Variation in back vowel fronting and diphthongization in Louisiana English

2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (4) ◽  
pp. A71-A71
Author(s):  
Irina Shport
Keyword(s):  
Back Vowel

scholarly journals Stochastic phonological knowledge: the case of Hungarian vowel harmony

Phonology ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Hayes ◽  
Zsuzsa Cziráky Londe
Keyword(s):  
Web Search ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Generation Model ◽  
General Process ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
Statistical Variation ◽  
Take Back ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
Dual Listing

In Hungarian, stems ending in a back vowel plus one or more neutral vowels show unusual behaviour: for such stems, the otherwise general process of vowel harmony is lexically idiosyncratic. Particular stems can take front suffixes, take back suffixes or vacillate. Yet at a statistical level, the patterning among these stems is lawful: in the aggregate, they obey principles that relate the propensity to take back or front harmony to the height of the rightmost vowel and to the number of neutral vowels. We argue that this patterned statistical variation in the Hungarian lexicon is internalised by native speakers. Our evidence is that they replicate the pattern when they are asked to apply harmony to novel stems in a ‘wug’ test (Berko 1958). Our test results match quantitative data about the Hungarian lexicon, gathered with an automated Web search. We model the speakers' knowledge and intuitions with a grammar based on the dual listing/generation model of Zuraw (2000), then show how the constraint rankings of this grammar can be learned by algorithm.

scholarly journals USING SUBSTUTION DRILL TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PRONUNCIATION ABILITY

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Maharida Maharida
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Method ◽  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Good Classification ◽  
Tenth Grade ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Teaching Pronunciation

This research aimed to find out the improvement of the students’ pronunciation ability by using Substitution Drill that focused on English Consonants which consisted of dental and palato alveolar consonants and English Vowel which consisted mid-front,mid-central and mid-back vowel. The researcher applied Pre-Experimental method with one group pretest-posttest design and collected the data by giving pre-test and post-test. The sample of the research was class X IPA of SMA Negeri 1 Galesong Selatan which consisted of 33 students. The sample was taken by using the purposive technique. The research variables were teaching pronunciation by using Substitution Drill as an independent variable and dependent variable were English Consonants and English Vowel. The result of the research showed that the tenth-grade students of SMA Negeri 1 Galesong Selatan had fair score in the pre-test. After treatment, their pronunciation ability significant improved. The result of the research was the mean score obtained by the students through pre-test was 5.77 which was classified as fair classification and the mean score of the students on the post-test was 7.32 which was classified as good classification and the value of t-test was greater than t-table (16.48 > 2.037). It indicated that the alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted and the null hypothesis (H0) was rejected. It was concluded that the use of Substitution Drill was effective to improve the students’ pronunciation ability.Keywords: improvement, pronunciation, substitution drill, dental, palato alveolar

scholarly journals Are Tims hot and Toms not?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Hartung
Keyword(s):  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Functional Feature ◽  
Physical Size ◽  
Gender Group ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
The Relationship

Sound symbolism – the idea that there are motivated links between the sound of a word and its meaning has been established to be an existing phenomenon across different languages. Especially size sound symbolism seems to be a functional feature in many languages meaning that different types of vowels in words are associated with different physical size. Words with front vowels (e.g. little, tiny) are more likely to be used to indicate small physical size whereas words with back vowels (e.g. humungous, huge) are more likely to indicate large physical size. Because physical size plays an important role in ratings of attractiveness, we tested whether vowels in first names can influence how attractive the bearer of the name is perceived. In our experiment, participants saw faces paired with popular first names and rated the attractiveness of the depicted person. Masculine names were paired with pictures of men and feminine names with pictures of women. The names either contained a front or back vowel in the accented syllable and were within gender group randomly paired with pictures. We found that female raters preferred faces paired with back vowel names while male raters preferred faces paired with front vowel names, showing that the rater's gender – far more than the gender of the depicted person – determined the relationship between vowel quality and perceived attractiveness of faces. Our results confirm the role of sound symbolism in perception of attractiveness.

Uyghur and Uzbek, the Southeastern Turkic languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 410-429
Author(s):  
Abdurishid Yakup
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Verbal Nouns ◽  
Auxiliary Verbs ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Turkic Languages ◽  
Back Vowel

This chapter provides a general overview of the two Turkic languages spoken in Central Asia, Modern Uyghur and Uzbek in the southeastern group of Turkic, paying special attention to their relation and peculiarities. The languages share particular linguistic features such as palatalization of an original intervocalic -d- to -y-, the preservation of the suffix-initial uvular consonant in -GAn, long consonants in in some numerals, and the use of verbal nouns in -(X)š. Among the differences we find Uyghur umlauting, Uzbek labialized back vowel å, the Uzbek derivative suffix -li, the Uzbek use of auxiliary verbs to code actionality, etc. This chapter also briefly addresses the writing systems of the two languages, and contact with neighboring languages as well as their regional varieties.

