Nasal Codas Research Articles

Effects of training methods and attention on the identification and discrimination of American English coda nasals by native Japanese listeners

The accuracy with which native Japanese listeners identified and discriminated American English coda nasals in /CVN/ context was assessed before and after training. The listeners were divided into four groups, each of which received a different type of training. Two of the four groups were vowel-oriented; one of these groups received vowel identification training (VI), while the other received vowel discrimination training (VD). The other two groups were nasal-oriented. One of the nasal-oriented groups received nasal identification training (NI), and the other received nasal discrimination training (ND). The results revealed that the two nasal-oriented groups made more gains in its ability to identify and discriminate American English coda nasals than the vowel-oriented groups after training. The result implies that identification and discrimination trainings are equally effective in improving listeners’ sensitivity to identify and discriminate American English coda nasals. The two vowel-oriented groups achieved modest improvement in identification and discrimination accuracy, which suggests that repeated exposure to stimuli can enhance listeners' sensitivity even when their attention is not on the target segment.

Listeners’ sensitivity to nasal coarticulation and its interactions with lexical neighborhood density

Previous research has shown that words from dense phonological neighborhoods, thus subject to greater lexical competition, are hyperarticulated (Wright, 2004; Munson and Solomon, 2004) and produced with a greater degree of coarticulation (Scarborough, 2013). The current study investigates listeners’ sensitivity to lexically conditioned degree of nasal coarticulation. If the basis of attested Neighborhood Density (ND) effects is listener-oriented (as suggested by Wright), listeners’ sensitivity to different degrees of coarticulation may be influenced by ND patterns as well. Forty-three native speakers of American English participated in a forced-choice discrimination task. The stimuli consisted of 32 monosyllabic words with nasal codas, and the degree of vowel nasality was natural or artificially increased or decreased. A Generalized Linear Mixed Effects regression was performed on Correct Response with Direction of Manipulation and ND as fixed factors. The model revealed a significant interaction of Direction and ND (p<0.001), where increased nasality was discriminated more correctly among high ND words while decreased nasality was discriminated more correctly among low ND words. This result shows that listeners are indeed sensitive to differences in degree of nasal coarticulation, and in ways that reflect neighborhood conditioned patterns.

Preservation and deletion in Mandarin loanword adaptation

This paper is about how English inputs that are not allowed in the native Mandarin phonology are adapted to Mandarin phonotactics in Mandarin loanwords. The focus of the discussion is on whether or not the elements in the inputs are preserved or deleted and what causes the phenomena. Through analyses of English consonant adaptation in Mandarin loanwords, the functions of both borrowers’ perception and the native Mandarin phonology are consistently found. The high preservation of the nasal consonants in any syllabic position clearly shows the functions, in that the salient segments are usually preserved and the acceptance of nasal codas in Mandarin phonology makes Mandarin speakers easily perceive the nasal sounds even in the coda positions. Furthermore, English /m/ and /n/ in the final positions are usually differently adapted into Mandarin loanwords. English /m/ mostly forms an independent syllable by vowel insertion while /n/ is mostly adapted into the coda nasal of the preceding syllable (e.g., English loam → Mandarin lú-mǔ, English pint → Mandarin pǐn-tuō). This tendency is due to the function of Mandarin phonology, because a nasal /n/ is allowed as a coda consonant, but /m/ is not allowed. The high deletion of English /ɹ/ in the coda or in the consonant clusters also supports the argument. The English /ɹ/, except in the initial position, is not easily perceived due to its own vowel-like quality and the fact that it is a non-Mandarin phoneme. Lastly, the higher preservation of consonants in the initial clusters than in the final clusters also shows the close relationship between perception and Mandarin phonology. Even though Mandarin does not allow consonant clusters in any position, final consonant clusters should be harder for Mandarin speakers to perceive. The reason is that in Mandarin phonology, consonants usually do not come in the final positions while all the consonants except /ŋ/ can come in the initial positions. More frequent deletion of consonants in final CCC clusters than in CC clusters can be identically explained.

