Phonemic Inventory Research Articles

Towards a New Reconstruction of the Proto-Yeniseian Sound System. Part II: Word-Final Consonants

Abstract We present correspondence sets involving word-final consonants and including all known members of the Yeniseian language family. A systematic application of the Comparative Method to these data yields the following results: (I) three different correspondence sets and, accordingly, three different Proto-Yeniseian phonemes each must be assumed for both Southern Ket word-final -t and -l’, (II) two different correspondence sets and, accordingly, two different Proto-Yeniseian phonemes must be assumed for Southern Ket word-final -s’, (III) the data indicate that one of the two Proto-Yeniseian liquids/rhotics developed in a similar way in Kott, Arin and Pumpokol. We do not see evidence for the postulation of lateral affricates, retroflex sounds or labialised velars as assumed for Proto-Yeniseian by S. Starostin or E. J. Vajda on macro-comparative grounds. The Proto-Yeniseian phonological system that can be reconstructed using Yeniseian data alone is simpler than previously published reconstructions of the Proto-Yeniseian phoneme inventory.

『경상남도지』의 ｢방언｣에 담긴 경남방언 연구

This article aims to closely examine the ‘Bangeon’ (1963:966-1029) included in the Kyungsangnamdoji published by the Kyungsangnam-do Compilation Committee in 1963 and to reveal the significance of this work in the context of the overall history of South Kyungsang dialect research. The ‘Bangeon’ proactively recognized dialects as "independent language variations" and attempted a synchronic description of the overall South Kyungsang dialect. This endeavor can be considered a groundbreaking achievement, as it overcame the atomistic research approach based on traditional historical linguistics. Meanwhile, the ‘Bangeon’ goes as far as to subdivide the South Kyungsang dialect by examining dialectal features such as the phoneme inventory and the distribution of grammatical morphemes in the South Kyungsang dialect. The fact that the research results of the ‘Bangeon’ are still validly referenced in discussions on this dialect to this day clearly demonstrates the noteworthiness of this work in the history of South Kyungsang dialect research.

The role of valence and arousal for phonological iconicity in the lexicon of German: a cross-validation study using pseudoword ratings

ABSTRACT The notion of sound symbolism receives increasing interest in psycholinguistics. Recent research – including empirical effects of affective phonological iconicity on language processing (Adelman et al., 2018; Conrad et al., 2022) – suggested language codes affective meaning at a basic phonological level using specific phonemes as sublexical markers of emotion. Here, in a series of 8 rating-experiments, we investigate the sensitivity of language users to assumed affectively-iconic systematic distribution patterns of phonemes across the German vocabulary: After computing sublexical-affective-values (SAV) concerning valence and arousal for the entire German phoneme inventory according to occurrences of syllabic onsets, nuclei and codas in a large-scale affective normative lexical database, we constructed pseudoword material differing in SAV to test for subjective affective impressions. Results support affective iconicity as affective ratings mirrored sound-to-meaning correspondences in the lexical database. Varying SAV of otherwise semantically meaningless pseudowords altered affective impressions: Higher arousal was consistently assigned to pseudowords made of syllabic constituents more often used in high-arousal words – contrasted by less straightforward effects of valence SAV. Further disentangling specific differential effects of the two highly-related affective dimensions valence and arousal, our data clearly suggest arousal, rather than valence, as the relevant dimension driving affective iconicity effects.

The phonology of A'ingae

AbstractA'ingae (or Cofán, ISO 639‐3: con) is an indigenous language isolate spoken in northeast Ecuador and southern Colombia. This paper presents the first comprehensive overview of the A'ingae phonology, including descriptions of (i) the language's phonemic inventory, (ii) phonotactics and a number of related phonological rules, (iii) nasality and nasal spreading, as well as (iv) stress, glottalisation, their morphophonology, and aspects of clause‐level prosody.

The Spanish Computer-Assisted Listening and Speaking Tutor

Abstract This article presents the Spanish version of the Computer-Assisted Listening and Speaking Tutor (CALST), an online platform that can be used to complement pronunciation training in the classroom. The Spanish CALST offers listening, speaking, and spelling exercises for Northern-Central Peninsular Spanish as an L2. Exercises are tailored by an automatic comparison with the learner’s native language based on a database of phonetically specified phoneme inventories for over 500 languages, with the result that learners with different L1s are exposed to different exercises adapted to their specific needs. In this article, we present a description of the exercises as well as the criteria used to develop Spanish content for CALST. We discuss the limitations of the platform, the logging of user results as a partial solution to these limitations, and the possible future use of the logged data to increase our understanding of L2 acquisition.

