Consonant System Research Articles

Some Problems in the Reconstruction of Old Korean

This article examines the sound qualities and lexical meanings of some representative Chinese characters that were used by Koreans during the Three Kingdoms period to transcribe personal and place names. The author concludes that the consonant and vowel systems of ancient Chinese were more complex than those of Korean. Consequently two or more related consonants that had been distinguished in Chinese were used in Korea to indicate the same consonant, and many Chinese diphthongs and triphthongs were used in Korea to indicate monophthongs. In addition, the final consonant of many Chinese characters frequently was either ignored in Korea, or simple Chinese syllables were made disyllabic for purposes of transcription. In determining the lexical meanings of the personal and place names of the Three Kingdoms period, the author exploits comparisons with surviving words from neighboring languages like Mongolian and Manchu.

Glottal consonants … another view

I am in favor of letting [h] and [ɦ] stay where they are as glottal fricatives—honorary glottal fricatives, if you like! What the preceding paper says about them is true—there tends to be noticeable glottal turbulence with [h] only occasionally, particularly before open [a]-type vowels (or after them, in languages with final [h]'s). The voiced counterpart is perhaps more likely to have some turbulent glottal flow, being, in fact breathy or whispery voice. My reason for wanting to keep [h] and [ɦ] in the chart is perhaps more phonological and practical than strictly phonetic. There are so many languages in which one or both of these sounds functions as a syllabic margin—as a term in a series of consonants—that one often wants to put them in a chart of consonants. In Caucasian languages [h] often coexists in the consonant system alongside [ʔ], and (e.g. in dialects of Agul) alongside [ʔ], [ʡ], [ħ], [ʕ], [H] and [ʢ].

Abnormal vowel patterns in phonological disorder: Some data and a hypothesis

This article examines the vowel systems of a group of phonologically disordered children who show abnormalities in their vowel patterns. The conclusions emerging from the analysis of disordered speech are presented, along with examples from the data. It is argued that there are relatively common context-free processes of simplification of the vowel system in the data, and that these represent natural changes that may occur in normal development. Other less common processes may be idiosyncratic, and indicate some measure of disordered development. Some difficulties with vowels may relate to difficulties in the consonant system, or to difficulties with prosodic or paralinguistic features. Variability is an important part of the data, relevant to understanding the disorder and the process of development. It is hypothesised that the proposed framework will be relevant to clinical decision-making.

Consonant gemination in Buginese

The articulation of consonant gemination in Buginese is to some extent different in continuants and in stops. Since the continuants s, r, /, ra, , and ng are produced with only partial or incomplete stricture of the articulatory cavities, their articulation, including the production of sound, can be continued for some time, and in gemination is continued for approximately twice as long as in non-geminated pronunciation. The articulation of stops involves a complete stricture of the oral and nasal cavities, which is released almost immediately after its onset in non geminated pronunciation, but is held approximately twice as long in gemination of the voiceless stops p, t, c, and k. In this case no sound is produced during the continuation of the stricture. A similar articulation would be expected for gemination of the voiced stops b, d, j, and g; but this is not normally the case in Buginese. Only sporadically is a pronunciation heard in which the stricture is briefly held before its release and at the same time the voicing is briefly continued. In normal practice, however, a glottal stop is added before the voiced stop instead, as was discovered by A.A.Cense and his Buginese assistants in the thirties. In accordance with these phonetic, articulatory facts, it has become accepted usage to indicate gemination of continuants and voiceless stops in romanized transcription with duplication of the single graphemes, and to provide voiced stops with a preceding glottal stop (indicated by an apostrophe here). In the case of the continuants and the voiceless stops, however, gemi nation is only one way of describing the facts. Some authors have argued that consonants which here are called 'geminated' consonants or 'gemi nates' in fact are prolonged or long consonants, and have either written them with a prolongation mark (n:, /?:, t:, etc.), or have treated them as a separate category of consonants, to be distinguished from the short ones, and accordingly have reproduced them with special graphemes ( , , T, etc.). From a strictly phonetic point of view there is no objection to such a procedure, because the phenomenon of continuation for twice the time of pronunciation of the single phoneme can in fact be described both as gemination (twice the same) and as lengthening. A practical objection is, however, that this way the consonant system is burdened with ten more consonant phonemes, or at the least with a special mark of prolongation. It is preferable, therefore, to consider these consonants not as long ones but as geminates, and to represent them in writing with double consonant characters. In a similar way, gemination of continuants and voiceless stops on the one hand, and preglottalization of voiced stops on the other, are two