An online investigation of compensation for coarticulation in Mandarin learners of English

Phonological variation can cause lexical ambiguity: The word “run” may sound like “rum” in sentences like “A quick run picks you up” (Gaskell and Marslen-Wilson, 2001) because /n/ is assimilated to /m/ due to the influence of /p/. Previous studies have shown that listeners compensate for coarticulation, perceiving acoustically identical sounds differently in different contexts (e.g., Mann, 1980). We investigated whether native Mandarin speakers with English as a second language (L2) compensate for assimilation in the same manner/to the same extent as native English speakers (L1). Given that there are no Mandarin words with the nasal coda [m], do Mandarin learners of English compensate for phonological variation not present in their L1? We conducted a visual-world eye-tracking study—using English stimuli—to investigate compensation-for-assimilation in L1 English and L1 Mandarin speakers. Identical acoustic sequences were embedded in carrier sentences with fast vs slow speech rates to test interpretation of potentially ambiguous words (cf. rum/run) by L1 and L2 speakers. Eye-movements reveal real-time differences in how L1 and L2 speakers interpret coarticulated speech, with L1 speakers showing signs of rapid compensatory processes. We also discuss how listeners’ interpretation is influenced by other acoustic cues in coarticulated speech.

Word-internal ambisyllabic consonants are codas

The syllabic affiliation of ambisyllabic consonants (e.g., the word-medial consonants in happy and Danny) is unclear. Research on ambisyllabic consonants has revealed an inconsistent set of phonetic correlates (Krakow, 1989; Turk, 1994; Gick, 2004). While some suggest they behave as onsets or codas (but not both simultaneously), others suggest their gestural durations are intermediate between onsets/codas. At least some of the research is based on comparisons of the ambisyllabic consonants to word-edge onsets/codas. However, comparisons to word-edges are confounded by the fact that such consonants undergo domain-edge related changes (Fougeron, 2001; Keating et al., 2003b). Here, we control for this confound, and compare ambisyllabic consonants to word-medial onsets and codas. We conducted an experiment on 10 native English speakers, who produced 15 repetitions at three different speech rates of 16 English words (8 test, 8 filler) that consisted of the nasal consonants [n or m] in one of four positions: word-medial onset, word-medial coda, word-final coda, and ambisyllabic context (e.g., gamete, gamble, gam, and gamma). The results suggest: (1) Consistent with previous research, there are durational differences between word-medial and word-final nasal codas; (2) Ambisyllabic consonants clearly pattern with the word-medial nasal codas and are significantly different from the nasal onsets.

Perceptual and phonotactic effects in loanword adaptation: English postvocalic stops in Taiwan Mandarin

When an English word with a postvocalic stop is borrowed into Taiwan Mandarin (TM), because TM allows only nasal coda consonants, an often-used strategy to repair the illegality is vowel-insertion (e.g., Wood → [wu.tv̥]). Based on a corpus study of 335 English borrowed names, this trend is confirmed (76%). Among the deleted cases, an asymmetry of different places of articulation was found: Coronal stops are deleted most often (15%, e.g., Hollywood → [hau.lai.wu]), and dorsals more often than labials (12%, e.g., Titanic → [thiɛ.ta.ni] vs 0%, e.g., Jeep → [tɕ. phu]). Following Kang’s (2003) perceptual explanation, the tendency of coronal-deletion can be explained by the fact that postvocalic coronals are often unreleased and thus less perceptually salient to TM speakers. According to TIMIT corpus, the release rate of coronals, labials, and dorsals stops is 37%, 52%, and 83%, respectively (Kang, 2003). However, this cannot explain the reversed pattern of dorsals and labials. I propose that this is due to another factor: Labial coda is marked in TM since only [n] and [ŋ], but not [m], can occur in coda position. In other words, the deletion of postvocalic stops depends on the saliency that considers both perceptual and phonotactic factors.

Interaction between Markedness and Transfer in English Coda Nasals: Taiwanese Learning English as a Foreign Language

This paper aims to explore how a transfer effect and an unmarkedness effect interact in Taiwanese EFL (English as a foreign language) learners’ English production, using an Optimality Theoretic approach. My focus is the nasals in syllable coda positions. This study carried out an English production experiment, in which sixty-two participants took part. These participants were 29 Mandarin native speakers (the Mandarin group: MG) and 33 Southern Min native speakers (the Southern Min group: SG). Each participant read 51 test sentences with target coda nasals. There are three major findings in this study: (1) Southern Min speakers have less difficulty with English /m/ than Mandarin speakers do, suggesting a positive transfer of the first language (L1) phonemic system to the second language (L2); (2) there exists a strong tendency toward unmarked coronal [n] in codas found in both MG and SG and there is no phonological rule of [m] or [ŋ] becoming [n] in these learners’ L1, revealing that an unmarkedness effect plays a significant role in shaping the production of interlanguage English with respect to coda nasals; and (3) the preceding two findings reveal that transfer and unmarkedness interact to influence the learning of English coda nasals and that unmarkedness overrides transfer in shaping Taiwanese EFL learners’ English interlanguage, leading to the strong preference for unmarked [n] in phonetic representations.

