The Digraph اى in the Quranic Consonantal Text and the Identification of a New Letter Shape for Final Hē in the 7th to 8th Century Arabic Script

This paper proposes a hitherto unrecognized orthographic practice in the Quranic consonantal text: use of the digraph اى ,that is, alif + denticle, to represent the noninitial glottal stop, most often adjacent to the high vowels i/ī and less commonly in other environments. This feature leads to the identification of a new letter shape for the final hē in the early Islamic Arabic hand, originating in the Nabataeo-Arabic script, which in turn can explain a number of previously enigmatic spellings in the Quranic consonantal text.

The history of Old English būgian and bōgian ʻdwellʼ, and some related morphonological problems

In this article, an alternative historical analysis of the Old English verbs būgian and bōgian is presented, whereby it is suggested that they are relatively late formations. The verb *bū̆wōja- (> būgian) evolved out of the verb *bū̆wa- (> būan) during the Proto-Northwest Germanic era by way of a paradigmatic split. The vowel ū̆ in the root of *bū̆wōja- was subject to assimilatory lowering due to the influence of the following non-high vowels: the lowering of the root vowel produced the stem *bō̆wōja- (> OE bogian). It is argued here that the vowel /u/ was susceptible to lowering in this environment because in the sequence -V(w)V-, it was phonetically short (phonologically, it was length-neutral in this position).

A Study of the Vowel Context Effect on Initial Stops of Mandarin Produced by Native and Nonnative Speakers

This study, based on corpus materials, investigates the “voice onset time” (VOT) of Mandarin word-initial stops in isolated syllables according to the effect of vowel contexts produced by native and nonnative speakers. Here, 1250 monosyllables of word-initial plosives /p/, /t/, /k/, /p[Formula: see text]/, /t[Formula: see text]/, and /k[Formula: see text]/ were uttered in combination with the vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ in four tone contexts except /ki/ and /k[Formula: see text]i/ that are phonetically illegal in Mandarin by 20 participants (10 native Chinese speakers and 10 Urdu learners of Chinese). Results show that for native Chinese speakers, the VOTs of aspirated stops followed by the high vowels /i/ and /u/ are significantly longer than those followed by the low vowel /a/, and unaspirated stops followed only by the high back vowel /u/ are significantly longer than those followed by the low vowel /a/. For native Urdu speakers, the mean VOTs of word-initial stops in Mandarin monosyllables have no significant effect for both aspirated and unaspirated ones in combination with different vowels. Understanding the results of this study will be of assistance to second language learning and teaching.

Nasalance Scores for Normal Speakers of American English Obtained by the Nasometer II Using the MacKay-Kummer SNAP-R Test

Objective: To establish nasalance score norms for adolescent and young adult native speakers of American English and also determine age-group and gender differences using the Simplified Nasometric Assessment Procedures (SNAP) Test-R and Nasometer II. Design: Prospective study using a randomly selected sample of participants. Setting: Greater Cincinnati area and Miami University of Ohio. Participants: Participants had a history of normal speech and language development and no history of speech therapy. Participants in the adolescent group were recruited from schools in West Clermont and Hamilton County, whereas the young adults were recruited from Miami University of Ohio. The participants of both groups were residents of Cincinnati, Ohio or Oxford, Ohio and spoke midland American English dialect. Outcome Measures: Mean nasalance scores for the SNAP Test-R. Results: Normative nasalance scores were obtained for the Syllable Repetition/Prolonged Sounds, Picture-Cued, and Paragraph subtests. Results showed statistically significant nasalance score differences between adolescents and young adults in the Syllable Repetition, Picture-Cued, and Paragraph subtests, and between males and females in the Syllable Repetition and the Sound-Prolonged subtests. A significant univariate effect was found for the syllables and sentences containing nasal consonants and high vowels compared to syllables and sentences containing oral consonants and low vowels. Across all the SNAP Test-R subtests, the females’ nasalance scores were higher than the males. A significant univariate effect was also found across nasal syllables, and high vowels such that the females’ nasalance scores were higher than the males. Tables of normative data are provided that may be useful for clinical purposes. Conclusion: Norms obtained demonstrated nasalance score differences according to age and gender, particularly in the Syllable Repetition/Prolonged Sound subtest. These differences were discussed in light of potential reasons for their existence and implications for understanding velopharyngeal function. In addition, nasalance scores are affected by the vowel type and place of articulation of the consonant. These facts should be considered when nasometry is used clinically and for research purposes.

