Consonant Reduction Research Articles

Exploring The Basics of Phonology: A Comprehensive Guide

The aims of this research are to help students new to English phonology understand its fundamentals. The study employs a literature review methodology to explore the field of English phonology. It addresses key topics for beginners, including the basic units of sound (phonemes) and their variations (allophones). The research also discusses vowel and consonant reduction, which impacts the pronunciation of certain sounds. Finally, it provides an overview of how consonant and vowel sounds are grouped based on their characteristics. By studying these elements, beginners can enhance their pronunciation, recognize different sound patterns, and improve their overall communication skills in English.

Analisis Kesalahan Berbahasa Tataran Fonologi dan Tataran Morfologi Ragam Krama pada Karangan Deskripsi Karya Siswa Kelas X

During the Field Experience Practice (PPL), many language errors were found in students' essays. This study describes the errors in Javanese language in the descriptive essay of the work of class X students of SMA N 12 Semarang. The approach used is a qualitative descriptive approach combined with the theory of language error analysis. The research data are in the form of descriptive essays in Javanese variety of manners. The source of this research data is the students of Class X SMA N 12 Semarang which contains language errors. The data were collected using the listening and note-taking technique, while the data analysis techniques used in this study were sorting and dressing techniques. The results showed that there were 4 language errors at the phonological level, namely 78% vowel phoneme errors, 17% consonant phoneme errors, 3% consonant addition errors, and 2% consonant reduction errors. Meanwhile, at the morphological level there are 6 errors, namely errors because prefixes are separated from basic words as much as 17%, errors due to suffixes being separated from basic words as much as 5%, errors in prefixing as much as 11%, ater-ater hanuswara errors 21%, diction errors as much as 24%, and reduplication errors as much as 22%.
 Keywords: descriptive essay; Javanese manners; language error

SIMPLIFICATION IN PHONOLOGICAL ACQUISITION (A CASE STUDY OF ATALA)

<p>This study aims to determine a child’s language acquisition at the phonological level and to describe its simplification of sounds. This research is a case study applying a qualitative descriptive approach. The subject observed is Atala, a boy aged 28 months. The data are obtained by recording and direct observation approximately one month. The data are transcribed and then identified by comparing the child's pronunciation with adult mode in order to see the simplification of the sounds in the child's speech. Based on the Ingram’s theory, 34 data presented shows the simplifications of sounds occur in the form of substitution consisting of stopping (6), fronting (9), and gliding (5); assimilation containing consonant harmony (3) and vowel harmony (2); while syllable structure consisting of last consonant reduction (2) and initial onset reduction (7). It is found that the simplifications of sounds commonly happen on the substitution covering fronting and stopping then syllable structure covering initial onset reduction. It is due to an indication that the child is imperfect to actively move the articulators in appropriate place or manner of articulation especially in producing some fairly complex sounds. There are some sounds cannot be produced in this case, such as sounds [r], [s], and [g], the subject obviously simplifies these sounds when he has to pronounce them in any positions of a word. Meanwhile he has been able to produce singly vowels and consonant [a], [i], [u], [e], [o], [p], [b], [t], [d], [m], [n], [ɲ], [ŋ], [w], [y], [j], [c], [l], [h], [?], but sometimes simplifies them in certain position of the word.</p>

ЛИНГВОКУЛЬТУРНЫЕ МАРКЕРЫ ТЕКСТА

The aim of the research is to provide a comprehensive linguocultural characteristic of a folk tale. The research is based on the material of the Irish Fairy and Folk Tales tale anthology, compiled and edited by W. B. Yeats. The research results allow for a suggestion that linguocultural markers are to be found on both ideologic-compositional and speech levels of a text. Thus, the motives of Christian morality form the basis for reciprocal altruism which is the conceptual entity of Irish folk tales. The tale structure is often linear and consists of a short introduction, the main part and the climax turning into a short sharp denouement. Irish folk tales are often a metaphor for the rite of passage. The didactic function of tales consists in demonstrating the possibilities of sin purge through their recognition and repentance. Tales also set social rules and norms. Culture-specific language units encountered in the texts of Irish folk tales belong to different levels of the English language system. The phonetic level reveals such features as metathesis, final consonant reduction, imitation of aspiration, alliteration, wordplay based on homophony, etc. They imitate a peculiar Irish accent and exert some vernacular effect. The lexical level is represented by culture-bound vocabulary including ethnographical terms, anthroponyms and geographical names, both real and invented, various kinds of borrowings from Irish Gaeilge,quotations etc. Some cultural features are exhibited in grammar and text rhythm, chiefly through the use of specific verb forms of Irish English as well as certain correlations of repetition-based rhythmic devices – polysyndeton, diacope, anaphora, epizeuxis, symploce etc. The study of linguocultural text markers gives a comprehensive idea of intra- and extralinguistic characteristics of the tale.

