Dorsal Consonants Research Articles

How Russian speakers express evolution in Pokémon names: an experimental study with nonce words

Abstract Sound symbolism, systematic and iconic relationships between sounds and meanings, is now a topic that is very actively explored by linguists, psychologists and cognitive scientists. As a new research strategy to study the nature of sound symbolic connections across different languages, a number of scholars have started using Pokémon names, a research paradigm that is now dubbed “Pokémonastics.” The previous Pokémonastics studies have experimentally explored how the evolution status is symbolically expressed by native speakers of English, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese. Building on these studies, the current experiment examined the sound symbolic knowledge of Russian speakers, and found that they are more likely to associate large, post-evolution Pokémon characters with names containing voiced obstruents than with names containing voiceless obstruents, and that they are also more likely to associate post-evolution characters with names containing [a] than with names containing [i]. The experiment also revealed that Russian speakers are less likely to associate post-evolution characters with names having labial consonants than with names having coronal or dorsal consonants. Overall, the current results show that Russian speakers generally have knowledge of sound symbolic associations that is similar to that of English, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese speakers, suggesting that some sound symbolic patterns hold robustly across multiple languages.

Palatal is for happiness, plosive is for sadness: evidence for stochastic relationships between phoneme classes and sentiment polarity in Hungarian

AbstractThe past couple of decades have seen a substantial increase in linguistic research that highlights the non-arbitrariness of language, as manifested in motivated sound–meaning correspondences. Yet one of the challenges of such studies is that there is a relative paucity of data-driven analyses, especially in the case of languages other than English, such as Hungarian, even though the proportion of at least partially motivated words in Hungarian vocabulary is substantial. We address this gap by investigating the relationship between Hungarian phoneme classes and positive/negative sentiment based on 3,023 word forms retrieved from the Hungarian Sentiment Lexicon. Our results indicate that positive polarity word forms tend to contain more vowels, front vowels, continuants, fricatives, palatals, and sibilants. On the other hand, negative sentiment polarity words tend to have more rounded vowels, plosives, and dorsal consonants. While our analysis provides strong evidence for a set of non-arbitrary form–meaning relationships, effect sizes also reveal that such associations tend to be fairly weak tendencies, and therefore sentiment polarity cannot be derived from the relative frequencies of phoneme classes in a deterministic fashion.

Phonetic Characteristics of Children's Early Words in German: Data From Typically Developing Children With Clinical Implications

Purpose:This study examined sound sequencing characteristics of German children's early words to compare with the patterns established for American English. We focused on consonant place of articulation for comparative purposes to Aoyama and Davis (2017) on children acquiring American English. Consonant–vowel–consonant (C1VC2) word forms is a frequent clinical target area for children receiving speech intervention for delays or disorders. Our goal is to provide useful background information for clinical decisions with German-speaking children.Method:Data from 13 German-speaking children were analyzed using the Child Language Data Exchange System database. First and second consonants in C1VC2word forms were coded as a labial (e.g., /p/, /b/, /m/), a coronal (alveolar and palatal, e.g., /t/, /d/, /n/), or a dorsal (velar, e.g., /k/, /g/, /ŋ/). All word types and tokens were then categorized into nine place–sequence types (e.g., labial–labial, Baum /baʊm/ “tree”; labial–coronal, mit /mɪt/ “with”; labial–velar, Weg /vɛk/ “path”).Results:C1VC2words consisting of labial–coronal and coronal–coronal sequences occurred more frequently than other sequences (e.g., labial–labial, coronal–labial). Words with labial–coronal sequences were much more frequent than the opposite coronal–labial sequences, similar to English. Some sequences involving dorsals (i.e., dorsal–labial) are relatively frequent in German words compared to English words.Conclusions:Results demonstrated both similarities and differences with previous studies of typically developing children learning American English. In both German and English, labial–coronal and coronal–coronal sequences were by far the most frequent. Sequences involving dorsal consonants were more frequent in German than in English. For clinical planning, results suggest that place-of-articulation patterns in C1VC2words are similar between German and English words (e.g., high frequencies of labial–coronal and coronal–coronal sequences). However, sequences involving dorsals are more frequent in German than in English. For intervention, this information can be used to guide selection of words containing sound sequences that are frequent for German-speaking children.

