scholarly journals The role of vowel length and glottalization in German learners’ perception of the English coda stop voicing contrast

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Reinisch ◽  
Joshua Penney
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Length ◽  
Voicing Contrast

Old and Middle English Phonology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donka Minkova
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Stress Assignment ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
Separate Branch ◽  
English System

Old English (OE) is a cover term for a variety of dialects spoken in Britain ca. 5th–11th century. Most of the manuscripts on which the descriptive handbook tradition relies date from the latter part of the period. These late OE manuscripts were produced in Wessex and show a degree of uniformity interrupted by the Norman Conquest of 1066. Middle English (ME) covers roughly 1050–1500. The early part of the period, ca. pre-1350, is marked by great diversity of scribal practices; it is only in late ME that some degree of orthographic regularity can be observed. The consonantal system of OE differs from the Modern English system. Consonantal length was contrastive, there were no affricates, no voicing contrast for the fricatives [f, θ, s], no phonemic velar nasal [ŋ], and [h-] loss was under way. In the vocalic system, OE shows changes that identify it as a separate branch of Germanic: Proto-Germanic (PrG) ē 1 > OE ǣ/ē, PrG ai > OE ā, PrG au > OE ēa. The non-low short vowels of OE are reconstructed as non-peripheral, differing from the corresponding long vowels both in quality and quantity. The so called “short” diphthongs usually posited for OE suggest a case for which a strict binary taxonomy is inapplicable to the data. The OE long vowels and diphthongs were unstable, producing a number of important mergers including /iː - yː/, /eː - eø/, /ɛː - ɛə/. In addition to shifts in height and frontness, the stressed vowels were subject to a series of quantity adjustments that resulted in increased predictability of vowel length. The changes that jointly contribute to this are homorganic cluster lengthening, ME open syllable lengthening, pre-consonantal and trisyllabic shortening. The final unstressed vowels of ME were gradually lost, resulting in the adoption of <-e># as a diacritic marker for vowel length. Stress-assignment was based on a combination of morphological and prosodic criteria: root-initial stress was obligatory irrespective of syllable weight, while affixal stress was also sensitive to weight. Verse evidence allows the reconstruction of left-prominent compound stress; there is also some early evidence for the formation of clitic groups. Reconstruction of patterns on higher prosodic levels—phrasal and intonational contours—is hampered by lack of testable evidence.

scholarly journals Ternary vowel length in Shilluk

Phonology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-125
Author(s):  
Bert Remijsen ◽  
Otto Gwado Ayoker ◽  
Signe Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Mean Values ◽  
Acoustic Study ◽  
The Mean

Ternary or three-level vowel length is typologically rare, and supporting evidence is limited. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the hypothesised case of this configuration in Shilluk. We first describe the role of vowel length in Shilluk phonology and morphology, and then report on an acoustic study in which minimal sets for vowel length (short, long, overlong) are measured for vowel duration, coda duration, vowel quality and fundamental frequency. Short, long and overlong vowels differ significantly and substantially in terms of vowel duration: 96% of the items can be classified successfully for vowel length on the basis of this measurement alone. Of the other measurements, only vowel quality is significant, and this effect is considerably smaller. The mean values for vowel duration – 68, 111 and 150 ms for short, long and overlong vowels respectively – are similar to those reported for ternary vowel length in Dinka.

scholarly journals Moraic preservation and equivalence in Gújjolaay Eegimaa perfective reduplication

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-56
Author(s):  
Abbie Hantgan ◽  
Serge Sagna ◽  
Stuart Davis
Keyword(s):  
Weight Bearing ◽  
Surface Representation ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Repair Strategy ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
Atlantic Language

AbstractThe role of syllable weight in Gújjolaay Eegimaa, an Atlantic language spoken in south-western Senegal, is evidenced by reduplicative patterns in the perfective stem, where we witness a difference in the surface representation of verb roots with underlying voiced obstruents from those with underlying voiceless obstruents. We argue that voiced plosives are weight bearing and therefore considered as moraic when in coda position in this language. We attribute the triggering of the gemination in the reduplicative perfective with roots having final voiced plosives to compensatory lengthening in order to make up for the loss of a mora as motivated by Hayes (1989). Gemination, rather than vowel lengthening, occurs because, as stated by de Chene and Anderson (1979) compensatory lengthening of vowels only occurs in a language where vowel length is contrastive. In this paper, we show evidence to support the proposition that there are no long vowels in this variety of Eegimaa, and therefore gemination (which is a contrastive feature in the language) is the repair strategy employed to compensate for the loss of a mora. Through a description of the weight-related processes observed in perfective reduplication in Eegimaa, we will detail the moraic analysis of the various patterns and discuss general phonological implications.

scholarly journals Articulatory correlates of the voicing contrast in alveolar obstruent production in German

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Electromagnetic Articulography ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Contact Patterns ◽  
Phonological Rule ◽  
Stressed Position

