The Phonetic Cause of Sound Change from Voiceless Stops to Implosives

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-64
Author(s):  
Xi Cun
Keyword(s):  
Sound Change ◽  
Relevant Study ◽  
Oral Pressure ◽  
Voiceless Stop ◽  
Chinese Dialects ◽  
Very High

Currently, no relevant study provides a proper phonetic explanation regarding the origin of implosives in Chinese dialects. The present study proposes that the active lowering of the larynx is used as a strategy to initiate voicing when pronouncing the fortis voiceless stop1, which possibly results in the sound change from fortis voiceless stops to implosives. This phenomenon is observed in the Chaozhou dialect, in which a phonetic variant of the voiceless stop occurs with pre-voicing, and the transient drop of the intra-oral pressure (Po) occurs before oral release. It was found that the use of the ingressive glottalic airstream occurs more often when the voiceless stops are pronounced with either extremely long oral closure or with very high intra-oral pressure.

Analysis of the approximation of voiced initials in Yiyang Dialect: With remarks on an unusual devoicing pathway of MC voiced initials among Chinese dialects

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-152
Author(s):  
Jianguo Peng
Keyword(s):  
Sound Change ◽  
Chinese Dialects

The pronunciation of Middle Chinese voiced initials as l- is a characteristic of Yiyang dialect. The circumstances of the change are classified into three types: Cong (從), Xie (邪), Cheng (澄), Chong (崇), Chuan (船) and Chan (禪) followed the pathway dz- > z- > ɹ- > l-, Ding (定) followed the pathway d- > l-, and Ri (日) became pronounced as l- due to the influence of literary readings. The sound change of voiced affricates weakening to voiced fricatives, voiced fricatives changing to approximants and then to the lateral approximant, and voiced stops changing to the lateral approximant are unusual devoicing developments among Chinese dialects

scholarly journals The perception of voice-initiating gestures

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Josep Solé
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Reaction Time Analysis ◽  
Time Analysis ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
Oral Pressure ◽  
Sound Patterns

AbstractThis study examines how variation in production is perceived and then (re)interpreted by listeners, thus providing the link between phonetic variation and sound change. We investigate whether listeners can detect the nasal leak that may accompany utterance-initial voiced stops in Spanish, and reinterpret it as a nasal segment. Such reinterpretation may account for a number of sound patterns involving emergent nasals adjacent to voiced stops in oral contexts. Oral pressure, nasal/oral airflow, and audio were recorded for utterance-initial /b d p t/ produced by 10 Spanish speakers. Tokens showing different degrees of nasal leak (nasal C, maximum, medium, and no nasal leak) were placed intervocalically, where both /C/ and /NC/ may occur. The stimuli were presented to Spanish listeners for identification as /VNCV/ or /V(C)CV/. Identification results indicate a higher number of VNCV responses with incremental changes in nasal leak in voiced but not voiceless stimuli. Reaction time analysis showed shorter latencies to nasal identification for larger velum leak stimuli. The results suggest that listeners can `hear' the nasal leak and fail to relate it to voicing initiation, interpreting a nasal segment. Thus a gesture aimed at facilitating voicing initiation may be interpreted as a new target goal.

On the Study of Strata in the Phonological History of Dialects

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-59
Author(s):  
Rulong Li
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Phonological Categories ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Dialects

Researchers studying strata in the phonological history of Chinese dialects should note the following: First, some historical strata emerged because of language contact. Second, beside the evolution of phonological categories themselves, it is also important to trace the actual sound change from one pronunciation to another. Third, primary (i.e. covering most characters in a category) and secondary strata should be differentiated, and the latter should not be blown out of proportion. Fourth, researchers should find out how the various strata in a dialect constitute a single synchronic system. The four points in discussion are all illustrated with examples from Min dialects.

scholarly journals Perception of speaker age and speaker origin in a sound change in progress: The case of /s/-aspiration in Andalusian Spanish

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Ruch
Keyword(s):  
Social Perception ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Stop Word ◽  
Voiceless Stop ◽  
Context Specific

This paper addresses the question whether listeners possess sociolinguistic knowledge of regional variation in a sound change affecting /s/ + voiceless stop sequences in Andalusian Spanish. We tested whether speakers from Seville and Granada were perceived as more Sevillian-sounding and as younger when a stimulus contained the novel phonetic variant, a post-aspirated stop. Word-medial syllable-final /s/ was manipulated in such a way that two stimuli of the same speaker differed only in whether they contained pre-aspiration ([eh.ˈtaŋ.ko]) or post-aspiration ([e.ˈthaŋ.ko]). Andalusian listeners rated the same speaker as younger and as more Sevillian-sounding when the stimulus contained a post-aspirated stop. The recognition of a speaker’s actual dialect was particularly high when the innovative variant was embedded in a Seville speaker’s speech, confirming earlier work that indexicality is context-specific. The results suggest that Andalusian listeners possess knowledge of the regional variation and the sound change and use this variation in social perception.

Fricative vowels as an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Fang Hu ◽  
Feng Ling
Keyword(s):  
Spectral Characteristics ◽  
Intermediate Stage ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Acoustic Study ◽  
Redundant Feature ◽  
Chinese Dialects ◽  
High Vowels

Abstract Diphthongization and apicalization are two commonly detected phonetic and/or phonological processes for the development of high vowels, with the process of apicalization being of particular importance to the phonology of Chinese dialects. This paper describes acoustics and articulation of fricative vowels in the Suzhou dialect of Wu Chinese. Acquiring frication initiates the sound change. The production of fricative vowels in Suzhou is characterized by visible turbulent frication from the spectrograms, and a significant lower Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio vis-à-vis the plain counterparts. The acoustic study suggests that spectral characteristics of fricative vowels play a more important role in defining the vowel contrasts. The fricative high front vowels have comparatively greater F1 and smaller F2 and F3 values than their plain counterparts, and in the acoustic F1/F2 plane, the fricative vowels are located in an intermediate position between their plain and apical counterparts. The articulatory study revealed that that not only tongue dorsum but also tongue blade are involved in the production of fricative high front vowels in Suzhou. Phonologically, plain high front vowels, fricative high front vowels, and apical vowels distinguish in active place of articulation, namely being anterodorsal, laminal, and apical respectively; and frication becomes a concomitant and redundant feature in the production of fricative or apical vowels. It is concluded that the fine-grained phonetic details suggest that the fricative high front vowels in Suzhou is at an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization in terms of both acoustics and articulation.