The Effects of Language Contact on Non-Native Vowel Sequences in Lexical Borrowings: The Case of Media Lengua

Media Lengua (ML), a mixed language derived from Quichua and Spanish, exhibits a phonological system that largely conforms to that of Quichua acoustically. Yet, it incorporates a large number of vowel sequences from Spanish which do not occur in the Quichua system. This includes the use of mid-vowels, which are phonetically realized in ML as largely overlapping with the high-vowels in acoustic space. We analyze and compare production of vowel sequences by speakers of ML, Quichua, and Spanish through the use of generalized additive mixed models to determine statistically significant differences between vowel formant trajectories. Our results indicate that Spanish-derived ML vowel sequences frequently differ significantly from their Spanish counterparts, largely occupying a more central region of the vowel space and frequently exhibiting markedly reduced trajectories over time. In contrast, we find only one case where an ML vowel sequence differs significantly from its Quichua counterpart—and even in this case the difference from Spanish is substantially greater. Our findings show how the vowel system of ML successfully integrates novel vowel sequence patterns from Spanish into what is essentially Quichua phonology by markedly adapting their production, while still maintaining contrasts which are not expressed in Quichua.

Articulatory Strategies for Place Contrasts of Unreleased Final Stops on Preceding Vowels: Evidence from Ultrasound Imaging

This ultrasound study examines the gestural coordination involved in vowel-to-consonant sequences concerning unreleased final stops, which are more susceptible to reduction than their released counterparts. Thus, coarticulatory information on the preceding vowel is important to signal place contrasts of post-vocalic stops. The gestural coordination of vowel-consonant sequences of monosyllabic words in Cantonese represents a testing case for having preserved phonemic contrasts of six unreleased final stops in a range of vowel contexts. Preliminary results from smoothing spline ANOVA and linear mixed-effect regression show that coarticulatory patterns depend on vowel height, that is, non-high vowels are undergoing gradual coarticulation whereas high vowels are phonologising the lingual properties of the unreleased final stops on the preceding vowels.

Intrinsic f0 and Sound Change: Evidence from Australian Languages

In this paper, a study is presented investigating two types of intrinsic f0 effects in sixteen Australian languages. Vowels are known to vary systematically in their mean f0 as a function of vowel height as well as voicing of the previous consonant, a property known as intrinsic f0. Vowel height has been known to have a positive correlation with f0, in which high vowels have a higher intrinsic f0 than low vowels on average. Differences in intrinsic f0 also vary systematically based on the voicing of a preceding stop, with voiceless stops correlating with higher intrinsic f0 and voiced stops with lower. Using automatic data processing methods on archival audio data, this study shows wide variation in the presence and robustness of intrinsic f0 effects in the Australian langauges investigated.

Persistence and Opacity in Eastern Andalusian Harmony

This paper proposes a novel account of a derivationally opaque aspect of ATR harmony in Eastern Andalusian. Harmony in the language is driven by Positional Licensing: [-ATR] originating on final vowels must spread to the stressed vowel. Intervening post-tonic vowels optionally also harmonize, as do pretonic vowels. Typically in licensing-driven systems, if harmony is unable to reach the licensor, harmony does not affect non-licensing positions either. Not so in Eastern Andalusian: high vowels do not harmonize, but a stressed high vowel does not prevent unstressed vowels from harmonizing as normal – harmony can overapply on these vowels. The analysis, couched in serial Harmonic Grammar, develops a new mechanism called persistence that accounts for this opacity. Under persistence, once a feature satisfies Positional Licensing by spreading to the licensing position, Positional Licensing remains satisfied for the rest of the derivation, even if the feature vacates the licensing position. This allows a stressed high vowel to harmonize, thereby permitting unstressed vowels to harmonize, too, and then harmony can retract off the high vowel without running afoul of Positional Licensing.

Variation in the articulation of Russian stressed vowels and the mechanics of palatalization in consonants

A 3D/4D ultrasound study of Russian stressed vowels in the context of ‘soft’ (phonetically palatalized or palatal) versus ‘hard’ consonants reveals that vowels in these two contexts differ systematically in terms of the position of the tongue root while the tongue dorsum is less consistently modified depending on the speaker, vowel or consonant context. This paper proposes that the observed vowel allophony, as well as the softness contrast in Russian consonants, and the contrast between front and central high vowels, are all defined in terms of the feature [ATR].