Consonant Types Research Articles

On nasal onset time (NOT) duration of French nasal vowels in function of the preceding consonant types

Aerodynamic requirement, a high intra‐oral air pressure (Pio), for the production of stop and fricative consonants delays the nasalization (velum opening) of the subsequent nasal vowel. We call this time delay between the onset of the nasal vowel and that of its nasalization as nasal onset time (NOT). The NOT was expected to be longer after voiceless consonants (higher Pio) than after voiced counterparts. The measurement of NOT on simultaneous recordings of speech and nasal signals for 24 Parisian speakers have unexpectedly shown that a greater NOT after voiced stops (38 ms in average corresponding to 17% of total nasal vowel duration) and voiced fricatives (7%) than after voiceless ones, respectively, 14.5% for stops and 4.1% for fricatives. This order is observed regardless of changes in speech rate: NOT is 11.1% with the voiced and 9.3% with the voiceless stops in slow, 17% and 14.5% in normal, and 22.4% and 18.6% in rapid rate. These results suggest that not only the Pio, but also some other factors are involved in the determination of NOT. We shall discuss possible such factors in perception and in production.

The aerodynamics of nasalization in French

Nasalization in French involves a complex interplay between several phonetic and phonological factors that have been, for the most part, investigated separately over the last 40 years. The present study provides a detailed account of the aerodynamics of French nasalization from eight Belgian French speakers reading word lists. Patterns of tautosyllabic nasal coarticulation are investigated in CV˜, NV˜, CV˜C, CV˜.CV, CV, NV, (C)VN, and NVN items, comparing different vowel and consonant types. Dependent variables involve temporal measures of both the extent of nasalization and its starting point relative to the oral–nasal boundary, and average flow rates across the acoustically defined segments. Results confirm previous findings that carryover nasalization is more extensive than anticipatory nasalization in French for both vowels and consonants. We further show that the temporal extent of intra-syllabic nasal coarticulatory airflow varies across vowel height and consonant manner of articulation and voicing. Various factors are considered in accounting for this variation.

Phonetic structures of Montana Salish

Montana Salish is an Interior Salishan language spoken on the Flathead Reservation in Northwest Montana by an estimated population of about 40 speakers. This paper describes the basic phonetic characteristics of the language based on data from five speakers. Montana Salish contains a number of typologically unusual consonant types. Including glottalized sonorants, pre-stopped laterals, and a series of pharyngeals distinguished by secondary articulations of glottalization and/or labialization. The language also allows long sequences of obstruent consonants. These and more familiar phonetic characteristics are described through analysis of acoustic, electroglottographic, and aerodynamic data, and compared with related characteristics in other languages of the world.

Issues in African Language Phonology

UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2008) Issues in African language phonology Larry M. Hyman University of California, Berkeley [The following is my section of a joint chapter “Theoretical/descriptive and typological issues“ with Denis Creissels and Jeff Good to appear in the Africa volume (Tom Gueldemann, ed.) in the “Fields of Linguistics” Series (Hans Hock, ed.; Mouton de Gruyter)]. Introduction In this section I discuss some of the major phonological properties of African languages that are of particular significance for general linguistics. The historical relation between African and general phonology has been a mutually beneficial one: the languages of the African continent provide some of the most interesting and, at times, unusual phonological phenomena, which have contributed to the development of phonology in quite central ways. This has been made possible by the careful descriptive work that has been done on African languages, by linguists and non-linguistics, and by Africanists and non-Africans who have peeked in from time to time. Except for the click consonants of the Khoisan languages (which spill over into some neighboring Bantu languages that have “borrowed” them), the phonological phenomena found in African languages are usually duplicated elsewhere on the globe, though not always in as concentrated a fashion. The vast majority of African languages are tonal, and many also have vowel harmony (especially the types known as ATR- and vowel-height harmony). Not surprisingly, then, African languages have figured disproportionately in theoretical treatments of these two phenomena. On the other hand, if there is a phonological property where African languages are underrepresented, it would have to be stress systems—which rarely, if ever, achieve the complexity found in other (mostly non-tonal) languages. However, it should be noted that African languages have contributed significantly to virtually every other aspect of general phonology. Given the considerable diversity of the properties found in different parts of the continent, as well as in different genetic groups or areas, it will not be possible to provide a comprehensive account of the phonological phenomena found in African languages, overviews of which are available in such works as Creissels (1994) and Clements (2000). Most recently, Clements & Rialland (2008) treat African phonology from an areal perspective. Drawing from a database of 150 African languages, they address a range of phonological properties which have significant African distributions as compared with a non-African database of 345 languages. They begin with three consonant types which are characteristic of languages within their “Sudanic belt”, a vast area which stretches from Senegal in the West, “bounded roughly by the Sahel to the north and the equatorial rain forest to the south” (p.38): (i) Labial flaps are found “in at least seventy African languages, heavily concentrated in the center of the Sudanic belt in an area encompassing northern Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), and adjoining parts of Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)” (p.41). (ii) The labiovelar stops /kp/ and /gb/ which have 54 attestations each, followed by /Ngb/ (13) and /Nm/ (7).

