Labial Consonants Research Articles

Issues in Learning Labial Consonants of English by Arabic Speaking Students in Saudi Arabia: A Test of Feature Model

Issues in Learning Labial Consonants of English by Arabic Speaking Students in Saudi Arabia: A Test of Feature Model

Binomial expressions as a window on the phonological system of Turkish

The principles governing word order in binomial expressions have been investigated in a few languages, revealing the relevance of several interacting semantic and phonological constraints, some of them universal or near-universal while others appear to be more language-specific. This paper presents the results of a preliminary quantitative analysis of some constraints influencing word order in Turkish irreversible binomials. We found that semantic constraints referring to the semantic prominence and iconic order of the items of the binomial, a constraint placing loanwords in final position, suprasegmental phonological constraints referring to syllable count, presence of onsets and presence of codas, segmental phonological constraints referring to the sonority of consonants, vowel roundness and presence of an initial labial consonant, all influence word order in Turkish irreversible binomials. Furthermore, the evidence from the segmental constraints may also shed light on some aspects of the Turkish phonological system, i.e. the markedness of rounded vowels and labial consonants, the properties of the sonority scale in Turkish and the featural specification of Turkish /j/.

Visual cues in sound change: A cross-modal perceptual account for the typological rarity of labial palatalization

Auditory perceptibility is widely recognized as a major contributing factor to listener-based sound change. Although speech perception is also known to be influenced by vision, the role of visual cues in facilitating or inhibiting sound change is not well understood. Palatalization of /tʲ/ and /kʲ/ to /tʃ/ is a typologically common change that is frequently attributed to misperception, while full palatalization of labial consonants is exceedingly rare. We test whether visual cues contribute to this asymmetry by way of the visual distinctiveness of labial closure. An audiovisual perception experiment was conducted in which 40 native Korean speakers were presented with synthetically altered tokens along 5-step continua from /pʰ/, /tʰ/, or /kʰ/ to /t?ɕ/ in audio-only, audiovisual-congruent, and audiovisual-incongruent conditions. Acoustic cues to place of articulation, F2 onset, and spectral frequency during aspiration, were manipulated. Results show that presence of the visual lip closure cue significantly inhibited perception of labials as palatals: the /pʰ/-/tɕʰ/ boundary was shifted toward /tɕʰ/ in the AV-congruent group, and labials were more likely to be perceived as palatals in the absence of lip closure. This finding suggests that visual speech cues may contribute to the typological asymmetry and that sound change can be modulated by visual cues.

Postlabial raising and paradigmatic leveling in A’ingae: A diachronic study from the field

This paper discusses and analyzes the variation between ai and ɨi in A’ingae(or Cofán, an Amazonian isolate, ISO 639-3: con) by comparing the data reported in Borman’s (1976) dictionary with contemporary productions. In Borman (1976), ai does not generally appear after labial consonants; the distribution of ɨi is not restricted. In some modern productions, postlabial ai is allowed when the diphthong crosses a morpheme boundary (a + i). I propose that Borman’s (1976) distribution of ai and ɨi is a consequence of a diachronic change of ai to ɨi after labial consonants (* ai > ɨi /B _). The contemporary distribution reflects paradigm leveling and contact-induced replacement: Borman’s (1976) ɨi corresponds to contemporary ai if a is present in another related form. In novel productively-formed words, the availability of postlabial raising is speaker-specific. The proposed sound change of postlabial raising (*ai > ɨi /B _) is unusual and lacks obvious phonetic motivation. I speculate that postlabial raising reflects postlabial rounding (*ai > * ui /B _) opacified by subsequent unconditioned unrounding and centralizing of the back round vowel (* u > ɨ).

A cross-linguistic, sound symbolic relationship between labial consonants, voiced plosives, and Pokémon friendship.

This paper presents a cross-linguistic study of sound symbolism, analysing a six-language corpus of all Pokémon names available as of January 2022. It tests the effects of labial consonants and voiced plosives on a Pokémon attribute known as friendship. Friendship is a mechanic in the core series of Pokémon video games that arguably reflects how friendly each Pokémon is. Poisson regression is used to examine the relationship between the friendship mechanic and the number of times /p/, /b/, /d/, /m/, /g/, and /w/ occur in the names of English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German, and French Pokémon. Bilabial plosives, /p/ and /b/, typically represent high friendship values in Pokémon names while /m/, /d/, and /g/ typically represent low friendship values. No association is found for /w/ in any language. Many of the previously known cases of cross-linguistic sound symbolic patterns can be explained by the relationship between how sounds in words are articulated and the physical qualities of the referents. This study, however, builds upon the underexplored relationship between sound symbolism and abstract qualities.

