The articulation of /ɹ/ in New Zealand English

Abstract

A large number of studies have investigated the articulation of approximant /ɹ/ in American English (AE) (e.g., Delattre & Freeman, 1968). This research has found that a low third formant (F3), the main acoustic cue signaling rhoticity, can be achieved using many different tongue configurations; the two main tongue shapes used for /ɹ/ are “tip-down” (“bunched”) and “tip-up” (“retroflex”) (cf. Hagiwara, 1994). While speakers likely employ various “trading relationships” to maintain a constantly low F3 across production strategies (Guenther et al., 1999), they have access to a pool of variation, which some use to form complex and idiosyncratic patterns of allophony (Mielke et al., 2016). Such patterns may arise during speech acquisition (Magloughlin, 2016). This study focuses on a non-rhotic dialect, New Zealand English (NZE), to test whether dialect rhoticity constrains idiosyncratic allophony. Ultrasound video was collected for 63 speakers articulating 13 words containing tokens of /ɹ/ in different phonetic environments. Analysis aims to determine whether NZE speakers utilize the same tongue gestures as seen in AE, and whether they display similar patterns of allophonic variation. The data include productions from 12 children (under 10) and 13 youth (11-18), allowing examination of /ɹ/ during childhood development.