This study investigated lateral asymmetry in the linguopalatal speech sounds of British English by means of electropalatography. This instrumental technique visualizes tongue–palate contact during speech production and allows for the quantification of contact patterns. The first and main objective of the study was to establish a method of measuring asymmetry that would be more sensitive than the approach used previously and would facilitate statistical analysis. The method employed a modified index of asymmetry and controlled for the overall amount of tongue–palate contact. The secondary objective was to use the proposed method to quantify asymmetry in the production of the linguopalatal consonants of British English, focusing on asymmetry observed in the region of the palate corresponding to the place of articulation. Regression analysis of 22,004 speech sounds, produced by four native speakers, indicated that the approximant /l/ is the most asymmetrical speech sound, followed by the central approximants /j, r/. Although fricatives had been hypothesized to be highly asymmetrical, they were not consistently more asymmetrical than plosives. In terms of the place of articulation of speech sounds, velar sounds were less asymmetrical than alveolars. It was possible to account for some of these findings by referring to the unilateral productions of approximants.

This paper is concerned with the velarized lateral [ɫ] as a possible realization of the lateral phoneme /l/ in the rural Central Bavarian base dialects of German in Austria. So far, velarized laterals in Austrian German have mainly been described as a socially marked realization of /l/ in Vienna. However, descriptions of Austrian dialects mostly lack detailed acoustic analyses. Therefore, we analyzed the first two formants of alveolar laterals from dialect speakers in seventeen locations around Vienna that fall into the Central and South Central Bavarian dialect areas. Recordings were taken from the ‘German in Austria’ Corpus, from four speakers per location (two old, two young, each one male, one female), with thirty-two items per speaker with laterals in word-initial and twenty-two in word-final position. We asked whether the degree of velarization as measured by the difference between F2 and F1 (the smaller the more velarized) depends on this linguistic factor of position in the word – as has been shown for other Germanic languages – or social factors including the recording location’s distance from Vienna, age and gender of the speakers. Results showed that velarization was most frequently but not exclusively found in the Eastern region closest to Vienna (Central Bavarian dialects). Non-velarized and velarized laterals tended towards a complementary distribution in initial versus final word position and male speakers showed more velarization overall. Specifically, old speakers in locations close to Vienna tended towards more velarization in word-initial position compared to other regions, matching descriptions of Viennese dialect.

In laryngeal realism (LR), laryngeal specification of stops is explained by direct maps of cues (e.g. VOT) onto privative phonological laryngeal features [voice] or [spread glottis]. Phonetic realization of the segments and speakers’ ‘control’ (e.g. the degree of intervocalic voicing and speech rate manipulation effects on VOT duration) are used as diagnostics of phonological specification. Similar to some Arabic vernacular dialects (e.g. Qatari Arabic), Khuzestani Arabic in Iran presents a case where three voiced stops /b d ɡ/ are in contrast with voiceless stops /p t k/, but two voiceless guttural plosives /tˁ q/ have no voiced homorganic counterparts. In this paper we examine the phonetic realization of voicing in these stops at word-initial and intervocalic position, as well as the effects of speech rate manipulation on VOT and closure voicing. The data came from 12 native speakers recorded in Khorramshahr, Iran. Our findings suggest an over-specified voicing system in this Arabic variety. We found that voiced /b d ɡ/ were produced with voicing lead in initial position and complete closure voicing word medially, voiceless /p t k/ had long lag VOT, while guttural /tˁ q/ had short lag VOT. Speech rate manipulation revealed that only duration of (pre)voicing and duration of aspiration increased in slower speech. Also, f0, F1, and F2 were measured at vowel onset to evaluate the glottal state in production of stops. The results support the predictions of LR that voiced stops are specified by [voice], voiceless stops are [sg], while gutturals lack underlying specification for voice.

