Phonological Variants Research Articles

Learning linguistic diversity: Listeners have race-based linguistic expectations, but only for phonological variation.

In three artificial language experiments, we explored the rate at which adults learned associations between linguistic variation and speaker characteristics. Within each of the experiments, we observed that listeners sociolinguistic learning occurred, regardless of whether the speaker characteristic is social (race and sex/gender) or nonsocial (hat wearing), or whether they heard a phonological or morphological variant. However, we found that listener's initial expectations of what social properties were predictive of linguistic variation differed, impacting overall performance. First, participants were much more likely to assume that a phonological variant was predicted by a social property than a nonsocial property (Experiment 1). Most interestingly, participants were more likely to privilege speaker race than sex/gender, but only in the case of a phonological variant (Experiments 2 and 3). The same effect was found in both White and Black participants, though White participants were more likely to correctly articulate which speaker characteristic explained the variation, suggesting that sociolinguistic learning hinges on real-world experiences with language and social diversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

¿Soy de Ribera o Rivera?: Sociolinguistic /b/-/v/ Variation in Rivera Spanish

This study investigates the impact of language contact on three generations of bilingual Spanish and Uruguayan Portuguese speakers in Rivera City, Uruguay, located on the Uruguayan–Brazilian border. Focusing on the confirmed presence of the Portuguese-like/b/and/v/phonemic distinction, and the lower frequency of the Montevideo Spanish-like approximantized stops in Riverense Spanish (RS), the research examines the production of <v> and <b> in 29 female Rivera Spanish bilinguals belonging to different age groups. More specifically, the aim was to see if the previously observed differential use of language-specific phonological variants could be accounted for by using precise measurements of relative intensity, duration, and voicing coupled with a distributional analysis of realizations derived from auditory coding. At the same time, their production is compared to that of 30 monolingual Montevideo Spanish (MS) speakers, who served as the control group, offering a first description of the production of <v> and <b> within this distinct Rioplatense Spanish variety. Riverense’s higher overall relative intensity, duration, and voicing values support auditory coding results, providing evidence of the expected phonological differences between both Uruguayan Spanish varieties. In particular, an exclusive presence of fricative/v/and less approximantization of/b/in RS speech exposed the influence of Portuguese in Rivera bilinguals and their divergence from MS. In addition, as predicted, the findings reveal a higher presence of Portuguese-like productions of [v] and [b] in older bilinguals when compared to younger generations. This illustrates a continuum from Portuguese-like forms to Spanish-like forms, which is confirmed by both acoustic and distributional analyses. Finally, evidence of the existence of innovative forms resulting from mixing Portuguese and Spanish phonological systems in RS are presented. This study’s findings contribute to sociolinguistics and bilingualism by exposing cross-linguistic influence in a border setting with rigorous analytical methods that offer reliable results and go beyond a basic analysis based on auditory identification.

The GeSCA repository: Gesture and Sign Corpus of Australia

ABSTRACT The Monash node of the LDaCA project has established the GeSCA repository for researchers to deposit multimodal video-based annotated corpora collected in Australia or the Asia Pacific region – both for sign languages and for spoken languages where multimodal features have been annotated. In this article we discuss three initial datasets augmented and deposited as part of this project which include the newly expanded Auslan Corpus of over 300 h of annotated digital video of naturalistic signing; the innovative Australian Deafblind Signing Corpus; and a new version of the online multimedia dictionary of Auslan, called Signbank, which now has over 7,500 entries (including phonological variants), definitions and hyperlinks between entries that are synonyms or antonyms. In this paper we will describe the composition of these datasets, some research findings made possible only by the existence of the corpora, and the linking of Signbank with the Auslan Corpus which enables users of the dictionary to view attested examples in the corpus, and annotators in the corpus to jump to dictionary entries, based on user defined phonological searches or keyword searches, so they can identify the correct sign in their annotations. Finally, we elaborate on the benefits of this new setup for future language research.

An Interpretation of Pygmalion from the Perspective of Language Variation

Based on the Labov’s phonological variant theory and Halliday’s register theory, the knowledge of sociolinguistics and linguistic variation, this study analyzes the dialogues between the Higgins and Liza in Pygmalion, aiming to reflect the process of language learning and the influence of social factors on the formation of language. From the perspective of language variation, this paper analyzes the characters and their language in Pygmalion from the perspectives of regional variation, class variation, gender variation and language change, aiming at exploring the importance of language in shaping social identity, revealing the slight or obvious changes as the time changing, and displaying the charm of language.

