Laryngealization in Upper Necaxa Totonac by Rebekka Puderbaugh A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Alberta Examining committee: Dr. Anja Arnhold, Supervisor Dr. David Beck, Supervisor Dr. Benjamin V. Tucker, Examiner Dr. Stephanie Archer, Examiner Dr. Ryan Shosted, External examiner Dr. John Nychka, Pro Dean © Rebekka Puderbaugh, 2019 Abstract This dissertation examines laryngealization contrasts in vowels and fricatives in Upper Necaxa Totonac. In vowels the contrast is presumed to be realized as a form of non- modal phonation, while fricatives are supposed to differ according to their production mechanism. The goal of this dissertation is to provide evidence that will help to deter- mine whether the phonetic characteristics of these sounds align with the impressionistic descriptions of their phonological categories. Laryngealization categories were first examined via a corpus analysis in Chapter 3. The analysis revealed a highly frequent co-occurrence of laryngealized vowels and following glottal stops. No relationship was found between vowel laryngealization and ejective fricatives. In Chapter 4 an analysis of the difference in amplitude between the first and second harmonics (H1-H2) in laryngealized and non-laryngealized vowels showed that H1-H2 values were not influenced by vowel laryngealization categories, but were influenced the presence of a glottal stop following the vowel. This finding suggests that the laryngealization contrast neutralizes in vowels before glottal stops. In order to consider the potentially glottalic nature of ejective fricatives in UNT, Chapter 5 compared durations of phonetic events that occur during fricative production, including oral closure and frication. Contrary to expectations, ejective fricatives were longer than pulmonic fricatives in overall duration due to longer silent intervals between the end of frication and the onset of vowel phonation. The closure intervals of the ejective fricatives fit nicely into a cross-linguistically attested continuum of decreasing closure duration at places of articulation nearer the back of the oral cavity, suggesting that ejective fricatives may be phonetic clusters in Upper Necaxa Totonac. ii Preface This thesis is an original work by Rebekka Puderbaugh. The research project, of which this thesis is a part, received research ethics approval from the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board, Project Name ”Phonetic documentation of Upper Necaxa To- tonac”, No. Pro00032296, 2 July 2012, and Project Name ”Acoustic and Articulatory Documentation of Totonac-Tepehua”, No. Pro00043940, 13 November 2013. Portions of this thesis have been previously published. Part of the analysis in Chapter 5 appears in Puderbaugh (2015). Parts of the analyses in Chapters 3 and 4 appear in Puderbaugh (2019). iii Dedicated to the memory of Sophia Jex-Blake Isabel Thorne Edith Pechey Matilda Chaplin Helen Evans Mary Anderson Emily Bovell iv “[... Y]ou should never fully trust anyone else’s description of the sounds of the language you are investigating. They may have been describing a different dialect, or the language might have changed. Or they might have been wrong.” Peter Ladefoged, Phonetic Data Analysis v Acknowledgements The data upon which this thesis is based were collected on field trips supported by a travel grant from the Jacobs Research Fund at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, WA, and a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council awarded to Dr. David Beck, who provided my first introduction to Upper Necaxa Totonac. This dissertation was only possible because of the generosity and friendship of the people of Patla and Chicontla. I am especially grateful to the Sampayo family, who treated me with kindness and care on both of my data collection field trips, and to all of the speakers who shared their voices with me. Preliminary analyses were reported at conferences where my attendance was supported by the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, the Graduate Students Association, and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta, as well as the International Phonetic Association, the Acoustical Society of America, and the Canadian Acoustics Association. Many people have contributed to the completion of this thesis. To anyone I may have been remiss in omitting, I am grateful for your contributions. I never would have been able to write this thesis were it not for the supervision of Dr. Anja Arnhold, who generously stepped in late in my graduate career and allowed me to pursue the questions that really interested me. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. Sarah Shulist, who provided many hours of advice and support, to Dr. Carrie Gillon, who coached me through the revision process, and to Chelsea Parlett who provided statistical consultation. Dr. Christina Bjorndahl read drafts of some revised text, gave feedback on typology of phonology systems, and shared her own experiences of spending many years working on her PhD. Dr. Tracy Connor, Dr. Lauren Ackerman, Dr. Michelle Sims and others also shared their own grad school experiences and provided insight into the process that enhanced my own perspectives in invaluable ways. vi I will be forever indebted to my colleagues at the University of Edinburgh for giving me the opportunity to work with and among them. Their friendship, support, enthusiasm, and unwavering confidence in me have been miraculous and lifesaving forces over the past year. I am particularly grateful to Professor Nik Gisborne for the many compassionate and supportive pep talks. Thanks go also to Dr. Lauren Hall-Lew, who has been a great friend and source of advice. Dr. Josef Fruehwald was among the first to welcome me to Edinburgh, and the weekly knitting nights with him and Becky Mead and the other southside knitters were a great source of comfort to me. Thank you also to my end-of-grad school compatriots Colleen Patton and Mirjam Eiswirth for your friendship, commiseration, and shared snacks. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the linguists and academics of Twitter, for being available at all hours of the global day, for laughing at and riffing on the bad jokes I sent into the void, for providing inspiration, solidarity, and advice, and above all for assuring me that I was not alone. There are too many of you to list, and I am certain that I would unintentionally leave someone out if I tried. I am particularly grateful to Kelly Nuttall for always seeming to be there when I needed someone to chat with. Many others in Edmonton and elsewhere kept me afloat when I felt like all was lost. Dr. Caelan Marrville, my friend and grad school buddy, insisted I could finish when I was certain that I could not and provided unwavering support regardless of the final outcome. My partner, Dr. Nicholas Wakefield, and his family have been a source of strength when my own failed me. Jeff and Amy Nachtigall employed me and kept me well stocked with baked goods when my funding and teaching assignments ran dry. The Naming Commitee of Edmonton gave me a place to feel that my contributions were useful even when the research was at a standstill. Claire Wood and the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group provided community in a new country that has already led to many promising collaborations. Thank you all for being there. Finally, I want to acknowledge the lasting impact that completing this PhD has caused to my physical, mental, and financial health. I hope that those who come after me will not have to endure the same experiences that I have. vii Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Phonology of Upper Necaxa Totonac . 3 1.1.1 Consonants . 4 1.1.2 Vowels . 5 1.1.3 Syllables and prosody . 6 1.1.4 Phonotactics . 7 1.2 Ejective fricatives . 7 1.3 Laryngealized vowels . 10 1.3.1 Laryngealized vowels in Upper Necaxa Totonac . 11 1.3.2 Laryngealized vowels in Totonacan . 12 1.4 Summary and Research Questions . 17 2 Materials 20 2.1 Segmental corpus analysis . 20 2.2 Acoustic analysis . 20 2.2.1 Data collection . 21 2.2.2 Annotation . 22 3 Categorical laryngealization in adjacent segments 31 3.1 Introduction . 31 3.2 Methods . 32 3.3 Results . 33 3.3.1 Segmental collocates . 34 3.3.2 Laryngealization collocates . 40 3.4 Discussion . 44 4 Phonetics of laryngealized vowels in context 48 4.1 Background and hypotheses . 48 4.1.1 Phonation measures . 49 4.1.2 Phonetic studies of laryngealization in Totonacan languages . 54 4.1.3 Hypotheses . 57 4.2 Methods . 57 4.3 Results . 58 4.3.1 CV condition . 60 4.3.2 VC condition . 64 4.3.3 Summary . 67 4.4 Discussion . 69 viii 5 Acoustic duration of ejective and pulmonic fricatives 72 5.1 Background . 72 5.1.1 Duration . 77 5.2 Hypotheses . 79 5.3 Methods . 82 5.4 Results . 84 5.4.1 Spectrographic analysis of fricatives and affricates . 84 5.4.2 Duration of acoustic events in frication production . 88 5.4.3 Statistics . 92 5.5 Discussion . 114 5.5.1 Review of hypotheses with current findings . 115 5.5.2 Future research . 118 5.5.3 Conclusion . 122 6 Discussion and Conclusions 124 6.1 Fricatives in Upper Necaxa Totonac . 124 6.2 Vowels in Upper Necaxa Totonac . 129 6.3 Variability and alternative explanations . 134 6.4 Implications for phonetics, phonology and typology . 136 6.4.1 Vowels . 137 6.4.2 Fricatives . 139 6.5 Contributions of the thesis . 140 References 141 Appendix A Supplement to Chapter 2 149 Appendix B Supplement to Chapter 3 156 B.1 Annotation tools . 156 B.2 Chi-squared test results . 160 Appendix C Supplement to Chapter 4 163 C.1 Materials . 163 C.2 Supplemental models .