A Longitudinal Study of Speech Production in Swedish Children with Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate and Two-stage Palatal Repair

To describe speech production longitudinally in a group of children with unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP). Twenty consecutive children with UCLP and nine age-matched children without clefts in a comparison group. A two-stage palatal repair procedure with soft palate closure at 6 months and hard palate repair at 3 to 4 years. Percent correct consonants (PCC), percent correct places (PCP), and percent correct manners (PCM) at 3, 5, and 7 years of age. Cleft speech errors at the same ages. Previously collected data on number of consonant tokens, consonant types, frequency of occurrence of places and manners of articulation at 18 months. PCC and PCP were significantly lower in the UCLP group than in the comparison group at all ages. Number of consonant types and frequency of occurrence of dental plosives at 18 months correlated significantly with PCC at age 3. A high frequency of velar plosives at 18 months correlated significantly with a high prevalence of retracted oral articulation (dental/alveolar to palatal or velar) at both 3 and 5 years of age. The UCLP group performed worse than the comparison group at all ages. A high occurrence of dental plosives as well as a high number of consonant types in babbling and first words seem to be good indicators for better consonant production in later speech. The same prevalence of retracted oral articulation as in previous studies is attributed to the surgical technique.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Levator Veli Palatini Muscle in Speakers with Repaired Cleft Palate

To obtain detailed anatomic and physiologic information on the levator veli palatini muscle from MRI in individuals with repaired cleft palate and to compare the results with those from normal subjects reported by Ettema et al. (2002). Prospective study. University-based hospital. Four men (ages 22 to 43 years) with repaired cleft lip and palate. Four quantitative measurements of the levator veli palatini muscle from rest position and dynamic speech magnetic resonance images were obtained: the distance between the origins of the muscle, angle of origin of the muscle, muscle length, and muscle thickness. The length and thickness of the levator veli palatini muscle varied among the subjects and were different from measurements obtained from normal subjects in a previous study. The distance between origin points, length, and thickness of the levator veli palatini muscle were smaller than those of the normal subjects. There were systematic changes of the levator veli palatini muscle, depending upon vowel and consonant types. Levator veli palatini muscle angle of origin and length became progressively smaller from rest, nasal consonants, low vowels, high vowels, and fricative consonants. These changes are consistent with those of the normal subjects. This study contributes to a better understanding of cleft palate anatomy in comparison with normal anatomy of the levator veli palatini muscle. The use of MRI shows promise as an important tool in the diagnosis and eventual aid to treatment decisions for individuals born with cleft palate.

Exploring Learners' Pronunciation Practice Using a Character Agent: Chiefly on Consonant Clusters

The purpose of this study is to review the Adaptive MS-Agent in the structure of the CAL (character agent for learning) system, and to exemplify the method of practicing consonants and consonant clusters using a character agent. To achieve this purpose, the Basic Vocabulary List of the National Curriculum is analysed in terms of the types of consonants and consonant clusters, the agent functioning as a helper for e-learning and giving learners an adaptive coaching in the process of e-learning is reviewed in the structure of the CAL, and the types of English consonant clusters (initial consonant clusters, medial consonant clusters, and final consonant clusters) and consonants are reviewed. Learners of English commit errors such as nasalization, lateralization, palatalization, and glottalization in pronouncing consonant clusters due to the difference of syllable structure between Korean and English. These errors could be caused by the misapplication of typical phonological rules of Korean to English. The errors of consonant clusters considered in this study are ‘vowel insertion’ and ‘assimilation’. In this study, it is shown that such errors on consonant clusters can be corrected through the formal pronunciation practice using a character agent employed to play key roles in virtual environments.

Gemination in Tashlhiyt Berber: an acoustic and articulatory study

Tashlhiyt Berber contrasts singletons and geminates in intervocalic as well as in initial and final positions. This study presents results of an investigation of the phonetic correlates that distinguish these types of segments in these three positions. A claim has been made that Tashlhiyt Berber geminates are simple segments that are distinguished from their singleton counterparts primarily by tenseness. This proposal is not supported by our data. The examination of ten temporal and non-temporal parameters shows that consonant duration is the most systematic correlate across all types of consonants and positions, even for voiceless stops after pause. Preceding vowel duration and, to a lesser degree, amplitude of the release were also found to be significantly affected by gemination. These additional characteristics, interpreted as enhancing correlates, may be present in order to increase the perceptual distance between the two phonemic categories.