Acoustic Properties for the Kazakh Velar and Uvular Distribution

Kazakh has an asymmetrical dorsal consonant inventory. Velars and uvulars are involved in two restrictions. First, the dorsal consonants are restricted in their place of articulation depending on neighbouring vowels. Velars appear in front vowel environments and uvulars appear in back vowel environment. Second, the dorsal consonants are restricted in voicing in the stem-final position. Voiceless velars and uvulars appear word-finally, while voiced velars and uvulars appear intervocalically with a following vowel-initial suffix. The existing descriptions regarding Kazakh dorsals contain limited amounts of data, and so an elicitation-based production experiment using nonce words with a native Kazakh speaker was conducted. Different acoustic properties, including closure duration, voice onset time, frication duration, centre of gravity, vowel duration, and F2 values, were examined with the purpose of determining whether the participant varied in their production of target velars and uvulars that could distinguish between place of articulation and voicing. The acoustic properties reveal that the place of articulation restriction is not productive, while the voicing restriction is productive.

Labiovelars and the labial-velar hypothesis: Phonological Headedness in Bare Element Geometry

This paper begins by strengthening the labial-velar hypothesis with a novel interpretation of the allophonic distributions of labials and velars in Lusoga. The labial-velar hypothesis (Backley & Nasukawa 2009) is an Element Theory proposal that labial and dorsal consonants can be marked by same ‘dark’ place feature |U| (cf. grave (Jakobson & Halle 1956)). The difference between Lab and Dors is that Lab is the headed manifestation of |U|, while Dors is headless. However, by hypothesis, this appears paradoxical for labial-velar stop complex segments (collectively labelled KP). These would seem to be headless and headed at the same time. This leads to an exploration of the term ‘headedness’ in phonology. Building on the positives of previous approaches, and pairing back the assumptions to the first principles of combination (Merge), I come up with a novel theory of headedness for segment-internal structure: Bare Element Geometry (BEG). The labial-velar hypothesis, in light of BEG, is then applied to KP. A close investigation of KP’s typological distribution and behaviour, especially in Guere (Western Kru) leads to the discovery that it has two root nodes each with its own place node and, contrary to the previous literature, that its parts are phonologically ordered. KP having two ordered root nodes allows BEG’s model of headedness since the same dark place feature |U| is both headed and headless in different parts of the structure. This asymmetric theory of headedness also correctly predicts Cahill (1999)’s empirical observation that KP is never headed by Dorsal (rather than Labial).

Round vowel and dorsal consonant epenthesis in Seri

Recent work on markedness has claimed that round vowels and dorsal consonants are never epenthesized. However, Seri seems to present exactly these types of epenthesis. Relevant data are presented and discussed, and it is claimed that these rules are valid counterexamples that need to be taken into consideration more seriously.

Building a multilingual ultrasound corpus

This paper presents a corpus of three dimensional ultrasound data focused on tongue shape during speech sound articulation. Our ultimate goal is to collect data pertinent to phonetic structures from as many languages as possible (at present upwards of 20 languages are represented) and to curate these data in an open access corpus that is freely available for use by other researchers. In this presentation, we review the structure of the corpus and present a series of case studies illustrating the ways in which three-dimensional data are being used to address questions of phonetic interest. Examples of such areas include: examining the articulation of laterals; determining the point of articulation for dorsal consonants; analyzing consonant and vowel coarticulation patterns; and elucidating how coupling of the tongue body with the tongue blade and root affect place and manner of articulation. Like the work of Allard Jongman and Joan Sereno, this project is inherently collaborative and includes ample opportunity for using guided investigation of targeted research questions to ease novice scholars into the research process.