Some remarks on stress and reduction correlations in Spanish

Spanish is well-known for its consonant reduction processes across all dialects. At the same time, its vowel inventory is not particularly rich, with 5 evenly distributed, stable vowel categories that tend not to change their qualities regardless of stress and rhythm. Meanwhile, several Spanish varieties show vowel reduction, but crucially without accompanying advancement in terms of consonantal weakening. Based on this evidence it is proposed that the two types of reduction are correlated to the extent that one excludes the other. Given the extraordinary stability of the Spanish vowels in the vast majority of the dialects, the paper investigates various cues to stress and reduction, which is followed by a discussion of empirical studies on SLA and speech perception and production. These studies point to the fact that given the distribution of Spanish sounds and the Spanish stress system, changes in stress and vowel quality inhibit comprehension of native categories (sounds, words and prosodic elements). This should be taken as a point of departure for further studies on speech perception, second language acquisition by speakers of languages with rigid vowel systems and the correlation between vocalic and consonantal weakening (reduction).

Explaining Coronal Reduction: Prosodic Structure and Articulatory Posture

Consonant reduction is often treated as an allophonic process at the phonological planning level, with one production target (allophone) being substituted for another. We propose that, alternatively, reduction can be the result of an online process driven by prosodically conditioned durational variability and an invariant production target. We show that this approach can account for patterns of coronal stop (/t/, /d/, and /n/) production in both American English and Spanish. Contrary to effort-driven theories of reduction, we show that reduction does notdepend on changes to gestural stiffness. Moreover, we demonstrate how differences between and within a language in the particular articulatory postures used to produce different coronal stops automatically lead to reduction to what have normally been considered distinct allophones - coronal approximants ([ð̞]) and flaps ([ɾ]). In this way, our approach allows us to understand different outcomes of coronal stop reduction as the dynamic interaction of a single process (durationally driven undershoot) and variable spatial targets. We show that these patterns are reflected across a wide variety of languages, and show how alternative outcomes of reduction may fit within the same general framework.

Stylizacja gwarowa w „Kujawskich legendach, gawędach i gadkach” Antoniego Benedykta Łukaszewicza

In this article, I focus on the dialectal jargon stylization in “Kujawskie legendy, gawedy i gadki” (Wroclaw 2012, hereinafter referred to as KL) collected and adapted by Antoni Benedykt Łukaszewicz, to subsequently answer the question to what extent the linguistic exponents fall within the system of the Kujawy dialect and whether the texts compiled in the KL can be regarded as representative for the Kujawy region. As the material is fairly extensive, I limited the excerption to phonetic stylistic exponents, which I firstly compared with other studies of the Kujawy dialect and later with the scientific syntheses linked with the Polish dialectology. Based on the analyzed material I came to a conclusion that the most frequently applied exponents are narrowing of the vowels, de-nasalization of the nasal consonants, onset preiotation and labialization, and consonant reduction. Deviations from the ablaut or inter-word voicing phonetics are quite rare. The majority of these phenomena occur in the regions of Wielkopolska, Northern Poland and Mazowsze. They are characteristic not only of Kujawy but of a broader dialectal complex. Undoubtedly, their use in Kujawy appears to be common and the frequency of their occurrence in the text may point out to application of reconstructive stylization, which to a large extent is closer to the basis, i.e. the stylization model signifying the author’s attempt at a fairly consistent reflection of the systemic features of the Kujawy dialect.

How phonetic features project more talk

Investigations into the management of turn-taking have typically focussed on pitch and other prosodic phenomena, particularly pitch-accents. Here, non-pitch phonetic features and their role in turn-taking are described. Through sustained phonetic and interactional analysis of a naturally occurring, 12-minute long telephone call between two adult speakers of British English, sets of talk-projecting and turn-projecting features are identified. Talk-projecting features include the avoidance of durational lengthening, articulatory anticipation, continuation of voicing, the production of talk in maximally close proximity to a preceding point of possible turn-completion, and the reduction of consonants and vowels. Turn-projecting features include the converse of each of the talk-projecting features, and two other distinct features: release of plosives at the point of possible turn-completion, and the production of audible outbreaths. We show that features of articulatory and phonatory quality and duration are relevant factors in the design and treatment of talk as talk- or turn-projective.

