Phonological Categories Research Articles

Individual-level cross-linguistic comparisons in Toronto Cantonese and English high vowels

Previous studies of Toronto Heritage Cantonese have suggested the lack of a similar phonological contrast in English as the source of cross-linguistic influence on the phonetic production of the /y/ vs. /u/ contrast in Cantonese. By comparing both the English and Cantonese production of the same individual speakers in spontaneous speech recordings, this study addresses Chang’s (2021) call for more bilingual studies focused on individual-level cross-linguistic interactions. Results show three distinct patterns of cross-linguistic interaction: P1) three distinct vowels, P2) Cantonese /u/ merged with English /u/, and P3) Cantonese /y/ merged with English /u/. While P1 was the most frequently occurring pattern, the occurrence of P3 exclusively among second-generation speakers, among those with lower Cantonese Production Scores, and among those with the lowest Pillai Scores suggest that cross-linguistic phonetic similarity is what drives decreased acoustic distance between /y/ and /u/ rather than direct transfer of phonological categories.

Allophonic Variation in Romance Languages: Categorical and Gradient Processes

The distinction between categorical phonological alternations and gradual phonetic processes is an important one in the study of sound systems. However, the correct classification of specific phenomena as belonging to phonology or to phonetics is often difficult. In recent years some researchers have argued that many processes traditionally understood as phonological alternations actually belong to the realm of gradient phonetics. Here I focus on consonant lenition phenomena in Spanish and other Romance languages and examine the potential arguments for their traditional analysis as alternations between phonological categories.

A Cognitive View on Prosodic Relations

The paper presents a new F0 contour partitioning approach by using the category of prosodic relations also used by Ladd (2008) for improving the F0 contour descriptions based on phonological categories. The new approach involves a cognitive view on the low-high and high-low ’metrical’ structures of prosodic relations, by relating them to the structures of cognitive relations generated during speech object representations at the cortical level. In section 2, the paper presents the information structure model by defining the cognitive categories that describes prosodic relations of F0 contours involving their two overlapped structures and nuclear positions. CU_predicate-CU_argument and CU_theme-CU_rheme are the two structural levels of prosodic relations. The model proposes a binary-tree hierarchy to describe the articulation of prosodic relations within utterances. Two rules are formulated for the identification of nuclear constituents of prosodic relations. The utterances analysed in section 3 illustrate how prosodic and prominence relations can be identified by analysing acoustic cues of their F0 contours. Utterances correspond to English borad focus and narrow focus statements. Focus positions are deduced by only using the rule of the cognitive model.

Phonation types and morpho-phonological structure as linguistic prerequisites of tonogenesis

This paper provides a systematic account of tonogenesis. The emergence of tone is a process of pitch upgrading from an accompanying feature of phonation types to a distinctive feature. It involves three linguistic processes: various phonation types, clear, breathy, falsetto, etc., which intrinsically induce pitch differences; sonorous monosyllabic morpheme structure that enhances the pitch differences; and phonologization, which conceptualizes the enhanced pitch differences to a phonological category, tone. A flowchart is designed to show how the preconditions lead to different phono morphological types of the world’s languages and finally output tone and its later development Furthermore, the geographic distributions and ecological constraints of non-modal voices and tone are explored

Perceptual adaptation to unfamiliar dialect variation

Regional varieties of a language often differ in the phonetic realization of shared phonological categories, resulting in perceptual ambiguity. In perceptual tasks, listeners with more exposure to regional dialect variation perform differently than listeners with less exposure, reflecting underlying differences in lexical competition. In this study, we examined perceptual adaptation to one authentic dialect of American English and one novel dialect to test for adaptation to unfamiliar variation. Our materials contained contrasts that are perceptually ambiguous in Southern American English and in the novel dialect we created, in which linguistically trained bilinguals substituted English /ow/ with Spanish /o/. Participants heard a familiarization passage spoken in a Southern or Novel dialect and then completed an auditory lexical decision task. Adaptation was assessed by differences in accuracy and response times for each vowel contrast, talker dialect, and familiarization dialect. Results revealed lower accuracy and slower response times for both target contrasts when pronounced in their respective dialects. These effects reflect the difficulty in processing perceptually ambiguous stimuli. Familiarization dialect had no effect on accuracy or response times; future analyses will include quantification of listener regional dialect exposure to better assess its influence on processing novel variation.