The Asymmetrical Stop Inventory of Witzapan Nawat

AbstractThe stop inventory of Witzapan Nawat, a critically endangered indigenous language of El Salvador, has been traditionally described as consisting only of a voiceless series /p t k kw/. In this paper, I measure the voice onset time, consonant duration, and percent voicing in stops produced by five L1 Witzapan Nawat speakers. I find that, while /p t kw/ have acoustic characteristics of voiceless stops in practically all contexts, the velar stop in this language is better analyzed as a voiced velar stop /ɡ/ rather than /k/. This results in an asymmetrical and unusual stop system that is not predicted by some theories of phonemic inventory structure. For instance, markedness-based theories propose that /ɡ/ is more marked that /b d/ and predict that, if a language has one voiced stop, it would be /b/ or /d/ rather than /ɡ/. On the other hand, feature-systemic models predict that, if a language has a stop with the [+voice] feature at a given place of articulation, it will also tend to have this feature in stops at other points of articulation to maximize feature economy. The phonemic inventory of Witzapan Nawat contradicts these predictions. I explain the asymmetrical stop inventory of this language as the result of diachronic developments involving sound change and analogy, concluding that language change does not necessarily advance towards symmetry and that phonemic inventories are the reflection of their diachrony, as proposed by Evolutionary Phonology.

INVENTARISASI FONEM BAHASA SERAM TIMUR DI MANOKWARI, PAPUA BARAT

This research aims to describe the inventory and distribution of phonemes in the East Seram language in Manokwari, West Papua. The data consists of 850 Swadesh core vocabularies obtained in the East Seram language from people from Seram Island who now live in Manokwari. Data sources were obtained from informants' responses or answers to questions asked by researchers both orally and in writing and summarized in a Swadesh list. The method used is descriptive qualitative. Data was collected in depth through direct interaction with informant subjects through observation, interviews, and audio recordings. The process of analyzing the data encompasses transcribing the data, creating a phoneme inventory, and categorizing sounds according to different features, such as articulation and distribution, to recognize vowel and consonant phonemes in the language of East Seram in Manokwari, West Papua. This process includes analyzing phoneme usage patterns in words in initial, middle, and final positions. The results of the data analysis concluded that the East Seram language in Manokwari, West Papua, has 23 segmental phonemes consisting of 18 consonants and five vowels (monophthongs). These phonemes are: p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /c/, /j/, /k/, /g/, /f/, /s/, /h/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /r/, /l/, /w/, /y/, a/, /i/, /u/, /e/ and /o/.

Sino-Tibetan *w in Tibetan and Old Chinese

Abstract From the perspective of Baxter’s (1992) Old Chinese (OC, which is generally followed by Schuessler 2009), the fate of a putative Sino-Tibetan (ST) *w in Tibetan and Old Chinese is quite straight-forward: In Tibetan *w was deleted everywhere in all environments; in word-initial position loss of *w‑ resulted in (smooth) vocalic onset, it is argued here that this feature is represented by the letter ’a-chung, e.g. ’oŋ ‘come’ from *waŋ; some such words have developed a new, or alternative, y-initial (e.g. yoŋ beside ’oŋ). Vocalic onset (with ’a-chung) is also the outcome of loss of other initial consonants (e.g. suffix ’u from bu). In Old Chinese *w survived only as part of labiovelars, in absolute word initial position (later Middle Chinese initial jwi̯-), and in configurations *hw‑ (voiceless *w), *ʔw‑ and *sw‑ (s-prefix). Drawn into the discussions are side-issues, like the elimination of *ɦ‑ from the Old Chinese phonemic inventory; OC final *-r metathesis, monophthongization in closed syllables, ST labiovelars, as well as a number of new etymologies. This paper confirms by and large the conclusions of Handel (2009) and Jacques (2013), but with some adjustments and elaborations.