Reaching and grasping with the tongue: Shared motor planning between hand actions and articulatory gestures.

Research has shown connections between articulatory mouth actions and manual actions. This study investigates whether forward-backward hand movements could be associated with vowel production processes that programme tongue fronting/backing, lip rounding/spreading (Experiment 1), and/or consonant production processes that programme tongue tip and tongue dorsum actions (Experiment 2). The participants had to perform either forward or backward hand movement and simultaneously pronounce different vowels or consonants. The results revealed a response benefit, measured in vocal and manual reaction times, when the responses consisted of front vowels and forward hand movements. Conversely, back vowels were associated with backward hand movements. Articulation of rounded versus unrounded vowels or coronal versus dorsal consonants did not produce the effect. In contrast, when the manual responses of forward-backward hand movements were replaced by precision and power grip responses, the coronal consonants [t] and [r] were associated with the precision grip, whereas the dorsal consonant [k] was associated with the power grip. We propose that the movements of the tongue body, operating mainly for vowel production, share the directional action planning processes with the hand movements. Conversely, the tongue articulators related to tongue tip and dorsum movements, operating mainly for consonant production, share the action planning processes with the precision and power grip, respectively.

Contextual and syllabic effects in heterosyllabic consonant sequences. An ultrasound study

The present ultrasound study investigates lingual coarticulatory resistance for consonants in Catalan C#C sequences. In agreement with the initial expectations, the labial /p/, the dentoalveolars /t, n, l/ and the velar /k/ turned out to be more variable than /s/, the alveolar trill /r/ and the alveolopalatal /ɲ/. Moreover, in comparison to ultrasound data for VCV sequences reported in an earlier study, consonants were less contextually variable as a general rule and this difference was most apparent at the back of the vocal tract in particular for /s/ and /r/. While consonants were generally longer syllable initially than syllable finally, differences in tongue position and contextual variability between the two syllable positions were determined by the place and manner of articulation characteristics of the target and contextual consonants rather than by a trend for consonants to exhibit a higher/more anterior and less variable tongue position when occurring in syllable onset than in syllable coda. Regarding contextual variability, /t, n, l/ showed no clearcut differences as a function of syllable position, and /s, r/ and to a large extent /p/ were more variable syllable initially and /k/ syllable finally. On the other hand, differences in tongue configuration between the two syllable sites were associated mainly with carryover tongue raising/fronting effects exerted by contextual dorsal consonants and with anticipatory tongue lowering/backing effects from the low vowel /a/ following the cluster. The dorsovelar consonant /k/ was found to blend before /ɲ/ in the sequence /kɲ/ but not in the reverse cluster /ɲk/. The implications of the present data for phonology and sound change are discussed.

Conditions favoring biomechanically driven CV co-occurrence in lexicons

After having received serious consideration in the 1990s, the hypothesis that biomechanics is phonologized into probabilistic phonotactics subsided for methodological difficulties, while related child language studies gained ground.This paper aims at restoring the original adult language orientation of the discussion of biomechanically driven consonant–vowel co-occurrence. It presents new, detailed evidence on two languages, British English and Brazilian Portuguese, where there is clear lexical support for two CV co-occurrence biases attributable to biomechanics: a trend for the combination of coronal consonants with front vowels, and a trend against the combination of dorsal consonants with front vowels. It also shows that such biases are stronger under conditions that complicate speech planning.The analysis uses log-linear modeling in conjunction with other statistical techniques to assure comparability with previous studies and reliability of multiple comparisons.Low overall effect sizes indicate that biomechanically driven CV biases only weakly affect free combination. However, under such complicating conditions as repetition or lack of stress combined with occlusion/obstruence in initial position, effect sizes grow and significant factor interactions emerge, suggesting that such biases help simplify speech planning.Revisiting the phonologization of biomechanics hypothesis with today׳s tools supports it sufficiently to justify further pursuit and search for explanations.