This work investigates laryngeal and supralaryngeal correlates of the voicing contrast in alveolar obstruent production in German. It further studies laryngealoral co-ordination observed for such productions. Three different positions of the obstruents are taken into account: the stressed, syllable initial position, the post-stressed intervocalic position, and the post-stressed word final position. For the latter the phonological rule of final devoicing applies in German. The different positions are chosen in order to study the following hypotheses: 1. The presence/absence of glottal opening is not a consistent correlate of the voicing contrast in German. 2. Supralaryngeal correlates are also involved in the contrast. 3. Supralaryngeal correlates can compensate for the lack of distinction in laryngeal adjustment. Including the word final position is motivated by the question whether neutralization in word final position would be complete or whether some articulatory residue of the contrast can be found. Two experiments are carried out. The first experiment investigates glottal abduction in co-ordination with tongue-palate contact patterns by means of simultaneous recordings of transillumination, fiberoptic films and Electropalatography (EPG). The second experiment focuses on supralaryngeal correlates of alveolar stops studied by means of Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) simultaneously with EPG. Three German native speakers participated in both recordings. Results of this study provide evidence that the first hypothesis holds true for alveolar stops when different positions are taken into account. In fricative production it is also confirmed since voiceless and voiced fricatives are most of the time realised with glottal abduction. Additionally, supralaryngeal correlates are involved in the voicing contrast under two perspectives. First, laryngeal and supralaryngeal movements are well synchronised in voiceless obstruent production, particularly in the stressed position. Second, supralaryngeal correlates occur especially in the post-stressed intervocalic position. Results are discussed with respect to the phonetics-phonology interface, to the role of timing and its possible control, to the interarticulatory co-ordination, and to stress as 'localised hyperarticulation'.  

scholarly journals OBSERVING AND PRODUCING DURATIONAL HAND GESTURES FACILITATES THE PRONUNCIATION OF NOVEL VOWEL-LENGTH CONTRASTS

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1015-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Li ◽  
Florence Baills ◽  
Pilar Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Hand Gestures ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Disyllabic Words ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Phonological Contrasts

AbstractWhile empirical studies have shown the beneficial role of observing and producing hand gestures mimicking pitch features in the learning of L2 tonal or intonational contrasts, mixed results have been obtained for the use of gestures encoding durational contrasts at the perceptual level. This study investigates the potential benefits of horizontal hand-sweep gestures encoding durational features for boosting the perception and production of nonnative vowel-length contrasts. In a between-subjects experiment with a pretest–posttest design, 50 Catalan participants without any knowledge of Japanese practiced perceiving and producing minimal pairs of Japanese disyllabic words featuring vowel-length contrasts in one of two conditions, namely with gestures or without them. Pretest and posttest consisted of the completion of identical vowel-length identification and imitation tasks. The results showed that while participants improved equally at posttest across the two conditions in the identification task, the Gesture group obtained a larger improvement than the No Gesture group in the imitation task. These results corroborate the claim that producing hand gestures encoding prosodic properties of speech may help naïve learners to learn novel phonological contrasts in a foreign language.

scholarly journals The role of vowel length in comprehension during cross-cultural communication: An action research project

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1135-1145
Author(s):  
Gareth Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Experimental Group

The paper describes the process and outcomes of an action research project with the aim of determining whether focusing classroom input on vowel length has a positive effect on the production and comprehension of these sounds. The statistics were generated from respondents listening to the output of speakers from an experimental group, who had received instruction on this issue, and to the output of speakers from a control group, who had not been provided with any input, with the rate of intelligibility being compared. The conclusion drawn is t

scholarly journals Why phonetically-motivated constraints do not lead to phonetic determinism: The relevance of aspiration in cueing NC sequences in Tumbuka

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Downing ◽  
Silke Hamann
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Universal Property ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Closure Duration ◽  
Phonetic Cues

This paper examines the role of phonetic cues to postnasal laryngeal contrasts, language-specific differences in the use of these cues, and the phonetic naturalness of the different cues. While many studies have shown that long stop closure duration is a well-established cue to voicelessness in the postnasal context (see, e.g., Cohn & Riehl 2012, who claim this to be a universal property), the present study focusses on the role of aspiration noise in maintaining a voicing contrast in the postnasal environment. It provides experimental data from the Bantu language Tumbuka to illustrate that aspiration noise can preserve a postnasal laryngeal contrast even when stop closure duration is short. Though typologically less common, we show that the use of aspiration as a cue is also phonetically motivated. Furthermore, we show that such phonetic motivation should not be directly incorporated into phonology (e.g., as markedness constraints in OT). Instead, we employ the BiPhon model (Boersma 2007), which allows for a strict distinction between the modules of phonetics and phonology, and which formalizes the mapping of phonetic cues onto phonological representations via cue constraints, avoiding the problem of phonetic determinism.

Rapa Nui: A Case for Correspondence in Reduplication

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Yifan Yang
Keyword(s):  
Rapa Nui ◽  
Vowel Length

Abstract This squib argues for the role of correspondence in reduplication by examining the vowel length alternations in Rapa Nui reduplication. The analysis shows that vowel shortening in the base after reduplication is due to the enforcement of vowel length identity through Base Reduplicant Correspondence, while the motivation of vowel shortening is problematic for theories without surface-to-surface correspondence. The findings suggest that reduplication-phonology interactions cannot be handled solely by serialism or cyclicity, and a parallel Optimality-Theoretic evaluation with BR-correspondence is supported.

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