Ultrasound and center of gravity frequency data for the sequences /ʃ#s/ and /s#ʃ/ produced by Central Catalan speakers reveal that the former sequence is implemented through continuous articulatory and spectral trajectories which, depending on speaker, may be: intermediate between /ʃ/ and /s/ all throughout, thus supporting a dynamic blending mechanism; /ʃ/-like at onset and intermediate between the two fricatives at offset, which is indicative of C1-to-C2 carryover coarticulation. The sequence /s#ʃ/, on the other hand, undergoes regressive assimilation into [ʃ(ʃ)] according to the acoustic signal but less clearly so in the light of the articulatory data. This discrepancy appears to be due to the fact that, while C1=/s/ assimilates indeed to C2=/ʃ/ at constriction location, coarticulation-induced changes in tongue body configuration behind the primary articulator may occur as long as they do not jeopardize the front-cavity dependent frequency characteristics of the [ʃ] frication noise. Differences in articulatory complexity between /ʃ#s/ and /s#ʃ/ appear to result from the production mechanisms involved, i.e., tongue dorsum raising behind the /s/ constriction for /s#ʃ/ and tongue body repositioning for /ʃ#s/. In agreement with this interpretation, /ʃ#s/ but not /s#ʃ/ turned out to be longer than /s#s/ and /ʃ#ʃ/.

The Rongjiang variety of Kam described in the present study is a southern Dong dialect (ISO 639-3: [kmc]), which belongs to the Tai-Kadai Languages (Edmondson & Luo 2008; Pittayaporn 2021).

This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in oral stop consonants in Blackfoot, an Algonquian language without contrastive voicing. We focus on VOT as one of the key temporal acoustic correlates of voicing and investigate VOT variation in relation to (i) place of articulation (labial vs. alveolar vs. velar); (ii) length (long vs. short), quality (/a/ vs. /o/), and accent pattern (accented vs. unaccented) of the following vowel; (iii) word position (initial vs. medial); (iv) gender; and (v) age. We analyzed 2096 stop consonant tokens produced by 13 participants, who completed two different tasks: an English-to-Blackfoot translation task and a picture naming task. The key findings are as follows: (i) Blackfoot stop consonants fall into the short-lag range that overlaps with the English voiced category, with mean VOT values ranging from 11.6–32.7 ms; (ii) VOT values become progressively longer as the place of articulation moves to more posterior positions; (iii) VOT values are longer before high vowels than before low vowels; (iv) VOT values are longer before long vowels than before short vowels; (v) no statistically significant effect was found for the linguistic factors word position and accent pattern; (vi) no statistically significant effect was found for the socio-indexical factors age and gender; and (vii) no statistically significant effect was found for the experimental factor task type. The implications of our findings for the Blackfoot writing system and ongoing work on language documentation and revitalization are briefly discussed.

I introduce a discussion about the importance of coining new words for endangered languages. Coining new words is one of the many tasks that must be done to revitalize endangered languages. I propose a method for automating the process of coining new words and evaluate the method in the Quechua language. The method starts by collecting a list of English words, then translating these words into several other languages, generating a list for each language, and performing IPA notation of all lists; finally, a rule-based algorithm identifies words that match the phonotactics of the target language. The method can propose thousands of words as neologisms in the target language.

This paper investigates the acoustic correlates of stress in European Portuguese. Using a nonce word experiment, this study controls the phonological environment of the stimuli so stressed and unstressed vowels with the same quality can be directly compared. Of the five acoustic measures examined, duration is the most robust correlate of stress, but the effect is limited to certain vowels and speakers. Care is taken to separate the effects of independent phonological processes on acoustic properties that are also influenced by stress.

Jarai is a Chamic language of Vietnam and Cambodia that is traditionally described as preserving the original Austronesian voicing contrast in onset obstruents. However, there is anecdotal evidence that it has developed a register contrast, i.e. a binary contrast based on a bundle of spectral properties like pitch, voice quality and vowel quality. We conducted production and perception experiments of the voicing/register contrast in two Jarai varieties spoken in Saom Kaning, Cambodia, and Ea Sup, Vietnam, to determine if they preserve voicing and/or have developed a register contrast. Results show that both dialects have a register contrast primarily based on vowel height modulations (F1) and that onset voicing has become at best an optional secondary property of register. F1 is also the primary cue used for register identification in both dialects. Implications for the diachronic development of the register contrast in Chamic languages and in Mainland Southeast Asia in general are discussed.