Reduction of consonants and vowels in the course of discourse

There is a clear link between the discourse status of a word and the degree of reduction. For instance, Gregory [Dissertation (2002)] provided evidence that hearer knowledge affected reduction in production for discourse-old items. Lexical information, such as word frequency, also plays a crucial role in the degree of reduction [Fosler-Lussier and Morgan, Speech Commun. (1999)]. These previous studies either looked at short discourses or words isolated from context. Therefore, the current study investigates longer discourses, using the VIC Corpus [Pitt etal., Corpus (2007)]. The primary question is to what degree do repeated uses cause further reductions, and if the reductions are syllabically and segmentally uniform across a word. Many studies on reduction rely on the intuition that reductions occur when information load is light, such as when the word was repeated recently or has a high probability of occurrence, so the prediction is that unstressed syllables would show more reduction than stressed syllables, due to their lighter load of information. Likewise, as vowels vary more than consonants across dialects, the informational load of vowel quality may be less than that of consonant quality, so the prediction is that vowels would show greater reductions than consonants.

Diphthong centralization and reduction in constriction degree

Diphthongs in Mexian Hakka Chinese have been divided into two categories (Cheung 2007): Endpoints of the falling (in vowel space) diphthongs have formant values equivalent to those of the monophthongal vowels, while the endpoints of the rising diphthongs generally have more centralized formants. This categorization provides a chance to test the hypothesis of Iskarous etal. (2010) that in speech production the location of constriction (CL) changes discretely in transitions between successive targets, while the degree of constriction (CD) changes continuously. We therefore hypothesize that the centralization in these diphthongs results from a reduction in CD (possibly due to undershoot) rather than CL, thus making it parallel to common consonant reduction changes in languages, such as spirantization of stops. The current study tests this hypothesis using TADA (TAsk-Dynamic) modeling, in which CD and CL in speech production can be manipulated. Diphthongs [ia], [ua], [ai], and [au] were modeled, and the preliminary results indicate that a change in target CD alone yields formant patterns that are more similar to those reported compared with a change in CL. Results of additional studies will be presented that analytically derive CD and CL in these diphthongs from new data collected from speakers of Hakka.

Cues to perception of reduced flaps

Natural, spontaneous speech (and even quite careful speech) often shows extreme reduction in many speech segments, even resulting in apparent deletion of consonants. Where the flap ([inverted J]) allophone of /t/ and /d/ is expected in American English, one frequently sees an approximant-like or even vocalic pattern, rather than a clear flap. Still, the /t/ or /d/ is usually perceived, suggesting the acoustic characteristics of a reduced flap are sufficient for perception of a consonant. This paper identifies several acoustic characteristics of reduced flaps based on previous acoustic research (size of intensity dip, consonant duration, and F4 valley) and presents phonetic identification data for continua that manipulate these acoustic characteristics of reduction. The results indicate that the most obvious types of acoustic variability seen in natural flaps do affect listeners' percept of a consonant, but not sufficiently to completely account for the percept. Listeners are affected by the acoustic characteristics of consonant reduction, but they are also very skilled at evaluating variability along the acoustic dimensions that realize reduction.

Perception of reduced speech: Approximated stops

Natural, spontaneous speech often shows extreme reductions of many speech segments, to the point of apparent deletion. Where the flap allophone of /t/ and /d/ is expected in American English, one frequently sees an approximant‐like or even vocalic pattern, rather than a clear flap. Still, such tokens are usually perceived as containing a /t/ or /d/ (e.g. 'needle' even with a very reduced /d/ is usually not perceived as 'kneel'). The current work identifies acoustic characteristics of reduced 'flaps' and presents phonetic identification data for continua that manipulate these characteristics. Presence vs. absence of a dip in intensity, duration of that dip, and degree of that dip in decibels are manipulated. Degree of intensity dip has the strongest effect, with a minimal dip in intensity more likely to be perceived as 'kneel' and a strong dip in intensity more likely to be perceived as 'needle.' The results indicate that all three of these characteristics do affect listeners' percept of a consonant, but not sufficiently to completely account for the percept. Listeners are sensitive to the acoustic characteristics of consonant reduction, but they are also very skilled at evaluating variability along the acoustic dimensions that realize reduction.