Vowel and consonant judgments are not independent when cued by the same information

Vowels with ambiguous formant patterns can be perceived as changing from [ae] to [e] as duration decreases. Similarly, ambiguous final consonants can be perceived as [d] when the preceding vowel is long and [t] when it is short. Mermelstein [Percept. Psychophys. 23, 331–336 (1978)] had subjects identify four syllables (“bad,” “bat,” “bed,” and “bet”) that were synthesized by varying only vowel duration. He claimed the consonant and vowel judgments were independent, implying distinct vowel and consonant systems. The present replication indicates that Mermelstein's analysis lacked power and that, in fact, the judgments are dependent on each other: Subjects were more likely to report hearing [ae] and [t] together, since more of the vocalic segment duration is attributed to the vowel and/or less is attributed to the consonant. Similarly, subjects are more likely to report hearing [e] and [d] together, since there is less duration attributed to the vowel and/or more attributed to the consonant. This indicates that listeners hear a coherent syllable, in which two distinctions that depend on the same information must compete for that information. [Research supported by NIH Grant HD‐01994.]

Assessment of speech intelligibility in five South-Eastern Bantu languages: Critical considerations

This paper examines criteria underlying the development of tasks and materials for the measurements of speech intelligibility in five South-Eastern Bantu languages. The chief considerations include utterance length, word familiarity and structure, and phonetic balance. It is established that the foundation research necessary for devising materials in South-Eastern Bantu languages on the same basis as those of English has not yet been conducted. Salient properties of the relevant African languages include multilingualism, dialectal variation, vocabulary differences between rural and urban speakers of the same language, borrowed words, the simple vowel systems, the fairly elaborate consonant systems, prosodic features, certail syllable structure characteristics, and noun morphology. A rationale for the use of two measures of intelligibility is presented, while the need to adapt many criteria characterising English materials is demonstrated.

The pedagogical importance of consonantal features of the English of Malaysia and Singapore

The consonantal system typical of mesolectal speech of English in Malaysia and Singapore (EMS) is described, and the differences noted between this and the general English consonant system. Four categories of difference may be found (systemic, realisational, struc tural and selectional), of which the most serious consequences is loss of intelligibility. The importance of these differences is assessed by reference to various criteria, including the occurrence and prestige/ stigmatisation of EMS features in other accents, the maintenance of perceptual distance between realisations, and the frequency of occur rence of features in connected speech. On the basis of these criteria, priorities are established for EMS language teachers.

The languages of Britain By Glanville Price (review)