This exploratory study investigates sibilants in Mixean Low Navarrese, an endangered variety of Basque. This variety has been described with ten different contrastive sibilants: /s̻, s̺, ʃ, t͡s̻, t͡s̺, t͡ʃ, z̻, z̺, ʒ, d͡z̺/. The objective of the paper is to (a) provide a detailed description of the acoustics of Mixean sibilants, and (b) elucidate whether ten categories can be proposed based only on acoustical data, or whether fewer categories should be considered. The study is based on free-conversation data of ten subjects (three females, seven males) aged between 80 and 85 years. We analyze metrics reflecting the place of articulation (spectral moments, and especially the center of gravity (CoG)), including also the temporal dynamics of CoG (using the discrete cosine transform of CoG measurements of nine intervals of each phone). We also explore the acoustic correlates of the contrasts between (a) voiced and voiceless sounds and (b) fricative and affricate sounds. The results show that only seven categories can be proposed based on acoustic measurements. The lamino-alveolar series reliably contrasts with the rest, but the distinction does not hold between the apico-alveolar and the postalveolar series. We found minimal differences in the analysis of dynamic data, and none in the static analysis.

This research investigates the tone system of an understudied language, Du’an Zhuang and its interaction with duration. Cross-linguistically, tones tend to be less complex in shorter duration contexts. In Du’an Zhuang, syllable type provides these contexts: There are six contrastive tones among unchecked syllables with longer rhyme duration, but this is reduced to four tones in shorter duration checked syllables. Acoustic analyses of f0 and duration from six native speakers were performed to check whether tonal complexity is reduced in the shorter duration checked syllables. The results showed this was true with some exceptions. The two tones in CVVO syllables corresponded to the two least complex tones; however, one of the two CVO tones included a more complex rising tone. This rising tone exhibited a reduced f0 excursion though. Finally, there is a two-way phonological vowel length contrast in Du’an Zhuang, which necessarily interacts with syllable type via its effect on rhyme duration. However, based on our vowel duration measurements, this vowel length contrast only exists in unchecked syllables with sonorant codas, the only syllable type where rhyme duration and vowel duration could possibly differ. In this context, a sonorant coda contributes to the syllable’s rhyme duration, but not to vowel duration, allowing syllable type and vowel length to contrast independently, only in this phonological context.

Arabic has a vowel system with three long and three short monophthongs. One of the parameters that accounts for qualitative differences between long and short vowels across languages is tenseness/laxness of vowels located on the peripheral/non-peripheral tracks in the vowel space. The present study investigates acoustical cues (F1, F2, and duration) of vowels using the data obtained from 21 speakers of Qatari Arabic. The vowels were produced in four phonetic contexts: labial, alveolar, uvular, and pharyngeal. The results revealed considerable qualitative differences between long and short vowels. The long vowels were articulated at the periphery of vowel space; the short vowels occupied more centralized positions. The co-articulatory effect of the preceding consonant was more prominent in short vowels. Short high vowels /i u/ were lowered toward the mid position; short low /a/ was fronted; long low /aː/ was retracted and raised. The findings suggest that short vowels in Qatari Arabic are lax and non-peripheral.

This study investigates phonological and phonetic details of disjunctive declaratives (ddcls) and alternative questions (altqs) in Arabic. The aim of the phonological and phonetic analyses of these syntactically identical utterances is to find out the cues that are responsible for the disambiguation. Consequently, a production study eliciting ddcls and altqs was run with 20 participants producing 160 utterances (80 ddcls and 80 altqs). Findings reveal that ddcls and altqs are similar in having a global rise-fall contour, but differ in the phonetic implementation of the fall, since minimum F0 values are significantly higher in altqs than in ddcls, suggesting that there is a fall to mid in the former (proposing !H%) and a fall to low in the latter (L%). There are also significant phonological differences in the accentual features between both sentence types, i.e., the conjuncts are always accented in altqs, but they are deaccented in ddcls. The findings are a contribution to the prosody-meaning literature, showing the importance of prosody for syntactic disambiguation. The findings are used to propose a theory for the disambiguation of disjunctive sentences.

