Phonology-extrinsic timing: Support for an alternative approach I

This chapter presents evidence that challenges models in which phonological representations are temporal in nature, and where timing mechanisms are phonology-specific and intrinsic to the phonology. For example, evidence for separate representations of 1) movement targets vs. other parts of movement, and 2) spatial vs. temporal aspects, is difficult to account for in phonology-intrinsic timing approaches, where all parts of movement are determined by the same, spatiotemporal phonological representation. In the AP/TD phonology-intrinsic-timing approach, surface time is not represented, specified, or tracked, but instead emerges from the phonological system. Evidence that speakers do in fact represent surface time motivates the consideration of a phonology-extrinsic-timing-based approach. This evidence comes from actors’ interactions with perceived events, and also from speech: 1) constraints on the amounts of structure-related lengthening to maintain phonological length contrasts in quantity languages, and 2) different articulatory strategies for producing a given duration pattern. Finally, evidence for general-purpose timekeeping mechanisms in speech and non-speech movements is discussed.

Evaluating two ways for marking Swedish phonological length in written text

The study compares two different graphic marking systems designed to help L2 learners of Swedish notice and realize phonological length. In System A, 22 L2 learners read aloud three /VːC/ words with length marked under long vowels and three /VCː/words with dots under short vowels. Twenty-two other L2 learners read the same words marked by the other system (System B) that underlines long vowels and long consonants. As a control group, 20 native Swedish speakers read the same words without any marking. We measured and compared the temporal realizations of the six words by all the three groups. System B readers realized Swedish phonological length more closely to the way that native speakers did, compared to System A readers. These results suggest that prompting both long vowels and long consonants can be more effective than marking long and short vowels.

Expressing evolution in Pokémon names: Experimental explorations

There has been a growing interest in sound symbolic patterns in natural languages, in which some sounds are associated with particular meanings. Previous corpus-based research identified some specific sound symbolic relationships in Pokémon naming patterns in Japanese (Kawahara et al. 2018b). One of the main findings was that the names of Pokémon characters are more likely to contain voiced obstruents, and are longer in terms of mora count, when the Pokémon characters undergo evolution (e.g.nyoromo→nyorozo; poppo→pijotto). The current study reports three experiments that test whether (i) these patterns are productive in the minds of general Japanese speakers, and whether (ii) the same tendency holds with English speakers. The results show that the effect of phonological length was clearly observed both with Japanese and English speakers; the effects of voiced obstruents were observed clearly with Japanese speakers, but less clearly with English speakers. Along the way, we address other general issues related to sound symbolism: (iii) to what extent the sound symbolic effects identified in Kawahara et al. (2018b) rely on familiarity with Pokémon, and (iv) whether word-initial segments invoke stronger images than word-internal segments. In addition to its research value, we emphasize that this general project on Pokémon names can be useful for undergraduate phonetics education.

VOWELS DURATION IN THE EVENKI LANGUAGE

The present article focuses upon phonological length realization patterns of Selemdzha Evenki vowels. The material of 90 words pronounced in isolation was obtained from 4 subjects, native fluent speakers of Evenki (1 male and 3 females, aged 54-70). They were asked to read each word 3 times to imitate 3 positions in the utterance: initial, medial, and final. As a result of the acoustic analysis, it was found that phonologically long vowels possessed more than 2 times longer duration than that of short vowels. In the group of long vowels, the direct correlation was noted between vowel openness degree and their duration: the more closed the vowel was, the larger duration it had. In the group of short vowels, no dependence of that sort was found: the longest vowels turned out to be the ones of the main triangle /i-a-u/. Vowels /ɜ:-ɜ/ were characterized by the smallest duration in both groups. Comparison of vowel duration in different positions of the Evenki word suggests that, on average, the longest vowel is the one in the final syllable (before a pause), regardless of the number of syllables in the word.

Typological Characteristics of the Khanty Vocalism Based on Data of Kazym and Surgut Dialects

The paper aims to compare and describe the system of the vowel phonemes in two Khanty dialects – Kazym dialect (the West-Khanty dialectal group) and Surgut dialect (the East-Khanty dialectal group) from the typological point. The statement is made that experimental phonetical data are necessary for typological generalizations in phonology. For the Surgut dialect, for which only subjective auditory descriptions have existed until recent times, experimental acoustical data based on new materials from field expeditions are presented. On the basis of the list including 130 lexemes read out by five informants, duration of the vowels, first and second formant frequencies are measured via Praat software. In the Surgut dialect 13 vowel phonemes are stated for the Trom-Agan idiom (/i:/, /i:/, /u:/, /e:/, /o:/, /ɔ:/, /a:/, /u/, /e/, /o/, /ɛ/, /ɔ/, /a/) and 12 phonemes for Yugan idiom (/i:/, /i:/, /u:/, /e:/, /o:/, /ɔ:/, /a:/, /u/, /e/, /o/, /ɛ/, /a/; at the place of the Trom-Agan /ɔ/ the Yugan /ɛ/ is being used). The new Surgut data are compared with the already published Kazym data. A typological generalization is made on the basis of the N. S. Trubetskoy’s ideas. The Khanty vocalism represents a mixed triangle-linear system. The first-syllable subsystem has a triangle typology with three timbre classes: front unrounded vowels; mid-row vowels with weak labialization; back rounded vowels. The subsystem has three degrees of height for the Kazym dialect and four degrees of height for the Surgut dialect. The not-first-syllable subsystem has a linear typology with one neutral class and opposition by height. The whole system has an opposition by two degrees of phonological length; the strength of this opposition can be rated as weak.

Effects of duration and phonological length of the preceding/following segments on perception of the length contrast in Japanese

This chapter assesses the influence of preceding vowel duration on the perception of singleton/geminate stops in Japanese. Through a perception experiment, it is shown that the identification of consonant length (singleton/geminate) is affected by both the physical duration and the phonological length of the preceding vowel, the former being an ‘assimilative’ effect and the latter being a ‘contrastive’ effect. The physical duration and the phonological length of the following consonant affect the identification of vowel length (short/long), but the former effect is not observable when the following consonant is perceived as geminate. Results of a production experiment also demonstrate that the effects of preceding vowel duration in speech perception are parallel to the contextual variations in preceding vowel duration in speech production.