INTERFERENSI BAHASA MELAYU MALAYSIA DALAM BERBAHASA INDONESIA MANTAN TKI DI DUSUN TANAH EJA KABUPATEN BULUKUMBA

This study aims to: (1) describe the phonological interference form of speech of former migrant workers in Tanah Eja Hamlet, Bulukumba Regency; and (2) describe the form of semantic interference of former migrant workers' speech in Tanah Eja hamlet, Bulukumba Regency. This type of research is qualitative research. This research was conducted in Tanah Eja hamlet, Bulukumba Regency, South Sulawesi. The focus of this research and the limitations of this research include tuturain kaita that experience interference, then studied in the semaintic category that is only related to lexical meaning. As for the phonological category, three types of phonological interference will be focused, namely phonological interference, phoneme changes, phoneme addition, and phoneme reduction / removal interference. The source of this research data was obtained by dairi haisil waiwaincairai laingsung maintain TKI in Tainaih Ejai Kaibupaiten Bulukumba hamlet. Data collection techniques through interview techniques, voice recording techniques, listening techniques and recording techniques. The research instrument consists of the main instrument is the researcher himself and supporting instruments include voice recorders, respondent biodata questionnaires, and interference data tables.The results revealed that from the results of direct interview research 15 respondents contained a total of 35 words phonological interference. The most abundant and frequent data is the category of changes in vowel phonemes in the middle of words. In addition, respondents were shown to experience semantic interference by obtaining 15 forms of conversation and 28 types of words that experienced interference, this conversation was quoted during structured and semi-structured interviews of former migrant workers in Tanah Eja hamlet.

Influence of the European Portuguese phonological system on the perception of close-mid and open-mid vowels

This study’s purpose was to analyse the influence of neutralisation on the perception of European Portuguese (EP) close-mid and open-mid vowels, and the gradient between the /i/, /e/, /ε/ and /a/ phonological categories. A fuzzy boundary between mid-vowels has been described in the phonological systems of various languages including EP, a variety of Portuguese with complex phonological phenomena and exceptional realisations of vowels in different contexts. Fifteen listeners from Lisbon participated in two tasks: Identification and goodness rating of 20 random repetitions of 31 stimuli from a /i/-/e/-/ε/-/a/ continuum. The boundaries between categories in the identification task, the internal structures of each category and the gradient of each boundary in the goodness rating task were analysed. Logistic regression was used to analyse the individual responses of listeners and the internal structure of phonemic categories, and prototypes were determined using bubble charts of goodness scores. The gradient of boundaries was analysed using two sets of data: X responses and goodness ratings. Models of the gradients of transition were developed using a mixed effects regression approach. Results from the identification task showed four vowel categories marked by three distinct boundaries. The stimulus with the highest score was approximately in the centroid and the goodness score decreased as the stimulus moved away from the centroid, which constitutes new evidence of an internal structure of the phonemic categories in EP. The main implications of the results obtained are for the description and typology of phonological phenomena in EP, supporting the existence of a non-partial contrast (which does not neutralise in any context) between /ε/ and /a/, and revealing less robust /i/-/e/ and /e/-/ε/ phonemic oppositions.

Modularity, Dependency and the Description of a Syntactic and a Phonological Category

Modularity, Dependency and the Description of a Syntactic and a Phonological Category

Can L2 Pronunciation Be Evaluated without Reference to a Native Model? Pillai Scores for the Intrinsic Evaluation of L2 Vowels

In this article, we explore the possibility of evaluating L2 pronunciation, and, more specifically, L2 vowels, without referring to a native model, i.e., intrinsically. Instead of comparing L2 vowel productions to native speakers’ productions, we use Pillai scores to measure the overlap between target vowel categories in L2 English (/iː/ — /ɪ/, /ɑː/ — /æ/, /ɜː/ — /ʌ/, /uː/ — /ʊ/) for L1 French, L1 Spanish, and L1 Italian learners (n = 40); and in L2 French (/y/ — /u/, /ø/ — /o/, /ø/ — /e/, /ɛ˜/ — /e /, /ɑ˜/ — /a/, /ɔ˜/ — /o/) for L1 English, L1 Spanish, and L1 Italian learners (n = 48). We assume that a greater amount of overlap within a contrast indicates assimilated categories in a learner’s production, whereas a smaller amount of overlap indicates the establishment of phonological categories and distinct realisations for members of the contrast. Pillai scores were significant predictors of native ratings of comprehensibility and/or nativelikeness for many of the contrasts considered. Despite some limitations and caveats, we argue that Pillai scores and similar methods for the intrinsic evaluation of L2 pronunciation can be used, (i) to avoid direct comparisons of L2 users’ performance with native monolinguals, following recent trends in SLA research; (ii) when comparable L1 data are not available; (iii) within longitudinal studies to track the progressive development of new phonological categories.