Labiovelar loss and the rounding of syllabic liquids in Indo-Iranian

Abstract This paper analyzes and supports the claim that Vedic Sanskrit preserves traces of the contrast between the Indo-European labiovelars and plain velars—a striking archaism in the Indo-Iranian family, which otherwise collapsed the two velar series. These labiovelar vestiges emerge because of the pervasive labialization of syllabic and consonantal rhotics at all attested stages of the Indo-Iranian family. Two rhotic labialization environments are examined in Indo-Aryan and Iranian: after labial(ized) consonants or before syllables containing u or w. Furthermore, this paper explains the unexpected development of bimoraic Proto-Indo-European *ḶμHμ.C to trimoraic Vedic Ūμμrμ.C by examining the phonetic characteristics of the labializable Indo-Iranian rhotics.

Labiovelar loss and the rounding of syllabic liquids in Indo-Iranian

Abstract This paper analyzes and supports the claim that Vedic Sanskrit preserves traces of the contrast between the Indo-European labiovelars and plain velars—a striking archaism in the Indo-Iranian family, which otherwise collapsed the two velar series. These labiovelar vestiges emerge because of the pervasive labialization of syllabic and consonantal rhotics at all attested stages of the Indo-Iranian family. Two rhotic labialization environments are examined in Indo-Aryan and Iranian: after labial(ized) consonants or before syllables containing u or w. Furthermore, this paper explains the unexpected development of bimoraic Proto-Indo-European *ḶμHμ.C to trimoraic Vedic Ūμμrμ.C by examining the phonetic characteristics of the labializable Indo-Iranian rhotics.

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.

DEVELOPMENT OF LABIAL CONSONANTS IN TURKIC LANGUAGES

The article examines the archetypal nature of labial consonants in the Turkic languages. In Turkology and Altaic studies, the correspondence of sounds is a well-studied problem. In the question of which of the labial consonants is an archetype, each scientist makes his own assumption. The purpose of this article is to generalize thoughts related to labial consonants and to link the development of labial consonants with speech ontogenesis.

한국 영화 영어 더빙본의 동기화 현상 분석

Synchronization is one of the most important factors in dubbing. which is a fact established repeatedly by many different sources. Chaume(2004b) defined the boundaries of the subject and classified types of synchronization: phonetic or lip synchronization; isochrony or synchrony between utterances and pauses; and kinetic synchrony or body movement synchrony. This study aims to analyze the three types of synchronizations found in English-dubbed Korean films that were released in North America in a DVD format with dubbed soundtracks. The study shows that bilabial and labial consonants in original Korean dialogues were dealt with under careful scrutiny in dubbed versions when actors were shot in close-ups. The duration of the actors’ utterance, or isochrony, was strictly followed and sometimes “overly” observed to match the lips of actors on mute. Kinetic synchrony was more respected when actors were shown in full shot. Dubbing on mute was also found to coincide with actors’ body movement on screen. The examples of creative use of synchronizations and skillful addition on mute suggest that synchronization is not just a constraint that forces translators to put their skills to use, but an opportunity for translators to move away from literal translation and put forward creative alternatives.

Predicting One's Turn With Both Body and Mind: Anticipatory Speech Postures During Dyadic Conversation.

In natural conversation, turns are handed off quickly, with the mean downtime commonly ranging from 7 to 423 ms. To achieve this, speakers plan their upcoming speech as their partner’s turn unfolds, holding the audible utterance in abeyance until socially appropriate. The role played by prediction is debated, with some researchers claiming that speakers predict upcoming speech opportunities, and others claiming that speakers wait for detection of turn-final cues. The dynamics of articulatory triggering may speak to this debate. It is often assumed that the prepared utterance is held in a response buffer and then initiated all at once. This assumption is consistent with standard phonetic models in which articulatory actions must follow tightly prescribed patterns of coordination. This assumption has recently been challenged by single-word production experiments in which participants partly positioned their articulators to anticipate upcoming utterances, long before starting the acoustic response. The present study considered whether similar anticipatory postures arise when speakers in conversation await their next opportunity to speak. We analyzed a pre-existing audiovisual database of dyads engaging in unstructured conversation. Video motion tracking was used to determine speakers’ lip areas over time. When utterance-initial syllables began with labial consonants or included rounded vowels, speakers produced distinctly smaller lip areas (compared to other utterances), prior to audible speech. This effect was moderated by the number of words in the upcoming utterance; postures arose up to 3,000 ms before acoustic onset for short utterances of 1–3 words. We discuss the implications for models of conversation and phonetic control.