The effect of outliers on the perception of sound change

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Labov ◽  
Maciej Baranowski ◽  
Aaron Dinkin
Keyword(s):  
Sound Change ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Very High ◽  
High Outlier

AbstractThe role of outliers in vowel distributions is examined through an experiment that registers subjects' assessments of symmetrical and asymmetrical distributions. Subjects first scaled their subjective impressions of a series of six resynthesized tokens of the word bad ranging from low front to upper mid front. They were then asked to register on this scale their overall impressions of four series of five phrases including bad: low symmetrical, low with a very low outlier, high symmetrical, high with a very high outlier. Subjects show the capacity to integrate outliers into their overall assessments in a manner consistent with their acoustic properties. The effect of low outliers was significantly greater, reflecting the socially marked status of this form in the Philadelphia community.

Lexical acquisition and acquisition of initial voiceless stops

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann A. Tyler ◽  
Mary Louise Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Diffusion Model ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Lexical Acquisition ◽  
New Words ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Voiceless Stop ◽  
Lexical Diffusion ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Production Accuracy

ABSTRACTThe interaction between lexical acquisition and acquisition of initial voiceless stops was studied in two normally developing children, aged 1;9 and 1;10, by acoustically examining the token-by-token accuracy of initial voiceless stop targets in different lexical items. Production accuracy was also examined as it related to the frequency of usage of different words, as well as the time when they entered the children's lexicons. Fewer than half of the words in the children's lexicons had tokens representing the emergence of accurate voiceless stop production prior to the session at which the voicing contrast was achieved. These words were primarily ‘old’ words that had been in the children's lexicons from the beginning of data collection, as opposed to ‘new’ words, first produced in later recording sessions. Findings are discussed in reference to the ‘lexical diffusion’ model of sound change and within the framework of nonlinear underspecification theory.

The voicing of intervocalic stops in Old Tuscan and probabilistic sound change

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Canalis
Keyword(s):  
Sound Change ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Voiceless Stop

AbstractThe article examines the dual outcome of Latin intervocalic /p t k/ in Old Tuscan. While these stops remain voiceless in most of the Tuscan lexicon, a significant number of words are voiced. The prevailing opinion is that preservation of voicelessness is the native outcome, and that the words displaying voicing were borrowed from Romance languages in which intervocalic voicing was systematic. However, a number of facts militate against this hypothesis, including the presence of voicing in Tuscan words that are unattested or maintain a voiceless stop in the supposed donor languages. The results of a corpus-based analysis of an Old Tuscan lexicon show that the distribution of the voiced outcomes is phonologically conditioned (contra the borrowing hypothesis), as they are more likely if the stop was velar, next to low(er) vowels, next to stress and if followed by a liquid consonant. These results are also an example of sound change with clear and fine-grained phonological conditioning but a non-systematic outcome; irregularity was probably caused by the allophonic nature of Old Tuscan voicing and by its interaction with another lenition process.

Very High Resolution Analysis of the Dynamics of a Coronal Plasmoid

1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 593-596
Author(s):  
O. Bouchard ◽  
S. Koutchmy ◽  
L. November ◽  
J.-C. Vial ◽  
J. B. Zirker
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Solar Eclipse ◽  
Total Solar Eclipse ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Small Field ◽  
High Resolution Analysis ◽  
Ccd Observations ◽  
Resolution Analysis ◽  
Very High ◽  
Small Field Of View

AbstractWe present the results of the analysis of a movie taken over a small field of view in the intermediate corona at a spatial resolution of 0.5“, a temporal resolution of 1 s and a spectral passband of 7 nm. These CCD observations were made at the prime focus of the 3.6 m aperture CFHT telescope during the 1991 total solar eclipse.

Monte Carlo Algorithms for Moments of Transition Arrays

1988 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 79-81
Author(s):  
A. Goldberg ◽  
S.D. Bloom
Keyword(s):  
Monte Carlo ◽  
State Vector ◽  
Basis Vector ◽  
Collective State ◽  
Dispersion Characteristics ◽  
Dipole Strength ◽  
The Third ◽  
Monte Carlo Algorithms ◽  
Third Moment ◽  
Very High

AbstractClosed expressions for the first, second, and (in some cases) the third moment of atomic transition arrays now exist. Recently a method has been developed for getting to very high moments (up to the 12th and beyond) in cases where a “collective” state-vector (i.e. a state-vector containing the entire electric dipole strength) can be created from each eigenstate in the parent configuration. Both of these approaches give exact results. Herein we describe astatistical(or Monte Carlo) approach which requires onlyonerepresentative state-vector |RV> for the entire parent manifold to get estimates of transition moments of high order. The representation is achieved through the random amplitudes associated with each basis vector making up |RV>. This also gives rise to the dispersion characterizing the method, which has been applied to a system (in the M shell) with≈250,000 lines where we have calculated up to the 5th moment. It turns out that the dispersion in the moments decreases with the size of the manifold, making its application to very big systems statistically advantageous. A discussion of the method and these dispersion characteristics will be presented.

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