The phonetic profile of Swedish

This chapter is “typological” in two senses: Whereas the first section considers some of the sounds and sound patterns of Swedish from a universal-typological point of view, the second section discusses the considerable phonetic variability observed across the various dialects of the language. It is argued that, with some exceptions, Swedish is typologically fairly mainstream. Exceptions concern particularly the inventory of non-back rounded vowels, voiceless fricatives and partly prosody. The Swedish dialects are found to contain several distinct consonant and vowel types that are not encountered in Standard varieties. It is also found that the intonational structure of the Swedish dialects is fairly complex and diversified. The third section concludes the chapter with some informal observations of possible sound changes in progress. (Less)

Palato-lingual contact patterns during Korean obstruent production; lax, aspirated and forced

In Korean obstruents, there is a three-way distinction in manner of articulation; lax, aspirated and forced. The present study is to investigate the temporal and spatial details of tongue contacts with the hard palate during these three types of consonant production. The subject, a 30-year-old female of the Seoul dialect was instructed to read a set of various words beginning with these consonants, embedded in a frame sentence i-geo-/Cal/-ita (C=consonant). The palato-lingual contact patterns were recorded using dynamic electro-palatography. The results show that the area and duration of the palato-lingual contact are clearly different among these three types of consonants. As for stops, the palato-lingual contact is wider and longer in the forced stop production. In the affricate production, the patterns of the maximum contact area and the duration are as follows: wide and long in the forced type, middle in the aspirated, and narrow and short in the lax. These data strongly suggest that the temporal and spatial details of the palato-longual contact may play an important role in manifesting the Korean three-way distinction, together with other articulatory adjustments, such as laryngeal and respiratory controls.

Harmony in Gitksan

What types of consonants are transparent in vowel harmony in Gitksan has been little understood. Previous studies suggest that it is translaryngeal harmony, where the qualities of unstressed suffixal vowels are harmonized with the ones of last stem vowels, apparently skipping the stem-final laryngeal stop and laryngeal fricative [Rigsby, unpublished manuscript, University of Queensland, Australia, 1986; Rigsby and Ingram, International Journal of American Linguistics 56, 251–263 (1990)]. However, our original data show that harmony takes place when the stem-final consonant is uvular as well. It suggests that it cannot simply be analyzed as laryngeal transparency, but it could be reanalyzed as [+low] transparency. The present study examines cross-consonantal vowel harmony through acoustic experiment. It is predicted that there is a significant difference in formant values between the vowels across uvular or laryngeal consonants versus the ones across the other consonants. New data from an Eastern Gitksan speaker (female, 72) and its analysis will be presented. Implications for locality of vowel harmony as well as for the phonological treatment of consonantal transparency will be discussed. [Work supported by SSHRC.]

The effects of implosives and prenasalized stops on pitch in Shona

It is well known that F0 at vowel onset can be influenced by a preceding consonant. That influence varies significantly across languages and consonant types, and may function as a perceptual signal to consonant manner. It has further been suggested that tone languages may behave differently from non-tone languages in this respect, with a shorter duration of consonantal perturbation [Hombert, Studies in African Linguistics, 1977]. Previous studies include a limited range of consonant types, and too few tone languages to test Hombert’s proposal. This study presents the results of an acoustical investigation of the effects of implosives and prenasalized stops on the F0 of a following vowel in Shona, a tone language. It is found that implosives have a similar raising effect on F0 at vowel onset than that of voiceless (aspirated) stops, contrary to expectations based on previous studies [Wright and Shryock, Journal of the Phonetic Association, 1993]. It is also found that prenasalized consonants behave as nasals, having no effect on the F0 of the following vowel, again contrary to expectation [cf. Trithart, Studies in Bantu Tonology, 1976; and Hombert, Studies in Bantu Tonology, 1976]. Finally, duration results do not support Hombert’s position regarding tone languages.

