Investigating phonetic bases of sound patterns in Mangetti Dune !Xung: Contributions of high frame rate ultrasound to the description of endangered languages

Abstract

High frame rate lingual ultrasound methods (Miller and Finch 2011) allow investigations of consonant and vowel kinematics outside of the laboratory. I summarize the results of a number of studies that investigate place and manner of articulation in consonants produced with the pulmonic and lingual airstream mechanisms in the endangered Namibian language Mangetti Dune !Xung. Results show that clicks, like dorsal stops, exhibit different postures of the posterior part of the tongue when they precede [i] and [ɑ]. The tongue dorsum and root are retracted in the production of all four coronal clicks when they precede [ɑ], but differ in their postures when they precede [i]. Further, tongue dorsum and root postures are less variable within click types before [ɑ], than they are preceding [i]. Clicks also differ in the timing of the anterior and posterior releases, resulting in different constrictions being adjacent to following vowels, thus leading to different co-articulation patterns. Timing patterns of the two...