Vowel allophony in Ness Gaelic: Phonetic and phonological patterns of laxing and retraction

The vowel system of the dialect of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Ness, Lewis differs from that of other dialects in several important ways. In particular, several vowels display patterns of allophony that have not been investigated instrumentally and, in some cases, have not been reported before for Scottish Gaelic. This paper documents the Ness system in detail, focusing in particular on the tense–lax opposition in /i e/ and retraction of /a(ː)/ next to velarised consonants. The results of a traditional linguistic fieldwork study are presented first, followed by a detailed acoustic study of nine speakers. The acoustic reality of these allophonic patterns, reflected in F1 and F2 values, is verified statistically using LME modelling. Bimodality in the distribution of tokens in acoustic space, confirmed statistically with Hartigan’s Dip Test, is taken as evidence for the existence of discrete phonological categories (Bermúdez-Otero & Trousdale 2011). It is found that speakers vary as to whether these allophonic oppositions are restricted to the phonetic grammar, or have undergone stabilisation and advanced into the categorical phonology (Bermúdez-Otero 2007, 2015). It is observed that laxing of /i e/ in Ness Gaelic occurs in exactly those contexts where there is a direct transition between the vowel and a following supra-glottal consonant. It is therefore proposed that this tense–lax opposition is grounded in conflicting strategies of contrast enhancement, whereby laxing increases the perceptual distinctiveness of a following consonant by allowing for more distinctive formant transitions, at the expense of the distinctiveness of the vowel itself (Storme 2019).

The acoustics of word-initial and word-internal voiced stops in Somali

This article seeks to determine the acoustic correlates of gemination in Standard Somali (Afroasiatic, Cushitic), in particular whether closure duration is the primary acoustic correlate distinguishing singleton and geminate stops, with immediate consequences for the analysis of word-initial strengthening. We provide an acoustic analysis of word-initial and word-internal voiced singletons as well as of their geminate counterparts on the basis of a production experiment conducted with four native speakers. Three temporal and four non-temporal acoustic properties of /b d ɡ/ and /bb dd ɡɡ/ are examined and systematically compared (closure duration, release burst duration, vowel duration; and closure amplitude, release amplitude, presence of a release burst, (de)voicing). We argue that the opposition between singleton and geminate voiced stops is primarily realized as the manner contrast approximant [β̞ ð̞ ɣ̞] vs. stop [b d ɡ]. Word-initially, Somali exhibits various peculiarities that are reminiscent of the cross-linguistically attested phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening. This article provides the first study of this phenomenon in Somali. We establish that word-initial /b d ɡ/ and word-medial /bb dd ɡɡ/ share the same closure duration, release burst duration, and vowel duration within the Prosodic Word. They also have a similar closure amplitude, and voicing properties. Moreover, the acoustic properties of word-initial /b d ɡ/ remain constant, and do not depend on their position in the prosodic hierarchy. On the basis of these results, the article also aims at providing new insights in the phonological representation of Somali geminates and word boundaries, and thus contributes to the understanding of word-initial strengthening in Somali.

On the history of palatography in Hungarian phonetics

The beginnings of the field of experimental phonetics can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth century, when (among others) palatography, initiated by an English dentist, started an important new trend in phonetics. This paper outlines the evolution of this revolutionary experimental technique, discusses its two types, direct (static vs. natural) and indirect palatography, and describes the materials and procedures that researchers used. Hungarian scholars, Balassa, Gombocz, Csűry and Hegedűs, were among the very first who used palatography, ahead of many other European researchers. This paper highlights their methodological achievements and some of their findings obtained in studying the articulation of Hungarian vowels and consonants using palatography.

The influence of Standard German on the vowels and diphthongs of West Central Bavarian

The spoken accent of children is strongly influenced by those of their peers but how rapidly do they adapt to sound changes in progress? We addressed this issue in an acoustic analysis of child and adult vowels of West Central Bavarian (WCB) that may be subject to an increasing influence by the Standard German (SG) variety. The study was a combination of longitudinal and apparent-time analyses: re-recordings from 20 WCB children in their first, second and third years of primary school at two schools in rural Bavaria were compared with those of 21 WCB adult speakers from the same area. The question was whether the children’s pronunciation diverged from the adults’ pronunciation and increasingly so in their second and third years. Participants produced stressed vowels in isolated mostly trochaic words in which WCB vs. SG differences were expected. Both adult/child and longitudinal changes in the direction of the standard were found in the children’s tendency towards a merger of two open vowels and a collapse of a long/short consonant contrast, neither of which exists in SG. There was some evidence that, unlike the adults, the children were beginning to develop tensity (= tenseness) and rounding contrasts, which occur in SG but not WCB. There were no observed changes to the pattern of opening and closing diphthongs, which differ markedly between the two varieties. The general conclusion is that WCB change is most likely to occur as a consequence of exaggerating phonetic variation that already happens to be in the direction of the standard.

Effect of emphasis spread on VOT in coronal stops in Qatari Arabic

Emphasis (contrastive pharyngealization of coronals) in Arabic spreads from an emphatic consonant to neighboring segments. Previous research suggests that in addition to changing spectral characteristics of adjacent segments, emphasis might affect voice onset time (VOT) of voiceless stops because emphatic stops in Arabic dialects have considerably shorter VOT than their plain cognates. No study investigated whether emphatic co-articulation could shorten VOT in plain stops produced in emphatic environment. The present study investigates changes in VOT in syllable-initial /t/ using production data from sixteen speakers of Qatari Arabic, who read non-word syllables with initial plain and emphatic stops /t/ and /ṭ/ adjacent to another plain or emphatic consonant. The results show that emphasis spread is a gradient process that affects only spectral characteristics of segments, causing changes in vowel formants and spectral centre of gravity of stops. Long-lag VOT in plain /t/, however, was not shortened in emphatic syllables. The findings suggest that shorter VOT in voiceless emphatic stops in Qatari Arabic is not a mechanical aftermath of pharyngealization but, rather, a phonological requirement to maintain contrast between long-lag and short-lag VOT in plain and emphatic stops.

Huangyan Taizhou

Huangyan dialect (, local name: [wɔ̤ɲjɛ˜̤wa̤]) is a variety of Taizhou dialect () as spoken in Zhejiang Province in China1 (see Figure 1).2 Huangyan District had a population of 616,000 people in 2019.3 The Zhejiang Taizhou dialect belongs to the Wu dialect group, which forms the second largest dialect group in China (after Mandarin). The language genealogy of Huangyan is presented in Figure 2. Wu dialects are spoken in the city of Shanghai, Zhejiang Province, southern Jiangsu Province and bordering areas (see Figure 3), an area with an estimated population of 80 million people in 2013 (Lewis 2009). The Wu dialects are not mutually intelligible with (Standard) Mandarin and often not even with each other (Norman 2003, Wang 2014).