English Speakers Can Infer Pokémon Types Based on Sound Symbolism

Sound symbolism, systematic associations between sounds and meanings, is receiving increasing attention in linguistics, psychology and related disciplines. One general question that is currently explored in this research is what sorts of semantic properties can be symbolically represented. Against this background, within the general research paradigm which explores the nature of sound symbolism using Pokémon names, several recent studies have shown that Japanese speakers associate certain classes of sounds with notions that are as complex as Pokémon types. Specifically, Japanese speakers associate (1) sibilants with the flying type, (2) voiced obstruents with the dark type, and (3) labial consonants with the fairy type. These sound symbolic effects arguably have their roots in the phonetic properties of the sounds at issue, and hence are not expected to be specific to Japanese. The current study thus addressed the question whether these sound symbolic associations hold with native speakers of English. Two experiments show that these sound symbolic patterns were very robustly observed when the stimuli were presented in pairs; when the stimuli were presented in isolation, the effects were also tangible, although not as robust. We conclude that English speakers can associate certain types of sounds with particular Pokémon types, with an important caveat that we observed a clear task effect. Overall the current results lend some credibility to the hypothesis that those attributes that play a role in Pokémons' survival are actively signaled by sound symbolism.

Error Analysis in Chinese Initials Made by Bangladeshi Learners at Elementary Level

Chinese initials play an inevitable role in learning Chinese as a second language. Without the proper knowledge of Chinese initials, learners fail to communicate with people smoothly. Therefore, learners from different countries face different difficulties in learning Chinese initials. The pronunciation of Chinese consonants is not easy for foreigners, especially for Bangladeshi learners. Therefore, errors occur in the Chinese initials of Bangladeshi learners.Although Bangladeshi students often encounter difficulties learning Chinese initials, no comprehensive research done in this area. This research aims to investigate the pronunciation errors of Chinese initials made by Bangladeshi learners. To know the types of initials errors and the reason behind these errors, the error analysis hypothesis, and the contrastive analysis hypothesis was used to analyze the data. However, 20 Bangladeshi students at the elementary level were chosen as the research participants. In this research, a questionnaire survey, interview and comparative analysis were used as research methods.The common finding is that the initials error of Bangladeshi learners occurs in labial, alveolar, velar, retroflex, dental, and palatal consonants. Among them, the highest rate of error has been found in the pronunciation of retroflex, dental, palato-alveolar consonants. The research found that the reason for initials errors of Bangladeshi Chinese learners is the negative transfer of mother tongue, similar phonetic symbols, lack of learning motivation and strategy etc. Finally, the researcher provides some suggestions to correct the pronunciation of initials errors of Bangladeshi Chinese learners.

How to express evolution in English Pokémon names

Abstract This article contributes to the studies of sound symbolism, systematic relationships between sounds and meanings. Specifically, we build on a series of studies conducted within a research paradigm called “Pokémonastics,” which uses the Pokémon universe to explore sound symbolic patterns. Inspired by a study of existing English Pokémon names, two experiments were conducted in which English speakers were provided with pairs of pre-evolution and post-evolution Pokémon characters, the latter of which were larger. The participants were given two name choices whose members were systematically different in some phonological properties. The results show the following sound symbolic patterns to be productive: (1) names with higher segment counts are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names with lower segment counts, (2) names containing [a] are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names containing [i], (3) names containing [u] are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names containing [i], and (4) names containing coronal consonants are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names containing labial consonants. Overall, the current results suggest that phonological considerations come into play when English speakers name new fictional creatures. Implications of the current results for the theories of sound symbolism are discussed throughout the paper.

Do Labial Consonants Evoke the Images of Softness and Cuteness Cross-linguistically?: An Experiment with Chinese and Korean Speakers

Do Labial Consonants Evoke the Images of Softness and Cuteness Cross-linguistically?: An Experiment with Chinese and Korean Speakers

The pluripotentiality of bilabial consonants: The images of softness and cuteness in Japanese and English

AbstractThe current study experimentally examined whether labial consonants were sound-symbolically associated with the images of softness and cuteness in Japanese and English. The results showed that all the bilabial consonants [p, b, m, ɸ, w] used in Japanese convey such images. In English, the consonants evoking the image of softness were bilabials but not labiodentals, and those linked to the image of cuteness were unaspirated, low-frequency bilabials. These results demonstrated the pluripotentiality of sound symbolism, meaning that a certain set of linguistic sounds evokes different meanings and images both within a single language and across languages (e.g. Winter et al. 2019; Kawahara and Kumagai to appear). Moreover, under the backcloth that the description of the glide /w/ concerning the place of articulation in Japanese and English is not uncontroversial, the current paper indicates – based on the current sound-symbolic experimental results – that the glide /w/ is phonologically labial in each language.