중국어의 차용어 적응 유형론에 대한 일반화선형모형 및 확률적 최적성이론 분석 ― [ju]와 [wi]의 적응에 나타나는 후설성 조화와 어휘적 변이형

The aim of this study is to investigate how typological variations in loanword adaptation arise out of phonotactic conspiracy based on quantitative modeling. The data set of ill-formed sound sequences, in particular [ju, wi] into Chinese, was examined using dictionary corpora. It was observed that there are four types of repair strategies to obey backness harmony: epenthesis, deletion, change and coalescence. Two theoretical approaches were taken from a statistical and a phonological angle. First, the effect of the syllable structure upon repair choice was measured by means of generalized linear modeling. The best model predicted that the source syllable without nasal coda tends towards epenthesis, that the source syllable with onset prefers deletion, and that the source syllable with nasal coda and without onset favors change. Second, a detailed comparison was made among weighted-constraint models generated by Harmonic Grammar (Hayes & Boersma) and Optimality Theory (Boersma). A significant improvement in accuracy is found with grammar learning in the model of Stochastic OT in a cross-validation. These results indicate that it is possible to resolve too-many-solutions by providing loanword data with lexical variation, suggesting that Stochastic OT is better than Noisy HG because it adequately reflects distributional asymmetries.

Lexical Effects in Phonemic Neutralization in Taiwan Mandarin

&lt;p&gt;Colloquial Taiwan Mandarin has deviated from Guoyu [National language] or Standard Chinese in pronunciation, vocabulary, and even syntax. Such changes come from the linguistic contact with Taiwan Southern Min or natural diachronic linguistic drift (Kubler, 1985; Tung, 1994; Tsao, 2000). This new form of Taiwan Mandarin has become a lingua franca among speakers of the different backgrounds in Taiwan and a creole for new generations to acquire as their mother tongue (Her, 2009). One of the most noticeable segmental changes in Taiwan Mandarin is the merging of alveolar sibilants [ts, tsh, s] and retroflex sibilants [tʂ, tʂh, ʂ]. The other one in Taiwan Mandarin is the neutralization of alveolar nasal coda [n] and velar nasal coda [ŋ].&lt;/p&gt;

The effect of segmental makeup on Mandarin tone coarticulation

The effect of segmental make-ups on tonal coarticulation was investigated in Mandarin. Target syllables differ in coda (no coda, alveolar nasal or velar nasal) and initial sonorancy (obstruent or sonorant) were embedded in trisyllabic non-words templates, in the form of trisyllabic names. Twenty native speakers were recorded and the F0 contours of all syllables were measured at a 10-ms time step. The coarticulation effect of four Mandarin tones are examined in three different positions with 4 (initial position), 16 (medial position), and 4 (final position) tonal contexts. Moreover, the phonetic variations of each tone in different prosodic positions were examined. The preliminary results indicate that the coarticulation effect is less prominent when intervened by obstruents whereas nasal codas amplify the effect. The realization of this modulating effect on the directionality of tonal coarticulation (carryover and anticipatory) will be discussed. The magnitude of coarticulation in compatible (adjacent tones have similar registers) and conflicting (adjacent tones with large register difference) environments will also be compared.

Effect of vowel height and nasal coda on Mandarin tone perception by second language learners

The present study aims to investigate whether second language (L2) learners of Mandarin will be affected by vowel height sequences and post-vocalic nasals in perceiving Mandarin tones. A total of 101 stimuli from a female native speaker of Mandarin were recorded for constructing the main experiment. Eight Mandarin L2 learners and two native speakers were recruited. The result indicated that L2 learners had a higher error rate when perceiving H-L-H (high-low-high) and nasal coda. However, perceiving H-L (high-low) or L-H (low-high) in tone 2 and tone 3, L2 learners easily mix up these together.

Lexical effects on nasal coda neutralization in Taiwan Mandarin.

Recent disputes concerning lexical effects on speech variability in speech production are whether these effects are due to lexically selective encoding processes or post‐access phonological processes. This study investigates how lexical variables (inherent frequency and contextual predictability) affect nasal coda neutralization (alveolar /n/ versus velar /ŋ/) in Taiwan Mandarin, as measured in degree of vocalic nasalization (A1‐P0 and A1‐P1), formant transition (F1, F2, and F3), and nasal consonant duration and intensity. Participants read a random list of 527 monosyllabic Chinese morphemes in a speeded naming task. The results of linear regression reveal that (1) while sociolinguistic (genders and home languages), phonological (adjacent segmental features), orthographic (familiarity of characters and accuracy of transcription), and processing variables (response times and speaking rates) are factored out, lexical variables are found to enhance nasal coda neutralization; (2) however, a larger proportion of the variance is predicted by the correlation of both lexical and processing variables, suggesting that phonological planning and articulatory velocity are the means of achieving lexically‐driven nasal coda neutralization.