Brahui and the Zagrosian Hypothesis


 
 
 This paper is an extension of McAlpin (2003) and follows the same conventions I used there, particularly for the citations of Kurux. My earlier monograph (McAlpin 1981) is, at this point, largely out-of-date, not so much wrong as bypassed by more complete sources and better argumentation. However, the portion on the velars, PED *k, is completely mistaken and is superseded by this article. The underlying assumption that we understood Proto-Dravidian phonology proved premature. The separation of the old velars into palatals, velars, and uvulars has had a major impact on the comparative statements. This paper is restricted to the dorsal consonants (palatals, velars, uvulars) and their immediate extensions. This is primarily because this information is new, but it also keeps the body of data small enough that a complete set of the data can be presented in a reasonably sized paper.
 
 

Development of a Serial Order in Speech Constrained by Articulatory Coordination

Universal linguistic constraints seem to govern the organization of sound sequences in words. However, our understanding of the origin and development of these constraints is incomplete. One possibility is that the development of neuromuscular control of articulators acts as a constraint for the emergence of sequences in words. Repetitions of the same consonant observed in early infancy and an increase in variation of consonantal sequences over months of age have been interpreted as a consequence of the development of neuromuscular control. Yet, it is not clear how sequential coordination of articulators such as lips, tongue apex and tongue dorsum constrains sequences of labial, coronal and dorsal consonants in words over the course of development. We examined longitudinal development of consonant-vowel-consonant(-vowel) sequences produced by Japanese children between 7 and 60 months of age. The sequences were classified according to places of articulation for corresponding consonants. The analyses of individual and group data show that infants prefer repetitive and fronting articulations, as shown in previous studies. Furthermore, we reveal that serial order of different places of articulations within the same organ appears earlier and then gradually develops, whereas serial order of different articulatory organs appears later and then rapidly develops. In the same way, we also analyzed the sequences produced by English children and obtained similar developmental trends. These results suggest that the development of intra- and inter-articulator coordination constrains the acquisition of serial orders in speech with the complexity that characterizes adult language.

The lexicon has its grammar, which the grammar knows nothing of. Marginal contrast and phonological theory

Marginal phonemes exploit systemically latent possibilities of contrast but have unusual lexical distributions characterized by clustering according to expressive function or morphological structure. This paper discusses examples of marginal contrast from several languages and shows that, despite initial appearances, it is not possible to confine marginally contrasting items to well-defined strata, lexical or morphological. Marginal phonemes are structure preserving, and turn up, however infrequently, in core and non-derived environments. Explanations for clustering must accordingly be sought outside grammatical theory. Marginal contrasts are interesting to linguistic theory because they may appear to challenge the Cartesian assumptions of clear-cut categories and systems. And yet, precisely from the vantage point of the system, marginal phonemes may be seen to be exploiting latent possibilities of contrast — they are in this sense 'structure preserving'. Kiparsky (1995) argues for a 'priming effect' as a diachronic analogue of structure preservation, according to which "redundant features are likely to be phonologized if the language's phonological representations have a class node to host them." To take an example from the history of English, the phonemicization of /ʒ/ which, in initial position, is restricted to low frequency French loanwords such as gitane and gite, was primed through the prior existence of a postalveolar sibilant /ʃ/ and a voiced fricative series /v ð z/. The novel phoneme /ʒ/ represents the intersection between the voiced fricative and postalveolar series. Put differently, we might say that /ʒ/ was a grammatical combination of features before any words containing it actually populated the English lexicon. This structure-preserving quality would also appear to hold for the marginal phonemes in Abkhaz and Hup. Abkhaz has plain stops, fricatives, and ejective stops. The possibility of ejective stops entails, on a minimal interpretation, that the combination (-sonorant, contricted glottis) is licit, although it implicitly also allows ejective fricatives. The case of marginal /p'/ in Hup is more subtle. The language has contrasting series of voiceless and voiced plain stops /p t c k/ • /b d ɟ ɡ/, but in the glottalized series the voicing contrast is largely neutralized, with the exception of /p'/. In initial position, the glottalized dorsal stops are voiceless /c' k'/ (which Epps transcribes as /j' ɡ'/) but the labial and alveolar /b' d'/ are voiced. 2 There are well-known aerodynamic constraints against voicing in dorsal consonants, but the prior existence of a voiceless and voiced plain stop series and the distribution of the glottalized series between voiceless and voiced would seem to create a space for marginal /p'/.