영어 무성치경폐쇄음의 기식음화와 성문음화의 자질 보존성 관계 연구

This study is to argue that the choice between aspiration and glottalization of /t/ by speakers in the same phonological environment can be influenced by differences in the ranking of feature preservation constraints. Besides, I propose that if Korean learners of English tend to produce aspiration in environments where glottalization are prevalent, it results from applying the constraint favoring listener's perceptive ease being ranked higher than that favoring speaker's articulatory ease. Allophones of /t/ can vary even among native speakers due to different sociolinguistic factors. When Korean learners of English apply the constraint of [aspirated] feature preservation at a high ranking, with the intention of enhancing listener's perception, pronunciation errors may occur. Also, if they rank high the constraint for avoiding consonant cluster, which is not allowed in Korean language, they can produce awkward pronunciation. Therefore, by analyzing aspiration and glottalization of /t/ through Optimality Theory, this paper aims to demonstrate that the reason English /t/ exhibits more phonological variants and allophones is attributed to the low feature preservation it holds.

A note on Middle High German lengthening and related developments in diachronic perspective

The aim of this paper is to present a detailed analysis of the relevant material concerning lengthening of the Middle High German short accented vowels with a view to establishing the actual conditions under which this change operated. Special attention is given to the relevant, controversial developments in an open syllable, where lengthening is shown to have been regular not only before voiced consonants but also before the only available voiceless consonant, namely /t/. Apparent exceptions with a short vowel are shown to reflect phonological variants inherited from earlier stages of the language. The whole phenomenon of lengthening is discussed in a diachronic perspective which involves other changes, such as diphthongization, monophthongization, and shortening. Moreover, the conditioned mergers of the relevant short vowels with their long counterparts are presented in the wider context of the subsequent development of the Middle High German vowels, with special regard to the changes that affected /e/, /ɛ/, /æ/ and /e:/, /æ:/.

A quantitative approach to doublets in Russian denominal adjective construction

This article is devoted to the rivalry between suffixes in the derivation of denominal adjectives in Russian. In particular, it proposes a large-scale quantitative analysis based on the Russian National Corpus. Its main goal is to contribute to identifying the properties that determine the choice of the suffix in these derivatives. Denominal adjectival derivation in Russian makes use of a wide variety of exponents. Most of them are phonological variants (extensions) of three main suffixes, - n-, - sk- and - Ov-. These three, which can be considered as basic, constitute the focus of our analysis. Two datasets were built for this research, a general one containing one of the suffixes above, and a more specific one containing doublets, which is to say, adjectives constructed on the same base with different suffixes. Data from the two sets are analyzed by means of various statistical models. Our results globally provide a quantitatively robust confirmation of observations previously made in the literature. In particular, we show that -n- occupies a specific position in the derivational system of Russian, as it is less productive and its derivatives are tendentially less transparent and more prone to display lexicalized meanings that point towards the qualitative pole of the qualitative-relational semantic spectrum. Moreover, - sk- and - Ov- are more likely to form doublets (be attached to the same bases), a further argument in favor of a greater homogeneity between them as opposed to - n-.

Phonological Variants of the Old Egyptian Particle sk/sT in the Biographies of Wnj

In 2012, excavations by the French Archaeological Mission at Saqqara uncovered several blocks bearing an inscription with remarkable parallels to the well-known biography of the Sixth Dynasty official Wnj from Abydos. These parallels led Philippe Collombert to identify the owner of the Saqqara blocks, named Nfr-wn-Mrjj-Ro, with the aforementioned Wnj. Despite their strong parallels, the two versions of the same text show a slight but interesting difference: the subordinating particle is written sk in the Saqqara version but sT in the Abydos version. These two texts then can form the core of a case study to examine these particular phonological variants in Old Egyptian texts. In this article, I will provide a brief overview of the ⟨k⟩ > ⟨T⟩ phonological change of Early Egyptian, and then discuss other attestations of the particle sk/sT to attempt to illuminate the linguistic context for this particular change in the texts of Wnj. Finally, I will suggest a possible explanation for this change, with the linguistic analysis informed by the historical and textual background of both texts – that of an official moving his tomb away from the Capital Zone and adopting a non-Capital Zone socio-dialect in the process. The investigation of this particular sound change illustrates some of the (not insurmountable) challenges of historical linguistic studies of Old Egyptian.