Vowel length in Luganda.

The relationship between vowel length and a following NC cluster in Luganda and other Bantu languages has received attention from both phonetic and phonological perspectives, however, the data are typically drawn from relatively small corpora. This study provides the results of the first relatively large-scale acoustic investigation of Luganda, using systematically constructed stimuli recorded by 10 native speakers of Luganda in Kampala, Uganda. Our results mostly confirm earlier findings and lend support to claims that the most appropriate analysis for Luganda requires a mismatch between the underlying representation of vowels and following NC clusters and their phonetic manifestation. Underlyingly, such strings consist of a short vowel followed by a moraic nasal coda, with the consonant in the onset of the next syllable (i.e. VN.CV). By contrast, the surface phonetic form contains a long vowel that is claimed to be lengthened in compensation for the nasal's loss of moraic value, although the nature of the nasal is not altogether clear. We also provide measurements of the nasals and consonants in NC clusters and propose that they constitute a unitary pre-nasalized onset segment, as opposed to a consonant cluster in the onset of the syllable following the lengthened vowel (i.e. [CVV.N^CV]).

Toronto English vowels: Deriving the vowel space from conversational data.

This presentation develops an overview of the Toronto English vowel space using data derived from the unscripted, casual speech typical of sociolinguistic interviews, rather than the more “formal” avenue of laboratory speech. Drawing on a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews collected by Walker & Hoffman (“language contact, linguistic variation and ethnic identity in Toronto English” SSHRC SRG 410‐2008‐2048) and using multiple‐point formant measurements of stressed vowels in “clean” environments (e.g., avoiding coda nasals and liquids), this study develops views of the vowel space that illustrate modal or average vowel centers, within‐category scatter, between‐category dispersion, and VISC. In refining this kind of vowel data collection and analysis, this research provides a baseline for further studies, such as to describe vowel differences in “ethnically” marked varieties of English, to characterize adjustments made in specific phonological contexts, to identify previously undescribed phonetic variation in Canadian English, and to compare similar data from other varieties of English.

PHONETIC EVIDENCE FOR THE NASAL CODA SHIFT IN MANDARIN

This paper presents phonetic evidence to resolve the transcription disagreement concerning the syllable-final nasal shift in the variety of Mandarin spoken in Taiwan. In the word reading experiment, three judges agreed that the rhyme /iŋ/ undergoes a sound change, but they perceived the nasal coda shift differently. Two of them transcribed it as a modification from /iŋ/ to /in/, whereas the other asserted that the velar nasal disappears with its preceding vowel nasalized. In order to resolve this transcription conflict, this study analyzes the acoustic attributes of the speculative sound alterations in question, including /in/, /iŋ/, /i/ and /ĩ/. The phonetic analysis indicates that the Taiwanese participants do not nasalize the preceding vowel deleting the nasal coda but they tend to pronounce the post-vocalic velar nasal as its dental counterpart. This study concludes by discussing the implications of the synchronic variation for the theories of the nasal coda shift in Chinese dialects.

The roles of tone and syllable structure in Mandarin spoken word recognition.

The present study adopts the gating paradigm to investigate the roles of tone, onset sonorancy, and nasal coda in Mandarin spoken word recognition. Duration‐blocked gates generated from eight monosyllabic quadruplets with matching frequencies of occurrence were used as stimuli. The initial consonant of each syllable formed the first gate, with later gates formed by 40 ms increments. Twenty‐eight native Mandarin speakers from Beijing were asked to identify each gated stimulus by writing down the Chinese characters. Isolation point (IP) based on correct tone identification as well as overall correct word identification (correct onset, rhyme, and tone) were collected. Results from both conditions showed that tone 1 has an earlier IP than tone 4, which has an earlier IP than tones 2 and 3. Sonorant‐initial syllables have an earlier IP than obstruent‐initial syllables, but further analyses of covariance indicated that this is due to the fact that IP covariates with the duration of the initial consonant. Syllables without a nasal coda have an earlier IP than syllables with a nasal coda. This effect might be due to the interference of nasalization on tone perception or the delayed tonal contour realization due to the nasal coda [Xu, (1998)].