An acoustic study of Russian affricated dental plosive /t′/

This paper aims to examine some acoustic properties of Russian affricated dental plosive /t′/. Russian language has ‘palatalized’ consonants, and they are produced by raising the front of the tongue so as to touch the hard palate. Palatalized labial consonants are different from dental plosives. When dental plosives are palatalized, they are merged with another articulation which is frication. To analyze Russian affricated dental plosive /t′/, recordings were made of 5 native Russian male speakers producing 5 vowels (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/) in isolation and in CV syllables. Measurements were made of duration, intensity, CoG, formant vowel transitions, spectrogram and spectral shapes. The results showed that /t′/ is affricated, the place and manner of articulation were similar to affricate /c/ and /č/. However, when succeeded by vowels, /t′/ still had the acoustic characteristics of dental plosive /t/. This study contributes to a better understanding of acoustic characteristics of Russian affricated /t′/.

The relationship between palatalisation and labial consonants in Castilian Spanish

In spite of the many studies devoted to the palatal outcomes of the Latin clusters PL and FL in Old Spanish, some other clusters and sequences composed of labial consonants such as -PUL-, -BVL-, -BE,I-, -VE,I- and -MI- have received little attention. The aim of this paper is to analyze the phonetic aspects of the diachronic evolution of these clusters and sequences into their Old Spanish outcomes [ʎ], [ɟ] y [ɲtʃ]. To this end, experimental, dialectal and comparative data from Old Spanish as well as from other Romance languages will be used. This will lead to the conclusion that the sound changes in both [Clabial + l] and [Clabial + j] clusters were based on the same articulatory mechanisms: a strengthening of the segment following the labial consonant and the later deletion of the labial, if it was a stop, or its assimilation to the point of articulation of the palatal, if it was a nasal. The implications of these conclusions for the evolution of pl and fl clusters in Old Spanish, as well as for the methodology in historical phonetics, will be pointed out.

Alçamento sem motivação aparente em uma variedade de português brasileiro: efeitos de coarticulação de sequências CV e dispersão vocálica

Este artigo trata da motivação fonética do alçamento sem motivação aparente das vogais médias pretônicas /e, o/ (desconto ~ d[i]sconto, c[o]stela ~ c[u]stela) no português brasileiro. Realiza-se análise quantitativa (LABOV, 1972) em dados de fala da variedade de Porto Alegre, com que se confirmam os efeitos favorecedores de consoantes palatais, velares, labiais precedentes ou seguintes no alçamento das médias, registrados na literatura (KLUNCK, 2007; CRUZ, 2010; MONARETTO, 2013). A inspeção acústica de dados e o exame de literatura sobre coarticulação (GOLDSTEIN; BYRD; SALTZMAN, 2006)sugerem que o alçamento seja processo variável condicionado por múltiplos fatores, entre eles a coarticulação de sequências CV e a dispersão vocálica (MADDIESON, 1984; LINDBLOM, 1986).

Conditions on the variable interpretation of |U| in Japanese

Abstract This paper examines the historical and phonological properties of h in Japanese. It shows that, by analysing a specific case of segmental variation, we not only deepen our understanding of the sound which varies but also shed light on some general characteristics of the sound system as a whole. Using an Element Theory approach (Anderson and Jones 1974; Kaye et al. 1985; Harris and Lindsey 1995; Scheer 1999; Nasukawa 2005; Cyran 2010; Backley 2011), the discussion focuses on the distribution of the element |U|, arguing that |U| is naturally weak in Japanese. This helps explain two idiosyncrasies in Japanese phonology – the restricted distribution of labial consonants and rounded vowels, and the patterning of h with labials. In modern Japanese, labiality is phonologically and phonetically weak. In vowels, u and w are produced without lip rounding, as unrounded [ɯ] and [ɰ]. And in consonants, the labial stop p is banned from certain contexts. These facts point to the inherent weakness of |U| in Japanese, where weakness refers to structural headedness; following Backley and Nasukawa (2009), it is assumed that labials are represented by headed |U| (cf. non-headed |U| in velars). To account for the restricted distribution of labials, it is argued that labiality (headed |U|) is only realised in Japanese if a specific structural condition is met: |U| must co-occur with (i.e. be supported by) another element from the same sub-group of ‘dark’ elements. Thus, the paper exploits the natural division between dark elements {|A|, |U|, |L|} and light elements {|I|, |H|, |Ɂ|}.