Phonological mediation effects in imitation of the Mandarin flat-falling tonal continua

Phonetic imitation has been found to be mediated by phonological contrast. For features whose values vary around a phonological prototype, the imitation is distorted by the phonological category, i.e., the imitation is nonlinear. This phonological mediation effect was mostly found in segmental features such as VOT and formants. Supra-segmental features, on the contrary, are generally found to be easy to imitate, i.e., the imitation is linear. Nevertheless, whether the phonological effect exists in the imitation of supra-segmental features is not fully understood. This study, through an imitation experiment of Mandarin flat-falling tonal continua, examined whether a supra-segmental feature would be linearly imitated when it is the primary cue (F0 range) and the non-primary cue (duration) to the tonal contrast, respectively. Results showed that F0 range imitation was non-linear while duration imitation was linear. This reveals that the phonological effect is stronger in mediating imitation than would be predicted by the general hypothesis that supra-segmental features are easier to imitate.

Questioning questions - the perception of f0 scaling in German questions between categorical function and continuous attitude.

In previous studies comparing the intonation of questions and statements in German, greater f0 excursions of phrase-final rises have been associated with questions in both read speech and spontaneous speech. This holds for production studies as well as perception studies. However, a major question remains whether these differences are perceived categorically or continuously. Furthermore, we ask whether the differences in f0 scaling correspond to categorical linguistic functions or rather an attitudinal continuum. We conducted three different perception experiments: a classical categorical perception task, an imitation task, and a semantic evaluation task. The results suggest that f0 scaling in phrase-final rises is perceived as a phonetic continuum rather than in phonological categories. Furthermore, the gradual increase of the final rise is associated with a gradual increase in perceived questioning. Lastly, the phonetic cues to this degree of questioning are distinct from those to the other investigated meanings surprise and uncertainty. Accordingly, this study supports the assumption that questioning constitutes an attitudinal meaning in its own right.

Phonetic Dissimilarity and L2 Category Formation in L2 Accommodation.

Many studies of speech accommodation focus on native speakers with different dialects, whereas only a limited number of studies work on L2 speakers' accommodation and discuss theories for second language (L2) accommodation. This paper aimed to fill the theoretical gap by integrating the revised speech learning model (SLM) with the exemplar-based models for L2 speech accommodation. A total of 19 Cantonese-English bilingual speakers completed map tasks with English speakers of Received Pronunciation and General American English in two separate experiments. Their pronunciations of THOUGHT and PATH vowels, and fricatives [z] and [θ] were examined before, during, and after the map tasks. The role of phonetic dissimilarity in L2 accommodation and L2 category formation in the revised SLM (SLM-r) were tested. First, the results suggested that global phonetic dissimilarity cannot predict Hong Kong English (HKE) speakers' accommodation patterns. Instead, the segment-specific phonetic dissimilarity between participants and interlocutors was found to be positively correlated with the participants' degree of accommodation. In addition, HKE speakers who did not form a new L2 category of [z] were found to significantly accommodate toward their interlocutor, suggesting that L2 accommodation might not be constrained by phonological category. An integrated exemplar model for L2 accommodation is proposed to explain these findings.

The effect of orthography in Mandarin speakers’ production of English voiceless stops

This article provides a review of previous studies that have examined the effects of orthography on establishing contrastive phonological representations in second language acquisition and presents results from an original study on Mandarin speakers’ production of English stops investigating how the presence of orthography affects the production of phonological categories that involve allophony. English voiceless stops are canonically represented as aspirated [ph, th, kh] in word-initial/stressed onset positions but are realized as unaspirated [p, t, k] following /s/ and in unstressed, non-initial onset positions. The results of our imitation experiment showed that Mandarin speakers failed to correctly imitate the unaspirated allophones when presented with written input, and this orthographic effect was stronger with nonwords than with real words. These results are best explained by an orthography effect mediated by phonological awareness and prior linguistic experience.