Cross-Gender Differences in English/French Bilingual Speakers: A Multiparametric Study

2020 ◽  
pp. 003151252097351
Author(s):  
Erwan Pépiot ◽  
Aron Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Gender Difference ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Second Harmonic ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Intensity Difference ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Language And Gender ◽  
Vowel Formants ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
And Gender

The present study concerns speech productions of female and male English/French bilingual speakers in both reading and semi-spontaneous speech tasks. We investigated various acoustic parameters: average fundamental sound frequency (F0), F0 range, F0 variance ( SD), vowel formants (F1, F2, and F3), voice onset time (VOT) and H1-H2 (intensity difference between the first and the second harmonic frequencies, used to measure phonation type) in both languages. Our results revealed a significant effect of gender and language on all parameters. Overall, average F0 was higher in French while F0 modulation was stronger in English. Regardless of language, female speakers exhibited higher F0 than male speakers. Moreover, the higher average F0 in French was larger in female speakers. On the other hand, the smaller F0 modulation in French was stronger in male speakers. The analysis of vowel formants showed that overall, female speakers exhibited higher values than males. However, we found a significant cross-gender difference on F2 of the back vowel [u:] in English, but not on the vowel [u] in French. VOT of voiceless stops was longer in Female speakers in both languages, with a greater difference in English. VOT contrast between voiceless stops and their voiced counterparts was also significantly longer in female speakers in both languages. The scope of this cross-gender difference was greater in English. H1-H2 was higher in female speakers in both languages, indicating a breathier phonation type. Furthermore, female speakers tended to exhibit smaller H1-H2 in French, while the opposite was true in males. This resulted in a smaller cross-gender difference in French for this parameter. All these data support the idea of language- and gender-specific vocal norms, to which bilingual speakers seem to adapt. This constitutes a further argument to give social factors, such as gender dynamics, more consideration in phonetic studies.

New contrast acquisition: methodological issues and theoretical implications

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER NYCZ
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word List ◽  
Low Back ◽  
City Region ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
Vowel Contrast

This article presents data on the acquisition of the low back vowel contrast by native speakers of Canadian English who have moved as adults to the New York City region, examining how these speakers who natively possess a single low back vowel category have acquired the low back vowel distinction of the new ambient dialect. The speakers show remarkable first dialect stability with respect to their low back vowel system, even after many years of new dialect exposure: in minimal pair contexts, nearly all of the speakers continue to produce and perceive a single vowel category. However, in word list and conversational contexts, the majority of speakers exhibit a small but significant phonetic difference between words like cot and caught, reflecting the separation of these word classes in the new dialect to which they are exposed; moreover, the realization of these words shows frequency effects consistent with a lexically gradual divergence of the two vowels. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theories of phonological representation and change, as well as their methodological implications for the study of mergers- and splits-in-progress.

Sociophonetic analysis of phonemic trill variation in two sub-varieties of Peninsular Spanish

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Preliminary Characterization ◽  
Critical Information ◽  
Quantitative Results ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
Peninsular Spanish

In this paper we provide a preliminary characterization of the phonemic trill (i.e., /r/) as produced by twenty-four speakers of northern and central Peninsular Spanish. The acoustic analysis revealed a considerable number of non-canonical variants containing one or zero apical occlusions. The quantitative results showed robust effects of the following three factors on trill articulation: Speaker dialect, gender, and preceding vowel. Regarding social factors, central Peninsular speakers and male speakers showed the greatest propensity to produce fewer occlusions per phonemic trill. Regarding linguistic factors, non-canonical variants were especially common in contexts of preceding /u/; we interpret this result on articulatory grounds given the antagonistic gestures required for the trill and the high back vowel. All in all, these findings offer empirical support that geographically-oriented studies within a sociophonetic framework offer critical information on the diachrony of trill consonants.

Low-back vowel merger in Minnesotan English.

2009 ◽  
Vol 126 (4) ◽  
pp. 2162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaitlyn Arctander ◽  
Hannah Kinney ◽  
Christina M. Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Low Back ◽  
Back Vowel
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