HINDUSTANI DIALECT ANALYSIS AT PHONOLOGICAL LEVEL: SPOKEN IN WESTERN UTTAR PRADESH

The current study addresses the issue of insufficient phonological analysis of the Hindustani dialect spoken in the town of Atrauli, Aligarh district, Western Uttar Pradesh, India. Although there have been research on the phonology of numerous dialects in different places, no extensive analysis has been carried out in this particular case. This study employs William Labov's variationist paradigm as an experimental approach to define the phonemic inventory and analyse systematic patterns of variation in the Hindustani dialect spoken in Atrauli. The study is quantitative, using natural speech recordings to investigate how social factors like religion and age affect phonological variance. The study demonstrates that, while the dialect conforms to the Khari Boli phonemic inventory, distinct patterns of phonological variation are impacted by religion and age, demonstrating the importance of sociodemographic factors on language behaviour. The study suggests that these differences represent deeper social and cultural identities within the community, emphasising the significance of context-specific phonological research.

Exploring the impact of tonal inventory on speech perception across languages: a study of MMN responses in tonal language speakers.

Previous research on the perception of segmental features of languages has established a correlation between the phoneme inventory of a language and its speakers' perceptual abilities, as indexed by discrimination tasks and Mismatch Negativity (MMN). Building on this background, the current study elucidated the relationship between perceptual ability and tonal inventory by utilizing two tonal languages. Two groups of participants were included in the present experiment: Mandarin speakers and Hakka-Mandarin speakers. Onset latency analysis revealed a significant difference in the Mandarin syllable condition, with Hakka-Mandarin speakers demonstrating earlier MMN latency than Mandarin speakers. This suggests a more efficient auditory processing mechanism in Hakka-Mandarin speakers. Both groups, however, showed similar MMN latency in the Hakka syllable condition. The interaction between language background and syllable type indicates that other factors, such as syllable sonority, also influence MMN responses. These findings highlight the importance of considering multiple phonemic inventories and syllable characteristics in studies of tonal perception.

Lost in translation

Abstract Here, we provide new perspectives on the relationship between the extinct Angolan language Kwadi and the Khoe languages of southern Africa. Using an innovative approach which combines newly collected data from two Kwadi rememberers with a reanalysis of historical recordings and fieldnotes, we were able to reconstitute the Kwadi phoneme inventory and relate Kwadi to Proto-Khoe and its daughter branches Khoekhoe and Kalahari Khoe through regular sound correspondences. Our reconstruction of 127 lexical roots in form and meaning provides further evidence for a Khoe-Kwadi language family and shows that the lexical and phonological proximity between Proto-Khoe-Kwadi and Proto-Khoe is closer than would be expected from the significant differences that Khoe and Kwadi display in the domains of morphology and syntax. Taken together, our study contributes to a better understanding of diachronic sound change in languages with phonemic click sounds and introduces novel ways to incorporate different historical data sources.

Realisation, elision and intrusion of /h/ in French learners of English

As the phonological systems of English and French diverge both at the segmental level and at the prosodic level, French learners encounter difficulties with English pronunciation. One example is the glottal fricative /h/ since it is absent from the French phonemic inventory–with the exception of the onomatopoeia “haha” to express laughter. Following studies by Exare (2017) and Kamiyama et al. (2011), this paper aims to provide further empirical evidence of the realisation, elision, and intrusion of /h/ in French speakers’ English productions. The learners were university students who did not major in English. The participants were given three tasks, i.e., word reading, sentence reading, and spontaneous speech. Auditory analyses were then carried out by the researcher. Results show four speaker-profiles: (1) /h/ is absent altogether; (2) /h/ is accurately realised; (3) /h/ is accurately realised in addition to regular occurrences of intrusive /h/; (4) only intrusive /h/ occurs. Although the speaking task has an influence on intra-speaker variability, intra-speaker consistency has been observed, with participants belonging to one of the above learner-profiles. Also of interest were the differences between men and women. These results suggest that different teaching strategies should be established to better suit the needs of the different profiles.