Multimodal cues to intonational categories: Gesture apex coordination with tonal events

This study argues for a multimodal view of the identification, representation, and implementation of intonational structure, with evidence from gesture apex-tone coordination in Turkish. Many studies have reported consistent synchronisation of atomic prominence markers across modalities (i.e., pitch accents and gesture apexes). This is prima facie evidence that gesture and prosody are implemented together, and therefore the former can play a role in the identification and perception of the latter through apex-tone synchronisation. However, only few studies considered the full intonational context when investigating synchronisation (e.g., potential alignment of apexes with boundary tones). This is particularly relevant for Turkish as there is disagreement in the literature about whether all words in Turkish bear a pitch accent. In this study, we test the synchronisation of apexes with all intonational events in Turkish natural speech data annotated for gesture and prosody, resulting in 820 gesture apex and 3697 tonal event annotations. The study uses syllable duration (160ms) to determine synchronisation between these anchors via equivalence tests while also integrating gestural and prosodic context as factors that can affect the temporal distance between these units through mixed-effects linear regression. The findings showed that apexes were chiefly synchronised with pitch accents (71%), indicating that prominence was the primary constraint for synchronisation. However, analysis of cases with no prosodic prominence provides the first evidence for a hierarchical constraint on synchronisation, since apexes were preferentially synchronised with the tones marking prosodic words (76%) and not with the markers of prosodic constituents higher in the hierarchy. This finding supports the claim that there may be accentless words in Turkish since the absence of prominence caused a systematic shift in the synchronisation behaviour of apexes. More generally, the study shows how multimodal evidence from gesture can be used in the identification of phonological categories, and that prosodic structure is likely to be expressed through multimodal cues as a composite signal.

The Influence of Native Phonology, Allophony, and Phonotactics on Nonnative Lexical Encoding: A Vocabulary Training Study

AbstractSecond language (L2) speakers often experience difficulties in learning words with L2‐specific phonemes due to the unfaithful lexical encoding predicted by the fuzzy lexical representations hypothesis. Currently, there is limited understanding of how allophonic variation in the first language (L1) influences L2 phonological and lexical encoding. We report how the Mandarin Chinese L1 phonemic inventory and allophonic variation subject to phonotactic constraints predict phonological encoding problems for novel L2 English words with the /v/–/w/ contrast. L1 English and L1 Chinese participants speaking two varieties of Mandarin Chinese differing as to the presence of [ʋ]–[w] allophonic variation for the /w/ phoneme participated in a vocabulary learning task. The novel L2 words with the /v/–/w/ contrast were systematically less robustly encoded than the control words on the day of training and 24 hours later. The degree of fuzziness in lexical representations was jointly predicted by L1 allophonic variation subject to phonotactic constraints and L2 phonological categorization.

Sound Change in Albanian Monolinguals and Albanian–English Sequential Bilingual Returnees in Tirana, Albania

This research investigated contrastive perception of L1 phonological categories in Albanian–English bilinguals who returned to Albania after living abroad for over on average a decade. In Standard Albanian, there are phonemic contrasts between /c/ and /tʃ/, /ɫ/ and /l/, and /ɹ/ and /r/. These phonemic contrasts do not occur in English. Using a “real speech” binary minimal pair identification task, we compared the accuracy and response times of bilingual returnees against functional Albanian monolinguals who had never lived abroad. Results showed that (1) reaction times for /c/ versus /tʃ/ were longest for both groups, indicating that this contrast was “harder” than the other contrasts. Surprisingly, (2) bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in accurately identifying /c/ versus /tʃ/; and (3) no significant group differences were found for the other two phonemic contrasts. In combination with other research showing that Albanian is undergoing a merger of /c/ and /tʃ/, our findings suggest that this merger is more advanced in monolinguals than bilinguals—probably because the bilinguals were abroad when the merger started. Examination of variation within the bilinguals indicated that (4) the younger the speaker was when they left Albania, and the more recently they had returned, the lower their accuracy was in identifying the laterals. These phonological findings enhance our understanding of perceptual L1 attrition whilst underlining the need to examine language change in the country of origin in L1 attrition research.