Epenthesis: The Movement of the Urdu Alveolar-Fricative Sound into the Punjabi Palatal-Affricate Sound

Pakistan is a multilingual country where the Urdu language serves as lingua franca. Although Urdu is the national and official language of Pakistan, it bears the status of the second language (L2) in most of the regions due to the dominance of regional languages. The Punjabi language is the first language (L1) of the people of Punjab. This study intends to investigate the interlanguage influence and extralinguistic factors of phonological variants produced in the process of epenthesis of Punjabi palatal-affricate (/dʒ/) with the deletion of Urdu alveolar-fricative (/z/). The analysis of this study has been conducted using PRAAT software which proved that the native Punjabi speakers replace the /z/ sound with the /dʒ/ sound no matter if it occurs at the start, middle, or the end of a word. Moreover, this process of epenthesis is the result of the influence of the native language, i.e. Punjabi. The outcome of the analysis indicates that the gender and dwelling (urban or rural) of the participants have nothing to do with epenthesis. However, the education of the participants is the main reason for epenthesis.

A variationist analysis of first-person-singular subject expression in Louisiana French

AbstractIn this study, we investigate first-person-singular subject expression in Louisiana French. This variety is undergoing language death and features extreme variation, with twelve first-person-singular subject forms identified within our corpus. We demonstrate that variationist methods are robust for examining such variation in obsolescing languages, and we provide a model for undertaking such analyses. Examining different aspects of our data, we fit two mixed-effects models, one that analyzes the four most frequent phonological variants of the atonic pronounje‘I’ and the other that focuses on the tonic pronounmon‘me.’ Several linguistic and social factors predict the use of these subject forms, supporting the claim that variability in declining languages is systematic, just as variation in healthy languages is. We argue that variationist methodologies have contributions to make to research on obsolescing languages and that variationist examinations of endangered and minority languages can provide methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of language variation and change more broadly.

Exploring Networks of Lexical Variation in Russian Sign Language.

When describing variation at the lexical level in sign languages, researchers often distinguish between phonological and lexical variants, using the following principle: if two signs differ in only one of the major phonological components (handshape, orientation, movement, location), then they are considered phonological variants, otherwise they are considered separate lexemes. We demonstrate that this principle leads to contradictions in some simple and more complex cases of variation. We argue that it is useful to visualize the relations between variants as graphs, and we describe possible networks of variants that can arise using this visualization tool. We further demonstrate that these scenarios in fact arise in the case of variation in color terms and kinship terms in Russian Sign Language (RSL), using a newly created database of lexical variation in RSL. We show that it is possible to develop a set of formal rules that can help distinguish phonological and lexical variation also in the problematic scenarios. However, we argue that it might be a mistake to dismiss the actual patterns of variant relations in order to arrive at the binary lexical vs. phonological variant opposition.

SULTAN VELED’İN TÜRKÇE ŞİİRLERİNDEKİ BAZI FONOLOJİK KATMANLAR ÜZERİNE BİR DEĞERLENDİRME

One of the first key roles in the process of Old Anatolian Turkish (Sometimes, Old Turkey Turkish or Old Ottoman Turkish term is also used instead of this term.) being the written language in Anatolian geography, which is thought to be the source of most of the modern Oghuz written languages, belongs to Sultan Veled, the eldest son of Mevlânâ Celâleddîn-i Rûmî and Gevher Hatun. It is known that Sufis, who is thought to have lived between 1226-1312, wrote Turkish poems in addition to Persian and Greek. It is estimated that the total of these Turkish poems consist of over three hundred couplets. Sultan Veled, who owns the first works written in Anatolia with Yunus Emre; The Turkish couplets in his works such as Dîvân, Rebâbnâme and Ibtidaname are very important in terms of reflecting the development stages of Oghuz. Apart from the written language in Turkistan geography, these couplets provide important linguistic material in order to follow the emergence and development of a new written language in Anatolia. In this study, some phonological variants and related layers in Sultan Veled's Turkish couplets will be evaluated. The typological data of the Oghuz dialects accepted in the literature will be analyzed by making a comparison with these layers. So that the layers of bol- ~ vol- ~ ol- seen in some copies of these couplets and marking an important transition between East and West Turkish will be subject to re-evaluation. Considering nearly twenty phonological layers composed of süçig > süçü ~ süçi and biŋ ~ miŋ and datlu ~ tatlu dichotomies emerging from phonological development such as -g> Ø in layers, are discussed that whether these forms dialectical or developmental stages that reflect the internal dynamics of Oghuz. Thus, some conclusions can be will be tried to be reached where the Turkish couplets of Sultan Veled, one of the first texts written in Anatolia, should be positioned in the process of becoming the written language of Oghuz. Keywords: Oghuz, Old Anatolian Turkish, Sultan Veled, Dialectology, Phonological Layers.