Contact influence in the Tjhauba variety of Kgalagadi

Tjhauba, spoken in northwestern Botswana, is a regional variety of the Bantu language Kgalagadi. Tjhauba exhibits a number of striking linguistic differences with respect to other, previously described Kgalagadi varieties, some the result of language-internal changes, but mostly due to contact with different surrounding Khoisan and Bantu languages. Making use of newly collected field data, this paper shows that Tjhauba has an extensive inventory of click phonemes, contrasting different click accompaniments and, in the speech of elderly speakers, also different click types. Tracing the sources of Tjhauba click words shows that these originate in different Khoisan languages, but also in the Bantu click language Yeyi. Semantically, click words, but also loanwords that do not contain clicks, cluster in the domain of flora and fauna, particularly species found in or close to water. These linguistic findings also shed light on the history of Tjhauba speakers. The adoption of a large number of click phonemes suggests intensive language contact, as still evidenced by ongoing Tjhauba/Khwe bilingualism. A number of the likely source languages for Tjhauba click words are no longer spoken in the area, suggesting contact situations that are no longer ongoing. Furthermore, clicks occur in loanwords, but unlike in neighbouring Bantu click languages, there is no evidence that clicks were also extended to inherited Tjhauba words. This suggests that the sound symbolic or identity marking functions of clicks as posited for other Bantu click languages do not play a role in Tjhauba.

Variation in phoneme inventories: quantifying the problem and improving comparability

Abstract For over a century, the phoneme has played a central role in linguistic research. In recent years, collections of phoneme inventories, originally designed for cross-linguistic purposes, have increasingly been used in comparative studies involving neighbouring disciplines. Despite the extended application of this type of data, there has been no research into its comparability or tests of its reliability. In this study, we carry out a systematic comparison of nine popular phoneme inventory collections. We render them comparable by linking them to standardised formats for the handling of cross-linguistic datasets, develop new measures to test both size and similarity, and release the organised data in supplementary material. We find considerable differences in inventories supposedly representing the same language variety, both in terms of size and transcriptional choices. While some of these differences appear to be predictable, reflecting design decisions in the different collections, much of the observed variation is unsystematic. These results should sound a note of caution for comparative studies based on phoneme inventories, which we suggest need to take the question of comparability more seriously. We make a number of proposals for improving the comparability of phoneme inventories.

Phonological acquisition depends on the timing of speech sounds: Deconvolution EEG modeling across the first five years

The late development of fast brain activity in infancy restricts initial processing abilities to slow information. Nevertheless, infants acquire the short-lived speech sounds of their native language during their first year of life. Here, we trace the early buildup of the infant phoneme inventory with naturalistic electroencephalogram. We apply the recent method of deconvolution modeling to capture the emergence of the feature-based phoneme representation that is known to govern speech processing in the mature brain. Our cross-sectional analysis uncovers a gradual developmental increase in neural responses to native phonemes. Critically, infants appear to acquire those phoneme features first that extend over longer time intervals—thus meeting infants’ slow processing abilities. Shorter-lived phoneme features are added stepwise, with the shortest acquired last. Our study shows that the ontogenetic acceleration of electrophysiology shapes early language acquisition by determining the duration of the acquired units.

PHONOTACTIC AND PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM IN KEMPO AND S>H KOLANG SUBDIALECTS

This study explores the phonological system in the Kempo subdialect (MSdK) and S>H Kolang subdialect (MSdS>H) in West Manggarai Regency. The study was conducted at nine survey sites by interviewing 200 vocabularies compiled by Swadesh. I analyzed the data by comparing the phonological systems between the two subdialects and formulating the possibilities of their occurrence in the word. The results show that the two subdialects have slightly different phonological systems. They have a different inventory of vowel phonemes: 15 consonant sounds in MSdK and 17 consonant sounds in MSdS>H. This study also found three non-pulmonic consonant phonemes in the two subdialects: bilabial /ɓ/, Alveolar /ɗ/, and Velar /ɠ/. In the case of the two subdialects, the non-pulmonic consonant phonemes have unique characteristics: (1) appearing in the initial and middle positions of words, making it impossible for three pulmonic consonants (i.e., consonants /b/, /d/, and /g /) to appear in the initial position. The existence of the three consonant phonemes only appears when at the beginning of the word, it is preceded by another consonant forming a cluster and located on the first syllable (i.e., /mb/, /nd/, and /ŋg/). The two subdialects also have a relatively similar inventory of vocal phonemes: 6 vowel phonemes. Diphthongs are almost identical between the two subdialects, 7 diphthongs which only appear in mono-syllable words and are located at the end of words. In contrast, two additional diphthongs in MSdS>H appear in two-syllable words and the middle position of the word.

