialects of orthographic, phonemic and phonetic presentation of the the Buryat language. written text to be very complicated (Kuznetsov 1997 [2], Skrelin 1999 [5]). It is neccesary to note that the written form of the Buryat Language has been changed three times during it's Actually there are two ways to fix the text in any history. The history of the written language goes back to form: 1) to show the system of phonemes of the language the Old Mongolian (the beginning of the XIIIth century) and 2) to show the typical realization of the system in which still exists nowadays, to the Latin Alphabet in the speech. The academician L. V. Scherba was the first to thirties of the XXth century and at last, the Cerillic show the difference between the phonemic and phonetic Alphabet which is used for the Buryat Alphabet at the types of transcription. present time. Thus, the phonemic transcription demonstrates the The present day Buryat Alphabet consists of 36 number of the phonemes within the language. This type of letters. 2. THE SYSTEM AND PHONEMIC soft groups cannot meet within one word. Vowels from the TRANSCRIPTION neutral group LL can form words together with vowels from hard and soft groups. For each phoneme the transcription symbol from the International Phonetic The Buryat language system of sounds includes Alphabet was defined. Figure 1 presents the system for monophthongs and diphthongs (the diphthongs are L L 18 vowels (15 monophongs and 3 diphthongs): underlined). The long and short vowels are very close to HH° nn ¡¡ L X each other according to their acoustic parameters, XXLand 27 consonants: SS¨ W W¨ E therefore they are marked on one line. The hard, soft and neutral groups of vowels are marked with the dash line. E¨G G¨ÝÝ¨ PP¨ QQ¨× V The outer ‘circle’ the inner ‘circle’ and the common circle. ][[¨ÏOO¨ UU¨Mand 9 borrowed Russian phonemes: II¨ NN¨Y Front Back Y¨WV W¨The phonemes have been defined as a result of the phonological analyses of Buryat words and LLLL XL XX the articulatory and acoustic study. In the acoustic study

Close all speech material was accessible via the speech signal L processing programme EDS (Editing Digital Sound HH Signals) that had been developed at the University of Telecommunications in Saint-Petersburg. ¡¡

All the vowels are opposed to each other according to Close-mid 5 basic features: ° 1. Length: short and long vowels: nn LHn¡X Open LHLHn¡X .

2. Stability of articulation: monophthongs and Fig. 1 The classification of the Buryat vowels diphthongs: All the consonants are classified according to 5 basic LLHHnn¡¡ features: 1. Manner of the production: plosives, nasals, X °XLL. fricatives and trills; 2. Place of obstruction: bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal; 3. Voice: voiced and 3. Labialization: rounded and unrounded vowels: voiceless; 4. Noise: noise and sonants; 5. Soft palate: hard ¡¡XX°L and soft. For each consonant phoneme the transcription XLLLHHnn symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet was . defined. Figure 2 presents the classification of consonants. 4. Horizontal movement of the tongue: front: front LL front-retracted HH back: back- advanced: nnL back: 3. PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION ¡¡XXXL The system of the phonetic transcription of the Buryat Vertical movement of the tongue: close: narrow LLXXXL L language for vowels defines two positions: 1) the first broad syllable position, 2) not the first syllable of a word. close -mid: narrow HH broad ¡¡ open: According to the articulatory and acoustic characteristics narrow ° broad nn vowels of the first syllables are very close to the basic allophones of the phonemes. So the vowels from the first According to the law of vowel harmony the system syllable have the same phonetic symbols as the phonemes of vowels of the Buryat language is devided into three themselves. Vowels of not the first syllables are usually groups, traditionally called: hard, soft and neutral. 1. The reduced. The larger qualitative and quantitative changes vowels from the hard group are: concern the vowel phonemes: HnR, so they are °nn¡¡XXXL 2. The transcribed like >@>¥@>e@ in the all of the syllables except vowels from the soft group are: the first one. For example, in words like: >n¥N@ – HHL Vowels of the hard and ‘attention’, >WHPGOÏQH@ – ‘as celebrated’, >E¡GeOÉeWe@– ‘smart’. phoneme Ý is realized in allophones >Í@>É@ with vowels of the hard group. >Í@in the initial position >É@ in the intervocal position. For example: >ÍnU@– ‘hand’, Bilabial Alveolar Pal Velar Glo >ÍnQV¥@– ‘the only’, >EÉn@ – ‘used to be’, atal ttal >ÏXUÉXO¨L@ – ‘school’. The phoneme Ý is realized in S E W G Ý allophones >N@>T@ in the final position and in the position