Les anglicismes en français et en tchèque contemporains : le cas des formes en –ing

The aim of this study is to analyze the neological borrowings from English that occur in contemporary French and Czech. Special emphasis is placed on neological borrowings with the -ing suffix. Considering the lingua franca status of anglo-american for several decades, anglicisms diffuse in all languages, and we would like to compare specifically the processes at stake for the -ing formations. After a quantitative analysis of the respective diffusion and productivity in both languages, we focus on a few specific words (phishing, géochaching, sharing, washing), attested in both languages, and compare their integration from several perspectives (phonological, orthographical, morphological, semantic and local variants).

דימון (Isa 15:9) and להמנות (Qoh 1:15): On Dialectal Wordplay and Nasal Spreading in the Bible

Abstract Biblical punsters occasionally moved beyond the confines of Standard Biblical Hebrew, producing dialectal wordplay. In a number of cases, the nonstandard form is a phonological variant from another dialect. The best-known examples of this type involve dialectal differences in diphthong contraction (monophthongization). Less attention has been paid to cases involving a phonological process called nasal spreading, known from Old Canaanite, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc. One product of this process is the toponym דימון in מֵי דִימוֹן מָלְאוּ דָם, “the waters of Dimon are full of blood” (Isa 15:9), referring to the Moabite town of Dibon. The form דימון was a phonological variant of דיבון, a dialectal form used in a prophecy against Moab to emphasize the appropriateness of the punishment. Another example is found in חֶסְרוֹן לֹא יוּכַל לְהִמָּנוֹת (Qoh 1:15), which means both “an incalculable loss” and “an irreplaceable loss.” In the second meaning, להמנות is a dialectal form of להמל(א)ות, “be made good,” a phonological variant produced by nasal spreading.

Nyelvjárási jellemzők megjelenése boszorkányperes jegyzőkönyvek kézirataiban

On the appearance of dialectal features in manuscripts of witchcraft records The present paper explores the scribal context in witness depositions of Hungarian witch trials, focusing on the appearance of dialectal features in the manuscripts. Witness depositions of the Middle Hungarian period proved to be speech-based or speech related texts, however, it is not self-evident that the records also can be considered as particularly dialectal sources of the past. It is also requires investigation whether the variants reflects the language use of the witnesses themselves or the scribes. The present study deals with these questions analysing records from a narrower region and then extending the findings to a broader context (with comparison with other regions). Date came from close reading of manuscripts and queries of some morphological and lexically bounded phonological variants from the Old and Middle Hungarian corpus of informal language use. I will also argue that some of the studied variants were rather socially and historically than regionally embedded during the period.

Orthographic activation in spoken word recognition of L2 phonological variants

The present study investigated the influence of orthographic input on the recognition of second language (L2) spoken words with phonological variants, when first language (L1) and L2 have different orthographic structures. Lexical encoding for intermediate-to-advanced level Mandarin learners of Korean was assessed using masked cross-modal and within-modal priming tasks. Given that Korean has obstruent nasalization in the syllable coda, prime target pairs were created with and without such phonological variants, but spellings that were provided in the cross-modal task reflected their unaltered, nonnasalized forms. The results indicate that when L2 learners are exposed to transparent alphabetic orthography, they do not show a particular cost for spoken word recognition of L2 phonological variants as long as the variation is regular and rule-governed.