Phonetic and phonological sound changes in an agent-based model

The focus of the study is an agent-based model (ABM) concerned with simulating phonological stability and change using real speech data from a population of speakers. At the core of the model was a flexible and agent-specific association between acoustic exemplars and phonological categories. This was achieved by means of two general-purpose unsupervised machine learning algorithms: the first grouped exemplars into acoustic clusters, the second identified sets of clusters which largely contain exemplars of the same word classes. The model was tested first on data from Standard Southern British English, where a shift of /u/ to the front of the vowel space was expected not to cause any phonological re-categorisation. The simulation indeed showed phonological stability despite the phonetic change. Using the same settings, the ABM was then applied to data from New Zealand English in which a merger of /eə, ɪə/ diphthongs has taken place in the last 50 years. Compatibly with that, the simulation showed a shift from /eə/ towards /ɪə/ along with the neutralisation of the diphthong contrast. The results are discussed with respect to the conditions necessary to model a merger, taking into account both findings on marginal phonological relationships and principles from exemplar theory.

UNDERSTANDING THE QIEYUN RHYMES

This article shows that the Qieyun rhymes are not necessarily different VC units (VC = vowel and ending), as initially defined by Karlgren in his work Études sur la phonologie chinoise (1915–1926). Karlgren’s mistake creates a serious problem in the reconstruction of the vowel system of Middle Chinese. In the proposed reconstructions so far, excessive vocalic distinctions are required. This problem is well acknowledged but no explanations and solutions have been convincingly provided. Based on the information from the poetry rhyming before and at the same time of the Qieyun, our analyses of the Qieyun rhymes with the -ŋ ending indicate that 1) not all the Qieyun rhymes are different VCs, and 2) some Qieyun rhymes are the preservation of historical categories. With the new understanding of the nature of the Qieyun rhymes, the required main vowels of Middle Chinese can be significantly reduced. The twelve Qieyun rhymes with -ŋ require only six main vowels. The observation that not all the Qieyun rhymes are different VCs can be supported by the recent distribution analyses of the Qieyun rhymes. A fundamental viewpoint of this article is that in the study of the phonological history of Chinese, what should be reconstructed is the phonological system of Middle Chinese instead of the so-called “Qieyun system”. Because the phonological categories contained in the Qieyun are neither synchronically systematic nor phonologically consistent, the Qieyun does not represent a single phonological system of any historical period in the phonological history of Chinese.

Intonational alignment in second language acquisition

This study examines whether proficient second language speakers of Belfast English and Northern Standard German accommodate on cross-linguistically different intonational phonological categories and their gradient phonetic implementation in a collaborative map task. Belfast English and Northern Standard German select two different intonation patterns for nuclear pitch accents in declarative utterances. Northern Standard German features a falling pitch accent pattern. In Belfast English, a rising intonation contour is realised. The experiment investigates the production of phonologically different pitch accents in declarative utterances, gradient acoustic characteristics of pitch range in utterance-final position and peak alignment in nuclear pitch accents. Evidence was found for accommodation for all three prosodic phenomena. However, the accommodation patterns were asymmetric in the Belfast English and the Northern Standard German groups of speakers. Furthermore, both phonologically contrastive characteristics and gradient phonetic acoustic detail appeared to be influenced by factors of linguistic function, perceptual salience and familiarity.

The ability to use contextual cues to achieve phonological constancy emerges by 14 months.

The ability to map similar sounding words to different meanings alone is far from enough for successful speech processing. To overcome variability in the speech signal, young learners must also recognize words across surface variations. Previous studies have shown that infants at 14 months are able to use variations in word-internal cues (i.e., acoustic cues within the target word) to form phonological categories and to learn words. The present study takes into consideration the fact that talker variability can easily lead to acoustic overlap between phonological categories, in which case reliance on word-external cues (i.e., acoustic cues in the context preceding and/or following the target word, also referred to as contextual cues) as a frame of reference is obligatory for successful talker adaptation. In a series of experiments, the present study examines when infants are able to use word-external cues to tune to different talkers for the benefit of word learning. Cantonese-learning 14-month-old, 18-month-old, and 24-month-old infants (N = 258) were tested on the associative learning of Cantonese Tone 1-Tone 3 contrast. Results showed that talker variability that yielded acoustic overlap between the two tonal categories compromised infants' ability to map the contrast onto word meanings. However, when given speaker-matched contextual cues, infants as young as 14 months of age demonstrated a certain degree of talker adaptation which may have subserved their use of phonetic details in novel word learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).