210 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 62, NUMBER 1 (1986) The languages of Britain. By Glanville Price. London & Baltimore: Arnold, 1984. Pp. 245. P is concerned with the social history of 'the languages that have been spoken for some considerable length oftime, or were spoken at some time in the past, in those parts ofthe British Isles that are subject to the British Crown, i.e. the United Kingdom, the Isle ofMan, and the Channel Islands' (9). Over half is taken up with the Celtic languages: British (used to mean the language of the preUterary period), Irish and Scots GaeUc, Manx, Welsh GaeUc, Cornish, Cumbric, and Celtic Pictish (that form ofp-Celtic beheved to have been spoken in Pictland). Shorter sections are devoted to Latin; to the Germanic languages —with a chapter each on English, Scots (though P is noncommittal as to its status as a separate language), and Norse; to French (ofthe Channel Islands, as weU as Anglo-Normand); and to Romani. This last may seem a surprising choice until one realizes that Romani was first attested in the British Isles in 1547, and today has 50,000 speakers. Irish GaeUc as spoken in the RepubUc of Ireland is omitted, since that country Ues outside the political boundaries of the British Isles; thus no comparison is made with the situation in Northern Ireland, where the language is virtuaUy extinct. Shelta and Polari , although they fit P's criteria for inclusion in the volume, are not mentioned. P is primarily concerned with languages as social phenomena; he traces their arrival in Britain ; their status with respect to religion, education , and government; and the reasons for their decUne or survival. The evidence includes early inscriptions, Uterature, place names, loan words, and census data. Much more is known of the history of some of the languages (e.g. Welsh and Scottish GaeUc) than of others (e.g. Pictish and Cumbric); this is reflected in the length of the chapters. P gives reasonable discussions of the debates which have ensued regarding their histories; e.g., was Pictish related to Basque? WUl Welsh survive? How widespread was Anglo-Normand as a spoken language ? Is the modern variety called Cornish reaUy Cornish? P makes no attempt to describe the grammars of these different languages. When he uses linguistic terms, e.g. 'diglossia', he carefuUy defines them for the general reader. Those interested in the linguistic structures ofthe languages in question should consult P. TrudgiU (ed.), Language in theBritish Isles (Cambridge, 1984); for more on regional and social varieties ofEngUsh , see A. Hughes & P. TrudgiU, English accents and dialects (Arnold, 1979) and J. C. WeUs, Accents ofEnglish (Cambridge, 1982). Although P devotes only fifteen pages to the chapter on English, its influence is the theme which runs through the book—for, as P puts it, 'English is a killer. If there are stiU parts of the United Kingdom ... where sizeable communities speak languages that were there before English , sometimes as a first language, nowhere in these islands is English not in everyday use and understood by aU or virtually all. It is English that has now totally replaced Irish as a first language in Northern Ireland. And it is English that constitutes a major threat to Welsh and to Scottish GaeUc, and to French in the Channel Islands , so that their long-term future must be considered to be very greatly at risk' (170). On the whole, this is a very readable book which brings together a great deal of information . Though written at a level comprehensible to the lay reader, it contains much ofinterest to the linguist, who may be famihar with some— but most likely not all—of the languages discussed . [Ruth King, York University, Toronto.] Fortis and lenis in Germanic. By Gerda I. Alexander. (American university studies, I: Germanic languages and literatures, 18.) New York & Bern: Peter Lang, 1983. Pp. 171. $20.80. Alexander here reinterprets the obstruent series of Proto-Germanic, through a careful consideration of the evidence of early Germanic manuscripts and a Praguean theory ofhierarchy of oppositions. The traditional interpretation of the ProtoGermanic (PG) consonant system is in terms of voicing and occlusion, resulting in the set of contrasts /p/:/b/:/f/. Thus W. G...

Assessment of speech intelligibility in five south-eastern Bantu languages: critical considerations.

This paper examines criteria underlying the development of tasks and materials for the measurements of speech intelligibility in five South-Eastern Bantu languages. The chief considerations include utterance length, word familiarity and structure, and phonetic balance. It is established that the foundation research necessary for devising materials in South-Eastern Bantu languages on the same basis as those of English has not yet been conducted. Salient properties of the relevant African languages include multilingualism, dialectal variation, vocabulary differences between rural and urban speakers of the same language, borrowed words, the simple vowel systems, the fairly elaborate consonant systems, prosodic features, certail syllable structure characteristics, and noun morphology. A rationale for the use of two measures of intelligibility is presented, while the need to adapt many criteria characterising English materials is demonstrated.

A phonetic description of the vowel system of Standard Dutch (ABN)

This description of the vowel system of Standard Dutch (ABN)—based on recordings of a sample of ten ABN speakers—is complementary to our survey of the consonant system (Mees and Collins, 1982) and has similarly developed out of work undertaken for the authors' contrastive study of Dutch and English (Collins and Mees, 1981). The term ABN (Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands) is explained in Mees and Collins (1982: 2).

Chilcotin Flattening

In Chilcotin, an Athapaskan language of northern British Columbia, surface alternations of vowels are determined by a process called “flattening” (Krauss 1975, Cook 1976a). So far, the process of flattening, and indeed almost all other aspects of Chilcotin phonology, remain virtually unknown to phonologists in general. In this article, I provide a descriptive introduction to Chilcotin flattening. The first two sections describe the vowel and consonant systems, respectively, in terms of autonomous phonology, and the third section describes the flattening process and introduces some of the theoretical issues associated with it.