The Phonetic Structures of Oaxaca Chontal

The first description in any detail of aspects of the phonetic structures of the highly endangered Lowland variety of Oaxaca Chontal is presented. The paper includes measurements of the characteristics of the vowels, and a survey of the principal features of the consonant system. Particular attention is paid to the series of glottalized obstruents and sonorants, which vary a great deal in their manner of articulation and the nature and timing of the accompanying glottalization. The relative frequency of different realizations of the glottalized obstruents mirrors the crosslanguage frequency of glottalized consonant types. Glottalized sonorant realizations cannot be predicted from their position in the syllable. Individual speakers frequently vary when producing consecutive repetitions of the same word. Such a large range of variation may be partly due to an ongoing process of language attrition.

The impact of early infant jaw‐orthopaedics on early speech production in toddlers with unilateral cleft lip and palate

The purpose of study was to investigate the impact of pre‐surgical Infant Orthopaedics (IO) on consonant production at 18 months of age in children with Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate (UCLP) and to compare the consonant production to that of age‐matched children without clefts. The first ten children in a consecutive series of 20 with UCLP received IO and the following ten did not. Both groups had soft palate repair at 6.3 months of age. The cleft in the hard palate was unrepaired. Ten normally developing children without clefts served as controls. Nine children in each group accomplished the study. Phonetic transcriptions of consonants were made from audiotape recordings obtained during a 45–60 minute interactive session. No significant differences in the number of consonant tokens or of consonant types were found between the UCLP children with and without IO but both groups had significantly lower numbers than the control group. There was no significant difference in frequency of different manners or places of articulation of plosives between the UCLP groups. The frequency of occurrence of bilabial and dental consonant placements of plosives were significantly higher in the control group than in both UCLP groups.

Aerodynamic characteristics of French consonants

This paper reports some aerodynamic measurements made on French consonants with a group of ten speakers. Speakers were recorded while saying nonsense words in phrases such as papa, dis papa encore. The nonsense words in the study combined each of the French consonants with three vowels /i, a, u/ to from two syllables words with the first syllable being the same as the second. In addition to the audio signal, recordings were made of the oral airflow, the pressure of the air in the pharynx above the vocal folds and the pressure of the air in the trachea just below the vocal folds. The pharyngeal pressure was recorded via a catheter (i.d. 5 mm) passed through the nose so that its open end could be seen in the pharynx below the uvula. The subglottal pressure was recorded via a tracheal puncture between the first and the second rings of the trachea or between the cricoid cartilage and the first tracheal ring. Results compare subglottal presssure, pharyngeal pressure, and airflow values. Comparisons are made between values obtained with male and female subjects and various types of consonants (voiced versus voiceless at the same place of articulation, stops, fricatives, and nasals).

Nasalance scores for normal-speaking Irish children.

To obtain normal nasalance values during the production of a standardized speech sample for Irish children and determine whether significantly different scores exist for different speech stimuli for female and male speakers. Mean nasalance scores were obtained for normal-speaking children during the repetition of 16 test sentences that were categorized according to consonant type within the sentences (high-pressure consonants, low-pressure consonants, nasal consonants). Seventy children (36 girls and 34 boys, aged 4 years 11 months to 13 years) with normal articulation, resonance, and voice were included. Children repeated each of the 16 test sentences individually. The sentences were presented in groups according to consonant type, referred to as sentence categories. Data were collected and analyzed using the Kay nasometer (model 6200.3). Nasalance scores were obtained for the total speech sample and each sentence category. Data were statistically analyzed to investigate the effects of gender, sentence category, and gender by sentence category. Normative nasalance scores were obtained for the total speech sample (26%), high-pressure consonant sentences (14%), low-pressure consonant sentences (16%), and a nasal consonant sentence (51%). There was no significant difference in nasalance scores between male and female speakers. Significant differences were found between each sentence category (p </=.001), except between the high-pressure and low-pressure consonant sentence categories (p =.09). The present study provides normative nasalance data for English-speaking Irish children. There was a significant difference between nasalance scores for different speech stimuli.

Serbian-Albanian language contacts and two types of phonological systems in the Balkan languages

