AN AUDITORY AND ACOUSTIC STUDY OF LIQUIDS IN MALAYALAM REENU PUNNOOSE School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences Newcastle University Submitted to Newcastle University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2010 ABSTRACT This thesis aims to describe the auditory and acoustic characteristics of the rhotics in Malayalam. There is disagreement in the limited literature that exists on the language regarding the manner of articulation of the rhotics. Some refer to them as one tap and one trill (Kumari, 1972) while others describe both as trills differing slightly in place of articulation (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996; Srikumar and Reddy, 1988). The two rhotics are lexically contrastive, e.g. /kaɾi/ soot -/kari/ curry. One of the objectives of the present study is to describe the phonetic characteristics of the two rhotics and the contrast maintenance strategies used by speakers to distinguish between them. Apart from the two uncontested rhotics, there is a fifth liquid, an allegedly similar sound in Tamil and Malayalam that has previously been referred to as being a rhotic by some (Asher and Kumari, 1997; Krishnamurti, 2003, 152) and a lateral by others (Kumari, 1972). Recent studies on Tamil liquids (McDonough and Johnson, 1997; Narayanan et al. 1999) have described the fifth liquid as being a retroflex central approximant, i.e. another rhotic. The second objective of this study is to explore the possibility of the fifth liquid being a third rhotic in Malayalam. Eight male speakers were recorded reading out words, containing at least one of the five liquids in all permissible word-positions, in a carrier phrase. Results of the auditory and acoustic analyses showed that the two rhotics differed mainly in their tongue configurations (laminal and advanced vs. apical and retracted), resonance characteristics (clear vs. dark) and surrounding vowel quality (advanced and closer vs. retracted and open). F2 was found to be the most robust distinguishing acoustic cue. Manner of articulation varied for the apical rhotic from trill to tap to approximant across speakers and depending on word-position while the laminal rhotic was always realised as a tap. Duration was not found to be a robust cue in distinguishing between the two rhotics. The fifth liquid appears to be a clear post-alveolar approximant phonetically while functioning as a retroflex approximant from a phonological point of view. The lack of traditional phonetic cues separating the tap and trill segments in Malayalam highlights the importance of looking at non-segmental long-domain effects for the realisation of their clear (tap) and dark (trill) resonance, which was found to be more important than the actual manner of articulation and temporal cues. This, together with the discrepancy in the phonetic and phonological behaviour of the fifth liquid, suggests that phonetics and phonology share a „partly absolute-partly relative relationship‟ and supports the notion of an Extrinsic Phonetic Interpretation (EPI), which seems to better account for the paradox surrounding the phonologically unified yet phonetically asymmetric class of rhotics. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis would have remained a distant dream had it not been for several wonderful people. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Ghada Khattab, my supervisor. I have been extremely fortunate to have her expertise, experience enthusiasm and constant encouragement as the main driving forces behind this thesis, without which it would not have come this far. Her passion and dedication to her work and her warmth, affection and concern for her students are qualities that have inspired me and showed me what it truly means to be a mentor, a teacher, and a guide. She has been and will continue to be my role model. It has been an absolute privilege being her supervisee and I look forward to working with her in future projects. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Dr. S.J Hannahs for his support and encouragement. A big thank you to Professor Gerard Docherty for his invaluable suggestions all throughout the PhD, his priceless advice to not lose sight of „the bigger picture‟ and the famous words „so what is your story?‟ that have encouraged so many of us to think clearly about the way we approached our research. Dr. Jalal Al-Tamimi deserves special mention for his immense support and patience, in particular with statistics queries and all his help with the automated scripts. Special thanks to Dr. Paul Foulkes for writing references for me that played a huge part in obtaining all the scholarships that sustained me financially during the course of my PhD. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the CWIT, FFWG, and the ECLS department at Newcastle University that awarded me grants that enabled me to finish my thesis on time. A special thank you to all the earnest participants in this study for their time and patience with the tasks. Several friends deserve a special mention: Thank you Mariola for always being there and for being one of the most loyal and dependable friends I have ever had, Jyothsna, who never let me forget the importance of what I had undertaken and for leading by example whether the PhD or life in general, Katya, for all our lovely chats and meetings, for all the encouragement, affection and belief in me. Thank you Samantha for being you, for standing by me during the bad times and for your unconditional love and confidence in me. Tunu, Ponnu, thank you girls for all the support and love all through the years despite the geographical distance that made me feel relatively less home sick and much loved. Thank you, Rov, more than words can say for your unflinching support and trust through it all and Joe, for these last few months of unconditional trust and affection, to Samy and Dush who have always wished the best for me and lavished attention and love at every possible opportunity, to Subbin for all those insane wacky phone calls that kept me laughing even at the worst of times. Varsha, thank you for many years of being there for me through good and bad times, Asmu for all your love, kindness and hospitality, for welcoming me into your home all through these years and for giving me Imad who has been such a source of joy ever since he was born. Last but definitely not the least, my lovely family without whom I would not have come this far-thank you Appa and Amma for instilling the importance of education in me from early on and encouraging me to dare to dream and thank you dude for being the world‟s best brother! ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction………………………………………………………………………………1 1.Phonology and Phonetics of Rhotics…………………………………………………..5 1.1 The Rhotic Paradox: Phonological unity and Phonetic Asymmetry…………...5 1.1.1 Ambiguity in Rhotic Membership...............................................................6 1.1.2 Phonetic Asymmetry among Rhotics..........................................................7 1.1.3 Phonological Patterning of r‟s....................................................................8 1.1.4 Rhotics and Laterals: Interaction between the liquid consonants.............10 1.1.5 Looking beyond „segments‟......................................................................15 1.2 Trills, taps and flaps..........................................................................................22 1.2.1 Production of trills and trill variability......................................................22 1.2.2 Taps and flaps............................................................................................25 1.2.3 Rhotic contrasts in multiple-rhotic languages..........................................29 2.Liquids in Malayalam ………………………………………………………………..33 2.1 Origin of Malayalam........................................................................................33 2.2 The phonological system of Malayalam..........................................................35 2.3 Liquids in Malayalam......................................................................................43 2.3.1 Rhotics......................................................................................................43 2.3.2 Laterals.....................................................................................................50 2.3.3 Fifth Liquid..............................................................................................54 3.Methodology…………………………………………………………………………..61 3.1 Pilot Study.......................................................................................................61 3.1.1 Tap-trill minimalpairs..............................................................................62 3.1.2 FifthLiquid................................................................................................67 3.2 Present Study...................................................................................................68 3.2.1 Participants................................................................................................68 3.2.2Data.............................................................................................................69 iii 3.2.3Method.......................................................................................................71 3.2.4 Analyses …...............................................................................................76 3.2.5 Hypotheses...............................................................................................83 4.Results and Discussion