Differential substitution: a contrastive hierarchy account

In this article, I tackle the question of differential substitution in L2 phonology. A classic example of the phenomenon is learners from different L1s attempting to acquire the L2 English interdental fricative /θ/. Speakers of some languages (e.g., Japanese) tend to pronounce the /θ/ as [s] while speakers of other languages (e.g., Russian) tend to pronounce the /θ/ as [t]). Since both Japanese and Russian have both /s/ and /t/ in their phonemic inventories, it is interesting to ask why one language would choose [s] and the other [t]. What I argue in this article is that it is not a local comparison of two sounds, two features, or two phonemes that will determine why one segment rather than another is substituted. Rather, I argue that we must consider the formal representation of the entire segmental inventory (represented as a contrastive hierarchy) in order to understand why the Japanese pick the [s] but the Russian the [t] as the “best” substitute for the English /θ/. What I will demonstrate is that in the languages that substitute [s], [continuant] is the highest-ranked feature that has scope over the place and voice features in the contrastive hierarchy of phonological features. In the languages that substitute [t], the place and voice features rank above [continuant].

The language dependency of /m/ in native Dutch and non-native English.

In forensic speaker comparisons, the current practice is to try to avoid comparisons between speech fragments in different languages. However, globalization requires an exploration of individual speech features that may show phonetic consistency across a speaker's languages. We predicted that the bilabial nasal /m/ may be minimally affected by the language spoken due to the involvement of the rigid nasal cavity in combination with a lack of fixed oral articulatory targets. The results show that indeed, L1 Dutch speakers (N = 53) had similar nasal formants and formant bandwidths when speaking in their L2 English as in their native language, suggesting language-independency of /m/ within speakers. In fact, acoustics seemed to rely more on the phonetic context than on the language spoken. Nevertheless, caution should still be exercised when sampling across languages when the languages' phoneme inventories and phonotactics show substantial differences.

Scale in Language.

A central concern of the cognitive science of language since its origins has been the concept of the linguistic system. Recent approaches to the system concept in language point to the exceedingly complex relations that hold between many kinds of interdependent systems, but it can be difficult to know how to proceed when "everything is connected." This paper offers a framework for tackling that challenge by identifying *scale* as a conceptual mooring for the interdisciplinary study of language systems. The paper begins by defining the scale concept-simply, the possibility for a measure to be larger or smaller in different instances of a system, such as a phonemic inventory, a word's frequency value in a corpus, or a speaker population. We review sites of scale difference in and across linguistic subsystems, drawing on findings from linguistic typology, grammatical description, morphosyntactic theory, psycholinguistics, computational corpus work, and social network demography. We consider possible explanations for scaling differences and constraints in language. We then turn to the question of *dependencies between* sites of scale difference in language, reviewing four sample domains of scale dependency: in phonological systems, across levels of grammatical structure (Menzerath's Law), in corpora (Zipf's Law and related issues), and in speaker population size. Finally, we consider the implications of the review, including the utility of a scale framework for generating new questions and inspiring methodological innovations and interdisciplinary collaborations in cognitive-scientific research on language.

Standard Lithuanian

The Lithuanian language, together with Latvian, belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family and to the group of Eastern Baltic languages. The two surviving Baltic languages have many common features of phonemic inventories: opposition of long and short vowels, an abundance of diphthongs, a system of pitch accent. They have also developed substantial differences, e.g. Latvian has fixed stress and a set of palatal consonants, while Lithuanian has free (distinctive) stress and a phonological opposition between palatalized and non-palatalized consonants (Poliakovas 2008: 9, 42; Dini 2019: 577; Jaroslavienė et al. 2019: 263; Gelumbeckaitė & Pakerys 2020). In contrast to other Indo-European languages, the Baltic languages have lost j between a consonant and a front vowel, and have preserved m, rather than assimilated it, before the dental consonants d, t, which has not become n1 (Endzelynas 1957: 8). Lithuanian has preserved the manner of articulation of Indo-European plosive consonants (Bonfante 2008: 40). As a result of the continuous and long-lasting contact of Baltic with Slavic languages, these language groups also share common linguistic features (discussed later).