Place assimilation across words in running speech: Corpus analysis and perception

Place assimilation can lead to neutralization of segmental contrasts. It is controversial, however, to what extent such neutralizations actually happen in natural speech. This study examines: (i) the degree to which regressive place assimilations occur in word final consonants in conversational German, and (ii) whether these assimilations are perceived as neutralized by listeners. The production analysis, based on spontaneous speech, shows that complete assimilations do take place in conversational speech and that there is a clear asymmetry between coronal versus labial and dorsal segments. Furthermore, function words show a higher degree of assimilation than lexical words. Two experiments examined the effects of assimilation on perception. A forced choice reaction time perception experiment, using nasal stimuli from the corpus, examined how fast and accurately listeners identified sounds in different segmental contexts. Results indicate that (a) with equal accuracy and speed, listeners identified original and assimilated [m]s; (b) unassimilated-/m/s were identified equally well across contexts, but not unassimilated-/n/s. A free transcription experiment reproduced these findings. An acoustic analysis provides further evidence that regressive place assimilation across word boundaries can result in absolute neutralization of place contrasts in running speech. The results support models predicting asymmetries between coronal versus labial and dorsal consonants.

Word-final stops in Brazilian Portuguese English: acquisition and pronunciation instruction

This paper presents current research on the second language acquisition of English phonology and its implication for (and applications to) pronunciation instruction in the language classroom. More specifically, the paper follows the development of English word-final consonants by Brazilian Portuguese speakers learning English as a foreign language. The findings of two parallel studies reveal that the acquisition of these constituents is motivated by both extralinguistic (proficiency, style) and linguistic (word size, place of articulation) factors, and that the process is mediated by an intermediate stage characterized by consonant lengthening or aspiration (Onset-Nucleus sharing). Based on these results, I propose that the segments and environments that seem to delay coda production (i.e., monosyllabic words, labial and dorsal consonants) should be given priority in pronunciation instruction. Along the lines of Dickerson (1975), this paper proposes (what we believe is) a more effective and socially realistic pedagogy for the teaching of English pronunciation within an approach that recognizes that variability is the norm rather than the exception in second language acquisition.

Current Studies on South American Languages (review)