A phonetic description of the consonant system of Standard Dutch (ABN)

Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (henceforth ABN) is a term used generally in the Netherlands by linguists and laymen alike to refer to the country's prestige dialect; a literal translation would be ‘General Refined Dutch’. Though ABN is a dialect rather than an accent (Wells, 1970:231), its status is comparable to that of the RP accent of English since it is essentially a social variety only loosely associated with a particular geographical area. ABN speakers are to be found in greatest numbers throughout the Western provinces (i.e. Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland and Utrecht) and particularly in the annular Randstad conurbation linking the towns of Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht; but ABN is to be heard from the upper socio-economic classes all over the Netherlands, and is also looked to as a standard in the Dutch-speaking regions of Belgium.

Fieldwork on the Mlabri language: A preliminary sketch of its phonetics

The present report deals with the phonetics of the Mlabri ("Mrabri") language spoken by a small hill tribe in Northern Thailand. This informal sketch gives an impressionistic phonetic survey of the vowel and consonant systems; more definitive analyses of this and other aspects of the language will be worked out later by the research group, viz. Professor Søren Egerod, Professor Therapan L. Thongkum, and the present author.

The phonology of Upper Bavarian — some observations

C. E. Capell's article ‘Transcription, Vowel and Consonant Systems of Upper Bavarian Dialect’, in JIPA, vol. 9, no. 1 (June 1979), was interesting as being one of the very few contributions in English to the study of this phonologically fascinating German dialect, but was unfortunately so full of straightforward errors of data and interpretation that it gravely misrepresents the dialect. The following article is an attempt to set the record straight in all but a few very minor points.

Getting the Polish grooved frictionals right

Polish is a consonant language. On one phonemic analysis (Biedrzycki, 1974: 35) it has thirty-one consonants and six vowels. The main factor contributing to the richness of the Polish consonant system is the range of grooved frictionals; each fricative has a corresponding affricate and vice versa, each voiced frictional has a corresponding voiceless frictional and vice versa.

Comparative phonology of Guangxi Yue dialects By Nobuhisa Tsuji (review)

BOOK NOTICES 243 Ugrian collections cited. Next, BN deals with deliberate word deformation, applying phonetic change in order to 'mislead the bear'. The third section is devoted to word formation; here BN contends that the secret vocabulary of the cult contains no new coinages, but that partially changed words, introduced by special suffixes used only in the context of bear-related events, form a large part of the taboo vocabulary. Diminutive suffixes frequently carry the semantic function which ties a particular word to the cult. Nominal or verbal suffixes perform the same task, adding a metaphoric or métonymie charge to the word; thus they cause a change in meaning . Subsequently, BN discusses semantic change, claiming that the number of words which undergo no change is quite low; she shows that the transfer of meaning affects not only individual words, but also compounds and paraphrases. She attributes these changes to linguistic conservatism as well as to innovation. Based on the work of S. Ullmann (Principles of semantics, 1957), BN groups innovations as caused by (a) 'transfer of names', (b) 'transfer of senses', and (c) 'composite changes'. Of these, the majority—approximately 75% of the entire 'special' vocabulary—are ascribed to the transfer of names. A short chapter is devoted to loan words; BN states that although these frequently appear within the different branches ofOb-Ugrian, they are not found in the general vocabulary, since their information content is limited to the bear cult. While Zyrian and Tatar borrowings occur in the vocabulary of the bear cult, Russian is conspicuously absent. Summarizing her findings , BN concludes that the special vocabulary points to an active bear cult of common ObUgrian origin, reflecting the period ofVogul and Ostyak unity. A brief but useful bibliography refers the reader to the most important literature in this somewhat esoteric field of linguistic research . [MariannaD. Birnbaum, UCLA.] 84-item vocabulary) of Shughni, the main member of the Shughni-Roshani dialect cluster within the Pamir group of Southeast Iranian languages. Shughni has an estimated 40,000 speakers, divided almost equally between the USSR and Afghanistan; Nawata's description is based on work with a single speaker from Sar Chashma (Afghanistan) in 1966. Soviet scholars have not yet published a monograph description of Shughni proper (D. Karam äoev, Badzuvskij dialekt Sugnanskogo jazyka , Dushanbe, 1963, deals with the Bajui subdialect, which N does not include in Shughni). However, grammar sketches of the ShughniRoshani cluster, comparable in scope to N's, exist (V. S. Sokolova, 'Sugnano-ruäanskaja jazykovaja gruppa', in Jazyki narodov SSSR, vol. 1, Moscow, 1966; T. N. Paxalina, Pamirskie jazyki, Moscow, 1969, pp. 12-57), as well as a collection of texts with a substantial Shughni-Russian dictionary (I. I. Zarubin, Sugnanskie teksty i slovar' , Moscow & Leningrad , 1960). N does not mention these in his list ofprevious works (pp. 2-3). Comparison ofN's data with Soviet sources shows agreement down to fine details on some points, e.g. the consonant system and the morphology of irregular verbs. But there are also some discrepancies: N gives a five-vowel system, without phonemic length, whereas the Soviet sources give seven long-vowel phonemes and three short-vowel phonemes, including such minimal pairs as sêr 'satisfied' vs. ser 'creep!' and nur 'today' vs. nur 'ray of light'. The Soviet sources also list comparative adjective forms and participial forms of verbs, while N does not. One would have preferred N to comment explicitly on these apparent regional differences. His sketch does, however, stand as the only recent account of Shughni grammar in English. [Bernard Comme , USC] Shughni. By Tetsuo Nawata. (Asian and African grammatical manual 17s.) Tokyo: Bunpo Kyodo Kenkyu Project, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 1979. Pp. 42. This is a descriptive sketch (phonetics, morphology , some syntax, two brief texts, and an Comparative phonology of Guangxi Yue dialects. By Nobuhisa Tsuji. Tokyo: Kazama Shobo, 1980. Pp. xii, 273. ¥ 15,500. In this revision of his 1977 Cornell dissertation , Tsuji updates Proto-Yue to accommodate the Yue dialects ofGuangxi province, on which he did fieldwork in Hong Kong during 1971-72. He considers this effort a continuation of...