This paper reports on an acoustic study of the retroflex lateral /ɭ/ and non-retroflex lateral /l/, as well as on the schwas following the two laterals in the Zibo dialect. Analyses of formants measured at the temporal midpoint of the lateral and schwa segments show that the retroflex lateral /ɭ/ has a significantly lower F1 as well as a significantly larger C/V duration ratio than the non-retroflex lateral. No significant difference is found in F2 or F3 of the two laterals. Moreover, the schwa following /ɭ/ has a significantly lower F1 than that following /l/, which could play a robust role of cue enhancement in distinguishing the preceding laterals, resulting in an overall enhancement of an otherwise auditorily vulnerable contrast in the laterals. Some inter-speaker variation is observed in the realization of /ɭ/, especially in F3, which may be indicative of a change in progress. These results provide insights into the phonemic status of the retroflex lateral in the Zibo dialect, which are further discussed in light of phonetic and phonological explanations.

This study investigated Intrinsic Vowel Pitch (If0) in the Belgian Limburg dialect of Hamont. Its main aim was to investigate a potential correlation between If0 and f0, which has been attested in previous research, especially on contour tone languages. The Hamont dialect is particularly interesting because it has a pitch accent distinction, but also because the vowel system has a high and low vowel contrast in the front and the back dimension of the vowel space. The results of this study are generally compatible with If0 research on many languages but adds some new insights. Firstly, it was found that If0 in the Hamont dialect is comparatively large (1.97 semitones). Secondly, it was confirmed that the front–back distinction in vowel articulation has no significant effect on If0. Thirdly, when If0 is expressed on a semitone scale, no significant differences in If0 were found between male and female speakers of the dialect. The most important finding of the paper is the significant positive correlation between f0 and If0 in that If0 is smaller in the lower pitch range and bigger in the higher pitch range. This phenomenon in Hamont Dutch is much the same to what is observed in contour tone languages that have been examined for this. There are indications that a similar tendency exists in register tone languages and intonation languages. Although the cause of this progressive If0 reduction is not entirely clear, its wide distribution across prosodic systems seems to point towards a universal tendency.

This study looked at the realization of the high-level Tone 1 in Taiwan Mandarin to examine a public impression of the central dialect, which is said to have a tendency to end with a rise. Fifty-three Mandarin native speakers (27 northern and 26 central) were recruited. Half performed a reading task and half a word-guessing task on 24 disyllabic words with Tone 1 embedded. Results showed rising realizations were the most prominent for the tone, regardless of dialect, gender, genre, and syllable position, but were more prevalent among females than males, and more common and enlarged in the final than the non-final position. Dialectal differences were twofold and mainly lay in the acoustic realization. Central speakers showed both a lower pitch register and a steeper declination than their northern counterparts, and central females also demonstrated an upstep in the final position of the word-guessing task, which completely annihilated the effect of the downtrend. This implies the impressionistic tendency to end high indeed exists in the Tone 1 of the central variety, but its percept is not based on rising realizations alone. Instead, it stands out as a dialectal feature via an enlargement of the rise in the foreground against a disruption of the downward trend in the background. The female lead in the realization suggests the rising Tone 1 does not come with a negative connotation. Perceptual tolerance for the variant likely stemmed from a long-standing free variation between high-level and high-rise for the tone.

Cross-linguistically, vowel lowering/retraction are common strategies for resolving articulatory conflicts between high vowels and back consonants. Allophonic lowering of vowels /i/ and /u/ adjacent to uvulars has also been documented for several Southern Quechua dialects. For the Chanka dialect (Andahuaylas, Peru), traditional descriptions note similar allophony, but no studies have confirmed it. Unlike other Southern Quechua dialects, Chanka has only two dorsals, which contrast for both manner and place. Thus, Chanka may apply resolution processes differently, for reasons of production and/or perception.