카카오톡 대화의 음운적 특징과 음운변이형의 화용적 기능에 대한 연구

본고의 목적은 모바일 메신저 앱인 카카오톡 대화의 음운적 특징을 살펴보고, 음운변이형이 화용적 기능을 함을 논의하는 데 있다. 이를 위해 대구 지역 여성 화자들로 구성된 카카오톡 대화방의 대화에서 나타나는 음운적 특징을 관찰하고, 음운변이형이 강조의 의미를 전달하고 공손 전략으로 사용되고 있음을 논하였다. 카카오톡 대화의 음운적 특징을 정리하면 다음과 같다. 카카오톡 대화는 실제 구어의 발음을 반영하고 있다. 자음과 관련된 음운변이보다 모음과 관련된 음운변이가 우세하다. 모음과 관련된 음운변이는 조사, 어미 등의 형식형태소에서 빈번히 실현된다. 실제 구어의 발음을 많이 반영하고 있지만 용언 어간, 체언 형태의 자음을 바꾸는 변이는 잘 일어나지 않는다. 자음 및 모음 첨가, 모음 교체 등의 음운변이형이 담화상 강조 및 공손의 기능을 수행하고 있다. 이 연구는 현재 화자들의 의사소통 행위 중 많은 부분을 차지하는 모바일을 통한 의사소통, 그 중에서도 카카오톡을 통한 의사소통 상황에서 관찰되는 언어에 초점을 두었다. 일반적으로 어휘나 문법 차원에서 공손성 실현을 다루어 왔으나, 이 연구를 통해 음운변이형도 공손성을 표현하는 요소가 될 수 있음을 논의한 데 의의가 있다.

The Role of Orthography in Lexical Processing of the Phonological Variants in Second Language.

There is evidence that orthographic knowledge can influence on-line spoken-word recognition. Interestingly, when graphic and phonetic codes are not congruent due to the application of phonological alternation processes, people report hearing sounds that are matched to graphic (underlying), not phonetic codes (Halléet al. in J Mem Lang 43:618-639, 2000). It is, however, not known whether the same effect arises in the processing of a non-native language (L2). In the present study, advanced Mandarin learners of Korean as well as native Korean listeners performed a phoneme monitoring task using words undergoing obstruent nasalization in Korean. The results showed that orthographic information dominated the phonetic judgments of the native Korean listeners, while the Mandarin learners' judgments relied more on the phonetic input. These results suggest that even the lexical access of highly experienced L2 learners differs from that of native speakers and that advanced learners still have difficulty employing orthographic information to access the L2 lexicon.

Representation and selection of determiners with phonological variants.

The aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of cross-linguistic differences in the time course of determiner selection during language production. In Germanic languages, participants are slower at naming a picture using a determiner + noun utterance (die Katze "the cat") when a superimposed distractor is of a different gender (gender congruency effect). In Romance languages in which the pronunciation of the determiner also depends on the phonology of the next word, there is no such effect. This difference is traditionally assumed to arise because determiners are selected later in Romance languages (late selection hypothesis). It has further been suggested that in a given language, all determiners are either selected late or early (maximum consistency principle). Data on French have challenged these 2 hypotheses by revealing a gender congruency effect when participants name pictures using the definite singular determiner le-la (l' before vowels) and a noun, at positive stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), that is, when there is a delay between the presentation of the picture and that of the distractor. We examined this finding further and investigated whether it generalizes to the indefinite determiner un-une. Results of 4 picture-word interference experiments reveal that gender congruency effects in French are not restricted to the definite determiner or positive SOAs, but can be hard to detect in experiments which do not account for the variability in reading and naming times across participants and trials. We discuss the implications of these results for the modeling of determiner selection across languages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Subphonemic Variation and Lexical Processing: Social and Stylistic Factors

Different pronunciation variants of the same word can facilitate lexical access, but they may be more or less effective primes depending on their phonological form, stylistic appropriateness, familiarity, and social prestige, suggesting that multiple phonological variants are encoded in the lexicon with varying strength. The current study investigated how subphonemic variation is encoded using a lexical decision task with cross-modal form priming. The results revealed that the magnitude of priming was mediated by stylistic and social properties of the auditory primes, including speaking style, talker dialect, and duration. These interactions provide evidence that phonetically reduced forms and forms that are not socially prestigious are not as robustly encoded in the lexicon as canonical forms and forms produced in prestigious varieties.