History of the consonant systems of the North-Pamir languages

History of the consonant systems of the North-Pamir languages

History of the consonant systems of the North-Pamir languages

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Выравнивание дифтонгов в западномерсийском диалекте древнеанглийского языка

Smoothing, a prominent feature of the West Mercian dialect, consisted in monophthongization of OE diphthongs /ēa ēo īo/ before dorsal consonants spelt c, ʒ, h, and diphthongs /ěa ěo io/ before clusters ht, lc, lʒ, lh, rc, rʒ, rh and before h. Phonetic causes of smoothing are to be sought in certain peculiarities of the OE consonant system. The split of PE /k/ and /ʒ/ into velar /k’/ /ʒ/ and palatal /k’/ /ʒʒ’/ in the 7th century was soon followed by assibilation of /k’/ /ʒʒ’/ into /tš/ and /dž/. After the assibilation which must have occurred in the 7th-8th centuries (at least in the Anglian dialects), the position of the tongue ceased to be a relevant feature of the velar /k/ /ʒ/. They could now develop new allophones depending upon the nature of the preceding vowel. After front vowels and diphthongs /k/ developed a palatal allophone [k’] which absorbed the second, velar component of the preceding diphthong. Voiced and voiceless fricatives retained complementary distribution of their velar and palatal allophones even after i-Umlaut. Diphthongs before [γ’] and [χ’] lost their second component. Smoothing which belongs to the period after i-Umlaut (the 7th-8th centuries) reduced the distribution of diphthongs in West Mercian considerably.

Transcription, vowel and consonant systems of Upper Bavarian dialect

Informants recorded a version of ‘The North Wind and the Sun’, adapted from the North German Variety in the I.P.A. Principles (1973). The German text was rewritten with considerable emphasis on lexical differences, and only slightly less emphasis on morphological and syntactic differences, especially word order. Words such as Wanderer in High German (hereinafter H.G.) were regarded as ‘non-Bavarian’ by native speakers and virtually all examples of the imperfect tense were changed to the perfect tense. It is usual in this dialect, which is normally known as Upper Bavarian (hereinafter U.B.), for personal pronouns to follow verb forms, as a result of which they are very rarely stressed.