A Study on Korean Student's Acquisition of "Nasal Coda[-n]+Vowel" in Chinese

A Study on Korean Student's Acquisition of "Nasal Coda[-n]+Vowel" in Chinese

A prototypical pitch pattern of unaccented Japanese words

Unaccented words are described as having a rising pitch pattern in Tokyo Japanese. The production and perception of F0 patterns in three-mora unaccented words that varied in segmental type of the word-medial mora were investigated. In production (N=864), F0 rose across words having a short vowel in the initial syllable (V-type), and F0 was flat across words having a long vowel or nasal coda in the initial syllable (V:/VN-type), p&amp;lt;.01. In perception (N=384), 70% of words with the V-type first syllable were correctly discriminated from accented words, whereas 56% of words with the V:/VN-type first syllable were correctly discriminated. Pairwise comparisons between word types revealed that the accentual pattern of CVC:V words was discriminated significantly better (by 24%) than that of CVNCV words, p&amp;lt;.01. These results indicated that unaccented words with rising, as opposed to flat F0, were more accurately discriminated from accented words. This might be due to a non-prototypical nature of flat F0 patterns in three-mora unaccented words. In other words, the mental representation of unaccented words may be characterized by a rising pitch pattern.

The Acoustic and Visual Phonetic Basis of Place of Articulation in Excrescent Nasals

One common historical development in languages with distinctively nasalized vowels is the excrescence of coda velar nasals in place of nasalized vowels. For example, the dialect of French spoken in the southwestern part of France (Midi French) is characterized by words ending in the velar nasal where Parisian French has nasalized vowels and no final nasal consonant. More generally, there is a cross-linguistic tendency for the unmarked place of articulation for coda nasals, and perhaps also for stops, to be velar. In four experiments, we explored why the cross-linguistically unmarked place for the excrescent nasal is velar. The experiments test Ohala's (1975) acoustic explanation: that velar nasals, having no oral antiformants, are acoustically more similar to nasalized vowels than are bilabial or alveolar nasals. The experiments also tested an explanation based on the visual phonetics of nasalized vowels and velar nasals: velar nasals, having no visible consonant articulation, are visually more similar to nasalized vowels than are bilabial or alveolar nasals. American English listeners gave place of articulation judgments for audio-only and audio-visual tokens ending in nasal consonants ornasalized vowels. In the first and second experiments, we embedded recorded tokens of CVN (N = /m/, /n/, or /ng/) words in masking noise and presented them in audio-only and audio-visual trials. We also synthesized placeless nasals by repeating pitch periods from the nasalized vowel to replace the finalconsonant in CVm with nasalized vowel (henceforth V~). These stimuli provide a direct test of Ohala's acoustic explanation of coda velarity in nasals. The third and fourth experiments extended these results with tokens in which the last portion of CVN (N = /m/, /n/, or /ng/) and CV~ syllables were obscured with masking noise. These experiments were designed to force listeners to assume the existence of a final consonant and to rely primarily on visual cues in a more direct test of the visual similarity of nasalized vowels and velar nasals. Taken together, the results of these four experiments suggest that excrescent coda nasals tend to be velar because nasalized vowels are both acoustically and visually similar to velarnasals.

Vocalic context as a condition for nasal coda emergence: aerodynamic evidence

Nasal coda emergence (NCE) (sometimes referred to as ‘restoration’) is the process by which a nasal vowel develops an excrescent nasal coda which may or may not have been present in an earlier form of the spoken language. NCE is operative in the Carioca (Rio de Janeiro) dialect of Brazilian Portuguese (CBP), an Ibero-Romance language with five phonemically nasal vowels. The output of NCE (in this language) is usually a velar nasal. It has been suggested that the process may be a function of tongue position (Hajek 1991: 262). To test the null hypothesis that NCE does not correlate with vowel height or anteriority, aerodynamic (nasal and oral flow) signals were obtained from three speakers of CBP. The speakers uttered words ending in nasal vowels while wearing a circumferentially-vented pneumotach split-flow air mask. For comparative purposes, parallel data were gathered from a Hindi and a French speaker as well. The maximum nasal percentage of total flow and the maximum real nasal flow (in ml/s) were measured for each token, averaged across vowels and, in the case of CBP, across speakers. For CBP, the null hypothesis is rejected, lending support to the alternative: vowel height and posteriority indeed condition the emergence of NCE. This suggests a role for the lowered velum and/or raised tongue body in the development of coda obstruents on nasal vowels.