es es S¨ E¨ W¨ G¨ Ý¨ >T@

Plosiv before voiceless consonants. is realized with vowels of P Q× the hard group, >N@ with vowels of the soft group, for example, >VnT@ – ‘time’, >VHVN@ – ‘flower’, >EnT¥@– P¨Q¨ Nasals ‘teacher’, [EHN@– ‘letter’. The phoneme [ is V][ Ï realized in allophones: >[@ with vowels of soft group and [¨ >§@ with vowels of the hard group, for example, >[U[@ – ‘to tell’>[H[@ – ‘to do’, >§n§¥O§¥@ – ‘to Fricatives cut’,>§°We@ – ‘north’. O M ant O¨ Appro

xim 4. THE BURYAT LANGUAGE DATABASE U

ll All orthographic texts were transformed into

Tri U¨ phonemic and phonetic transcription symbols on the basis of the transcription rules and by means of the algorithms of automatic transcription, which had been designed at the Department of Phonetics and Methods of Teaching Fig 2. The classification of the Buryat consonants Foreign Languages. Both types of the transcription simultaneously arrange the orthographic data into the Another factor, which causes the appearance of transcription symbols on: 1) syllable level, 2) morpheme allophones is the influence of the neighbour sounds. Back level, 3) word level, 4) sintagm level, 5) sentence level, 6) and back advanced vowels become more advanced under text level. All the experimental data is included into the the influence of the alveolar consonants Buryat Language Database. The figure 3 demonstrates the >W@>W¨@>G@>G¨@>Q@>Q¨@>]@>]@>V@>O@>O¨@>U@>U¨@. For structure of the Database. example>QnS¥@ ‘leaf’, >WnQ@ – ‘yours’, >GXUO¥§¥@‘wish’, >GU@ – ‘day’, >¡Ge×@ - ‘star’, >V¡MeO@ ‘culture’. Front and front retracted vowels become more Vowels and Rules of Automatic retracted under the influence of the velar, uvular and consonants transcription transcriber glottal consonants:>Ý@>Ý¨@>Í@>Ï@For example: >[HO×@ - ‘language’ >ÏH×@– ‘good’ >ÍW@– ‘unusual’. Unrounded vowels become rounded under the influence of bilabial Phonemic Phonetic >E@>E¨@>S@>S¨@>P@>P¨@ For example: >EHOH@ – transcription transcription ‘mittens’, >EnÉ@ – ‘bear’, >PnQ@ – ‘our’. Collection of Collection of Pronouncing The phonemic transcription for the Buryat syllables morphemes word consonants depends upon the initial, intervocal and final positions of the consonant in a word. Among the consonants, occlusive, bilabial consonants become Experimental fricative in the intervocal position, for example, TEXT >Mn¥É¥U@– ‘on foot’, >n¨n×@ – ‘sound’. Also the quality of the consonants depends on the group of the vowels they enter. The phoneme Ý is realized in Speaker Speaker Speaker Speaker allophones >Ý@>@ with vowels of the soft group. >Ý@in the 1 2 3 4 initial position, >@ in the intervocal position. For example, >ÝHU@– ‘house’ >QW@ – ‘words’, >ÝU×@– ‘state’. The phoneme Ý¨ is realized in the plosive allophone >Ý¨@in the initial and intervocal positions, for example, Fig 3. The Buryat Language Database >Ý¨L[@‘to dawn’, >Í§¥×Ý¨¥U@ ‘surprisingly’. The 5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The present study is supported by the RFH grant -04-12009\

REFERENCES

[1] L. Bondarko, Modern Russian Phonetics , St. – Petersburg, 1998 (in Russian). [2] V. Kuznetsov, Vowels of Connected Speech, St. – Petersburg, 1997 (in Russian). [3] L. Radnaeva, The Phonetic Fund of the Buryat Language: from syllable to text in Proceedings ‘100 Years of experimental phonetics in Russia’, St. – Petersburg, 2001(in Russian). [4] L. Radnaeva, The Sound Database of the Buryat Language in the Collected works Problems and Methods of the experimental phonetic research: St. – Petersburg, 2002 (in Russian). [5] P. Screlin, Segmentation and Transcription, St. – Petersburg, 1999 (in Russian). [6] L. Zinder, General Phonetics, Moscow, 1979 (in Russian). [7] L.Scherba, Russian vowels in qualitative and quantitative aspects, St. –Petersburg, 1912 (in Russian).