Acoustic Characteristics of Pre- and Post-vocalic /l/: Patterns from One Southern White Vernacular English

2021 ◽  
pp. 002383092110373
Author(s):  
Hyunju Chung
Keyword(s):  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Low Back ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Male Adult ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Vowel Context ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
Word Position ◽  
Back Vowel

This study examined acoustic characteristics of the phoneme /l/ produced by young female and male adult speakers of Southern White Vernacular English (SWVE) from Louisiana. F1, F2, and F2-F1 values extracted at the /l/ midpoint were analyzed by word position (pre- vs. post-vocalic) and vowel contexts (/i, ɪ/ vs. /ɔ, a/). Descriptive analysis showed that SWVE /l/ exhibited characteristics of the dark /l/ variant. The formant patterns of /l/, however, differed significantly by word position and vowel context, with pre-vocalic /l/ showing significantly higher F2-F1 values than post-vocalic /l/, and /l/ in the high front vowel context showing significantly higher F2-F1 values than those in the low back vowel context. Individual variation in the effects of word position and vowel contexts on /l/ pattern was also observed. Overall, the findings of the current study showed a gradient nature of SWVE /l/ variants whose F2-F1 patterns generally fell into the range of the dark /l/ variant, while varying by word position and vowel context.

Regional relationships among the low vowels of U.S. English: Evidence from production and perception

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Kendall ◽  
Valerie Fridland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Low Back ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Vowel Identification ◽  
Regional Dialects ◽  
Back Vowel

AbstractThe unconditioned merger of the low back vowels and the variety of realizations found for the low front vowel have been noted as leading to greater distinctiveness across U.S. English regional dialects. The extent to which the movements of these vowels are related has repeatedly been of interest to dialectology as well as phonological theory. Here, examining production and perception data from speaker-listeners across three major regions of the United States, the relationships among these low vowels within and across regions are investigated. Participants provided speech samples and took part in a vowel identification task, judging vowels along a continuum from /æ/ to /ɑ/. Results of acoustic analysis and statistical analysis of the perception results indicate that a structural relationship between /æ/ and /ɑ/ is maintained across regions and that listeners’ own degree of low back vowel merger predicts their perception of the boundary between /æ/ and /ɑ/.

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.

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.

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

scholarly journals The Role of Anti-harmony in Learning Neutral Vowels

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Finley
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Grammar Learning ◽  
Artificial Grammar ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Front Vowel ◽  
Learning Paradigm ◽  
Grammar Learning ◽  
Back Vowel

The present study used an artificial grammar learning paradigm to explore the prediction that exposure to anti-harmony might help learners infer that a neutral vowel in a vowel harmony language is transparent. Participants were exposed to a back/round harmony language with a neutral vowel [a]. This neutral vowel either always selected a back vowel suffix,  always selected a front vowel suffix, or selected both front-and back vowel suffixes, in adherence to anti-harmony. Results indicated that exposure to a back/round harmony with the neutral vowel selecting either back vowel suffixes, or both front and back vowel suffixes, could induce a bias towards transparent vowels. Assuming that participants inferred that the centralized [a] paired with [o] harmonically, then the predictions that exposure to anti-harmony could induce a bias towards a transparent vowel interpretation were borne out. However, the bias towards a transparent vowel was not significantly different between the anti-harmony conditions and the harmony condition, suggesting that this effect should be replicated with other neutral vowels.

scholarly journals Food for /θɔt/ or /θɑt/?

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Rosa Balliro
Keyword(s):  
Low Back ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Back Vowel

The English low back vowel merger, where words like caught and cot are pronounced identically, is a well-studied phenomenon. Generally, these studies focus on mergers within given regions, comparing vowels of non-mobile individuals. My research differs in exploring the effects of relocation. I examine pronunciation differences of vowels in differently gendered twins from England who moved to Canada as children. Despite growing up in similar environments, their vowel patterns differ: there is some evidence of merger in the female’s but not the male’s vowels. This suggests that mobility and exposure to a new dialect may affect pronunciation changes but are not the sole factors. 

scholarly journals Young female students and the motivation dimensions for parenthood

2015 ◽  
pp. 747-755
Author(s):  
Djurdja Solesa-Grijak ◽  
Anida Fazlagic
Keyword(s):  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Female Students ◽  
State University ◽  
A Value ◽  
Value Of Children ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Desire For A Child ◽  
Motivation Scale ◽  
Instrumental Motivation

The goal of this paper is establishing whether there is a difference in the motivation for parenthood of the female students, regarding the turn of birth. The research has been done on a convenient sample consisting of 106 female students at the State university of Novi Pazar. In the research, the parenthood Motivation scale has been used. The results have demonstrated that the motivation for parenthood is mostly instrumental and least narcistic with these students. The results of the testing, significance and difference in the motivation for parenthood regarding the turn of birth have demonstrated that, statistically speaking, there is a significant difference in general and instrumental motivation between the first born and the second born. Namely, this dimension is more expressed with the second born questionees [t(82)=-2.446; p<.05]. It has also been demonstrated that the second born questionees have a stronger desire for a child in order to prove oneself, which eventually ascertaines the results of the descriptive analysis of instrumental motivation for parenthood. The research has shown that the female students mostly reduce the motivation for parenthood to its instrumentalization and their desire to have a child to a value of children as they themselves percieve it.

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