The current investigation considers to what extent articulatory conflict resolution between high vowels and the uvular consonant occurs in Chanka. Acoustic data from a controlled experiment include 3,827 Chanka vowels from 22 speakers, balanced for sex and location of residence. Despite an overall uvular effect found, intra- and interspeaker variation shows three different allophony patterns: categorical, null, and variable. A sex-based difference in patterns is also found for rural speakers, which hints at influence from Spanish on this process in Quechua given differing Spanish proficiencies. Results seem to indicate that consonant place adaptation may exist as an additional, innovative Chanka strategy, also with three variable patterns: stable uvular, stable velar, and homorganic with vowel. This flexibility in vowel and consonant place may partially relate to Chanka’s small phoneme inventory, which allows for a broader range of realizations without creating mergers. Speakers thus alternate between vowel lowering and consonant movement as solutions: sometimes the vowel place accommodates to the fricative like in many languages, and at other times the fricative follows the vowel.

This study examines articulation rate in three varieties of Canadian French and includes consideration of speaking style (reading vs. spontaneous), speaker’s age and gender, and length of inter-pause intervals. The varieties are spoken in different geographic areas of Canada – Quebec City (Quebec), Tracadie (New Brunswick), and Windsor (Ontario) – where there are different degrees of French–English contact. The main research question asks how these different contact situations are related to variation in articulation rate. Results show that in both reading and spontaneous speech articulation rates were faster among Quebec City speakers, where French is in a low-contact setting, and slower among speakers from Tracadie and Windsor, where there are greater degrees of contact. The effects of other factors are the same across the three regions: AR was faster in spontaneous productions than in reading; AR decreased with age in the reading task; AR was faster as the length of the inter-pausal intervals increased. The discussion points to similarities and differences with varieties of French spoken in Europe and underscores the importance of language contact in accounting for variation in articulation rate.

This study investigates the conditioning effects of neighbouring consonants on the realisation of the phonemes /k/ and /dʒ/ in Emirati Arabic (EA), which are optionally realised as [tʃ] and [j], respectively. Based on previous accounts of EA and other Gulf Arabic (GA) dialects, we set out to test the prediction that proximity of other, phonetically similar coronal (COR) obstruents [COR, −son, −cont] and coronal postalveolar fricatives [COR, −ant] inhibit the surface realisation of the affricate variants of these phonemes. We examine elicitation data from twenty young female native speakers of EA, using stimuli with the target segment in the presence of a similar neighbour, as compared to words with the neighbour at a longer distance or with another coronal consonant. The results point to an asymmetry in the behaviour of the voiced and voiceless targets, such that the predicted inhibitory effect is confirmed for the voiced, but not the voiceless target. We argue that this finding, coupled with a consideration of the intra-participant and lexical trends in the data, is compatible with an approach that treats the two processes as being at different stages of development, where the [k∼tʃ] alternation is a completed phonemic change, while the [dʒ∼j] alternation is a synchronic phonological process.

This study investigates the voice onset time (VOT) of stops in Bahdini Kurdish, which are characterized by a three-way laryngeal contrast of voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated and voiced stops. Thirty native speakers read a forty-word list three times, which included three examples of each stop in pre-vocalic onset position. Words were chosen based on specific contextual factors to account for place of articulation, laryngeal state, following vowel height, and length contrasts. The findings show that VOT distinguishes stop categories in Kurdish, with voicing lead indicating voiced stops, short lag for voiceless unaspirated stops and long lag for voiceless aspirated stops. Results of the linear mixed-effects model show that laryngeal state, place of articulation, following vowel height and length had significant effects on VOT. The gender of the participants, however, showed no significant effect on VOT. In line with most research on the effect of place of articulation on VOT, in voiceless aspirated stop categories, bilabials had the shortest VOT, followed by dentals and velars. Voiceless unaspirated bilabials had the shortest VOT values, followed by dentals, uvulars and then velars. Voiced stops do not show such a pattern. These results are compatible with other research on Indo-Iranian languages with three-way laryngeal categories.