Factors affecting phonetic variation of American English /k/

Word-final consonant reduction is commonly observed in American English, but variation in word-initial consonants is less thoroughly studied. Several considerations suggest that initial consonants might resist reduction; a more nuanced hypothesis is that initial consonants resist reduction in prosodically strong positions (i.e., at phrase edges and pitch accents) but may be reduced in weaker positions (e.g., phrase medially, in nonaccented syllables), particularly in un-self-conscious speech. A corpus of 16 spontaneous dialogues (8 speakers), prosodically labeled using the ToBI transcription system, provides a testbed for this view: the speakers were pairs of close friends engaged in an absorbing task which distracted them from paying close attention to their speech. Preliminary inspection of initial /k/’s from 3 speakers revealed a range of pronunciations (as described in earlier work), from normal prevocalic /k/ (with a silent closure period followed by release noise), to ‘‘leaky’’ /k/’s with some noise during the closure period and higher-amplitude release noise, to fricated /k/’s with constant-amplitude noise throughout, and offered some support for reduction in weak prosodic contexts. Further analysis will compare prosodic context with other factors governing phonetic variation (e.g., word frequency); implications for speech recognition and production will be discussed. [Work supported by NIH DC00075 and DC02978.]

The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence from Catalan consonant clusters)

This paper is an electropalatographic and acoustic investigation of consonant reduction as a function of syllable position in several heterosyllabic consonant clusters of Catalan within the framework of the degree of articulatory constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation. Three contact indices, i.e., alveolar contact anteriority and centrality and dorsopalatal contact quotient, are used for the computation of the linguopalatal contact characteristics for alveolar, alveolopalatal and velar consonants, with care taken to differentiate contextual effects from effects associated with syllable position. Results show that relatively unconstrained stops, nasals and laterals are produced with less front lingual contact and less dorsopalatal contact in syllable final vs. syllable initial position while this is not so for highly constrained fricatives and rhotics. A trend for the palatal fricative vs. the alveolar fricative to exhibit a wider constriction syllable finally vs. syllable initially is also attributed to stricter demands on constriction formation for the latter fricative vs. the former. Overall, these findings are in agreement with the notion that articulatory reduction in syllable final position is conditioned by constraints on consonantal production.

An acoustic description of consonant reduction

The acoustic consequences of the articulatory reduction of consonants remain largely unknown. Much more is known about acoustic vowel reduction. Whether the acoustical and perceptual consequences of articulatory consonant reduction are comparable in kind and extent to the consequences of vowel reduction is still an open question. In this study we compare acoustic data for 791 VCV realizations, containing 17 Dutch intervocalic consonants and 13 vowels, extracted from read speech from a single male speaker, to otherwise identical segments isolated from spontaneous speech. Five acoustic correlates of reduction were studied. Acoustic tracers of articulation were based on F2 slope differences and locus equations. Speech effort was assessed by measuring duration, spectral balance, and the intervocalic sound energy difference of consonants. On a global level, it shows that consonants reduce acoustically like vowels on all investigated accounts when the speaking style becomes informal or syllables become unstressed. Methods that are sensitive to speech effort proved to be more reliable indicators of reduction than F2 based measures. On a more detailed level there are differences related to the type of consonant. The acoustic results suggest that articulatory reduction will decrease the intelligibility of consonants and vowels in comparable ways.

Statistical evidence for rule ordering

ABSTRACTA set of ordered rules for generating variants of a variable determines (a) underlying/surface distinctions among some of the variants and (b) a hierarchical classification of the variants. In the analytical framework of variable rules, frequency data on variant occurrences in context bear only on (b) and not on (a). We provide a combinatorial characterization and enumeration of the set of classifications on n variants, the set of underlying/surface configurations, and the set of rule orders. We describe the statistical and computational techniques for generalizing variable rule analysis to the inference of rule order. These procedures are applied to the problems of the reduction of syllable-final consonants <s>, <n>, and <r> in Caribbean Spanish (n = 3, 4, 6 variants, respectively). Previous analyses have tended to assume that successive weakenings occur in an intrinsic order determined by phonological strength. Our results show that aspiration and deletion can indeed be seen to be intrinsically ordered in both <s> and <r> reduction, though an unordered analysis is equally likely in the case of <s>. On the other hand, velarization and deletion of <n> are unordered, while vocalization is a subsequent process, independent of the other two. Similarly, spirantization, aspiration, and lateralization of <r> are unordered, as confirmed by data sets from both Puerto Rican and Panamanian speakers. Furthermore, with both <n> and <r>, intrinsically ordered rule schemata proved to be extremely unlikely by statistical criteria. Syllable-final consonant reduction then consists of largely independent processes, most of which occur simultaneously.