Reviewed by: Current studies on South American languages ed. by Mily Crevels, Simon van de Kerke, Sérgio Meira, and Hein van der Voort Iván Ortega-Santos Current studies on South American languages. Ed. by Mily Crevels, Simon van de Kerke, Sérgio Meira, and Hein van der Voort. (CNWS publications 114.) Leiden: Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), University of Leiden, 2002. Pp. 344. ISBN 9057890763. €30. This volume consists of a selection of presentations given during two symposia on the indigenous languages of South America at two events held in the year 2000: the 50th International Congress of Americanists in Warsaw (Poland) and the 3rd Workshop on Amerindian Languages in Leiden (The Netherlands). Over thirty languages from a large number of families and isolated stocks are discussed. Most of these languages are spoken in the Amazon basin, some are spoken in the region of the eastern foothills of the Andes, and a few are from the Andes region itself. A fair number of these languages are genetic [End Page 1002] isolates from Bolivia. The areas of focus are sociolinguistics and history of the field, phonology and phonetics, and morphosyntax. The volume includes nineteen papers in either English or Spanish, except for one article written in German and English and another in French. With regard to the papers on sociolinguistics and history of the field, Wolf Dietrich presents the development of a linguistic atlas of the areas in which Guaraní Criollo is in contact with Spanish and Portuguese. Sieglinde Falkinger discusses the differences between male and female language use in Chiquitano (Besiro). In turn, both Utta von Gleich and Mily Crevels focus on Bolivia, on the use of literacy among bilinguals and on language death, respectively. Finally, Rotger Snethlage gives an overview of the scientific career of his father, Emil Heinrich Snethlage. Four papers focus on phonology and phonetics. Astrid Alexander-Bakkerus analyzes certain morphophonological processes in Cholón. Ester Herrera discusses the phonetic correlates of some phonological features of the Chamí dialect of Emberá. Lastly, Emilio Mosonyi and Pedro Viegas Barros focus the suprasegmental features of the Baniwa language and the reconstruction of the Proto-Mataguayo dorsal consonants, respectively. Several contributors discuss various topics within morphosyntax. These include papers on personal pronouns and grammatical relations in Cashinahua/ Kashinawa, a Panoan language (Eliane Camargo); the typological features of the Kamsá language from an areal perspective (Alain Fabre); the person hierarchy in Aymara (Elena Filimonova); the productive nominal classification system of Movina, an unclassified language of the Amazonian lowlands of Bolivia (Colette Grinevald); a semantic characterization of the different suffixes that are used in Leko, an unclassified language of the Andean foothills region of Bolivia, to form complex verbal expressions (Simon van de Kerke); a comparison of the pronominal and demonstrative system of the Cariban languages, in an attempt to provide a preliminary reconstruction of the Proto-Cariban system (Sérgio Meira); the semantic values of a specific past tense in Kali’na (also known as Cariña, Galibi, or Carib), marked by the suffix -i (Odile Renault-Lescure); gender agreement in Mosetén, an unclassified language of the Andean foothills region of Bolivia (Jeanette Sakel); modal derivational suffixes in Kwaza, an unclassified Amazonian language of Rondônia, Brazil (Hein van der Voort); and the characteristics and functions of applicative affixes in a number of Amazonian languages spoken in Peru (Mary Ruth Wise). The volume is particularly interesting because the majority of the contributions relate to research that is the direct result of linguistic fieldwork by the authors. It is a welcome contribution to the research of these endangered languages. Iván Ortega-Santos University of Maryland Copyright © 2005 Linguistic Society of America

An EMA study of VCV coarticulatory direction

This study addresses three issues that are relevant to coarticulation theory in speech production: whether the degree of articulatory constraint model (DAC model) accounts for patterns of the directionality of tongue dorsum coarticulatory influences; the extent to which those patterns in tongue dorsum coarticulatory direction are similar to those for the tongue tip; and whether speech motor control and phonemic planning use a fixed or a context-dependent temporal window. Tongue dorsum and tongue tip movement data on vowel-to-vowel coarticulation are reported for Catalan VCV sequences with vowels /i/, /a/, and /u/, and consonants /p/, /n/, dark /l/, /s/, /S/, alveolopalatal /n/ and /k/. Electromidsagittal articulometry recordings were carried out for three speakers using the Carstens articulograph. Trajectory data are presented for the vertical dimension for the tongue dorsum, and for the horizontal dimension for tongue dorsum and tip. In agreement with predictions of the DAC model, results show that directionality patterns of tongue dorsum coarticulation can be accounted for to a large extent based on the articulatory requirements on consonantal production. While dorsals exhibit analogous trends in coarticulatory direction for all articulators and articulatory dimensions, this is mostly so for the tongue dorsum and tip along the horizontal dimension in the case of lingual fricatives and apicolaminal consonants. This finding results from different articulatory strategies: while dorsal consonants are implemented through homogeneous tongue body activation, the tongue tip and tongue dorsum act more independently for more anterior consonantal productions. Discontinuous coarticulatory effects reported in the present investigation suggest that phonemic planning is adaptative rather than context independent.

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.