Phonological systems of the Balkan languages do not correspond to the Balkan language union borders, which can be explained by the difference between "intensive" (morphosyntactic) and "extensive" (phonological) language unions. In this case, we are dealing with the entrance of the Balkan languages into a wide transitional zone, stretching along the borders of East and Central Europe, and with the coinciding of their phonological systems with the system of Slavic languages known as vowel and consonant types. The same classification into two phonological systems exists in the Balkans too, and between them there are also two transitional borderlines. As known, the mediopalatal order of the "Macedonian" type [k', g', n', ľ] (q, gj, nj, l) has been generalized in both the standard Albanian language and most of the Albanian dialects. Albanian [k', g', n', ľ] are, just like their Macedonian counterparts, semi-emancipated palatal correlates of basic [k, g, n, l], as proved by examples of their positional dephonologization and dialectal hardening /n'/ > /n/ [n%], when followed by front vowels. Both semi-soft [n%] and typically Albanian lateral opposition [ł-ŀ] confirm a palatal correlation of these phonemes existing also in the neighboring Serbian dialects. Albanian has undoubtedly affected the rise of these features, be it through an unilateral influence or merely through supporting different phonological development in these old-shtokavian dialects. On the other hand, the same could be said for the affrication of palatovelars [k', g'] > [č, ʒ(], which except in south-west region between Ishmi and Shkumbin, Elbasan and Tirana is present in all other branches of the Ghegian dialect. Wide distribution of this phenomenon excludes the possibility of one-sided Serbian influence while its character – reduction of palatovelars [k', g'] (q, gj) and affricates [č, ʒ(] (ç, xh) to one semi-soft affricate pair – has a typological and structural parallel in the Timok region [č, ʒ(] (ч-џ) and reveals a transitional character of this phenomenon, which is undoubtedly related to the phonological system governing the Serbian language. It is well known that, the simplification of palatal pairs was a reciprocal process and it spread to the neighboring Serbian dialects. This simplification is a strong indicator of transitional character of this zone which stretches between semi-emancipated palatal order [k', g'], governing the greater part of the Albanian language territory, and the emancipated palatal order [ć, ʒ(] (ћ, ђ), characterizing the Serbian phonological system.

Syllabification of intervocalic consonants by English and Japanese speakers.

This study investigated how English and Japanese speakers syllabify two-syllable English words and nonwords with single intervocalic consonants. In oral tasks, participants inserted a pause between two parts of English words and nonwords. In written tasks, they selected their preferred syllabification of English words between two alternatives. In Experiment 1 both English and Japanese speakers generally tended to place intervocalic consonants in the second syllables, following the maximum onset principle. Japanese speakers showed a stronger preference for this type of segmentation than English speakers. Responses by speakers of both languages were affected by the position of stress, the length of the stressed vowel, and the sonority of the consonant, reflecting the universal effects of these factors on syllabification. Japanese speakers produced a relatively large number of CVCV/C (C = consonant, V = vowel) responses (e.g.. sala/d) which were also influenced by vowel length and consonant type. Experiment 2 tested the Japanese speakers who had been trained to recognize English syllables. They showed more ambisyllabic responses and fewer CVCV/C responses than the untrained participants, suggesting their tendency toward syllabic segmentation, rather than moraic segmentation. The results are discussed in light of linguistic and psycholinguistic theories of syllabification.

Relations between segmental and prosodic structure in first language acquisition

In this paper, I discuss a number of relations that take place between melodic content and higher prosodic structure in first language phonological development. I explore acquisition patterns found in data on the acquisition of Québec French. Starting with the observation that prosodic structure and, more specifically, stressed syllables, play a central role in phonological acquisition, I hypothesize that the inter-relations between prosodic and segmental structure posited by formal models of phonological organisation should be witnessed within and across developmental stages. I support this hypothesis through two findings from the French data. First, complex onsets emerge in stressed syllables before unstressed ones. Second, different types of consonants (placeless versus place-specified) emerge in word-final position at different stages. From these observations, I argue that the phenomena observed in these data are best captured in an analysis based on constituent structure and relationships between feature specification and prosodic constituency, which are governed by universal markedness.

Segmental and coarticulatory timing in Ikalanga prenasalized stops

The temporal characteristics of prenasalized stops in Ikalanga, a Bantu language of Botswana, are investigated. Eight speakers were recorded producing Ikalanga words with VNCV (NC=/mb nd ŋg), VNV (N=/mnŋ), and VCV (C=/b d g/) sequences. Acoustic measures of 3 speakers’ productions showed that oral closure durations (from vowel offset to closure release) were only slightly longer for NC than for N or C (94, 83, and 83 ms, respectively). When analyzed separately, the N and C portions of VNCV were somewhat shorter than their counterparts in VNV and VCV, but nearly all of the shortening occurred in the C portion (in VNCV, N=78 ms and C closure=16 ms). The durations of vowels preceding the medial consonants did not differ across the three consonant types. Thus, for segmental durations, the main difference between Ikalanga VNCV and VNV was the presence of a brief oral occlusion in the former. However, measures of coarticulatory nasalization point to another systematic difference: while both sequences exhibited comparable anticipatory vowel nasalization, VNV (but not VNCV) sequences showed carryover nasalization extending through more than 70% of the post-nasal vowel. Findings will be compared with previous work on Bantu prenasalized stops. [Work supported by NSF.]