Utterance-final Position Research Articles

Still Changing: Semantic Innovation and Change in Multicultural London English

We attempt to further our understanding of the beginnings of language change by analyzing a semantic innovation in Multicultural London English: the use of still as a discourse-pragmatic item in utterance-final position. We show that the change follows well-attested processes of semantic change, so it could have occurred at any time and amongst any group of speakers. Its emergence now, amongst young men in inner city London, can be explained by considering not only well-known external factors such as population change but also by analyzing the interactional contexts in which the new meaning emerges and by relating this to the local peer group culture. In this way we gain insights into how speakers can be motivated to use a form with a new meaning during interactional moves that are especially important for them in their everyday lives.

"Your Turn!": Using Finger Pointing and PALM-UP Actions to Ask Questions in Norwegian Sign Language

Abstract: Researchers examining the structure of questions in signed languages, often using elicited data from informants, have proposed that there are specific manual and nonmanual actions produced by signers to indicate different question types (e.g., Zeshan 2004), for example, raised eyebrows for polar questions. In the current study, we add to this body of work with an investigation into the use of two common interactional behaviors—finger pointing and palm-up actions—as they occur in questions asked during naturalistic conversations in Norwegian Sign Language. The interactional work finger pointing and palm-up actions can achieve in various settings is well-documented (e.g., Bavelas 1994), and their presence in question contexts has been observed in Norwegian Sign Language (Ferrara 2020). In total, 455 questions produced by thirty-four deaf signers were examined as they appeared across dyadic, triadic, and multiparty conversations recorded in the Norwegian Sign Language Corpus (Ferrara and Ringsø 2021; Ferrara and Bø 2022; Ferrara in prep). These questions were then examined for the presence of interactional finger pointing and palm-up actions. Analyses firstly revealed that interactional finger pointing and palm-up actions appeared in many of the questions examined. Within this subset of the data, further analysis showed that these forms may be the only manual action that signals an utterance as a question, or they may occur in combination with other manual (e.g., wh-question forms: how, where) and nonmanual actions (e.g., furrowed or raised brows). In many of these questions, the two forms appear in utterance-final position, thereby indexing an interlocutor in order to solicit a response. Such initial observations suggest that these two manual actions must be considered as part of the constellation of behaviors that characterize the highly indexical and interactional nature of question-asking in Norwegian Sign Language.

Utterance-Final Voice Quality in American English and Mexican Spanish Bilinguals

We investigate utterance-final voice quality in bilinguals of English and Spanish, two languages which differ in the type of non-modal voice usually encountered at ends of utterances: American English often has phrase-final creak, whereas in Mexican Spanish, phrase-final voiced sounds are breathy or even devoiced. Twenty-one bilinguals from the San Diego-Tijuana border region were recorded (with electroglottography and audio) reading passages in English and Spanish. Ends of utterances were coded for their visual voice quality as “modal” (having no aspiration noise or voicing irregularity), “breathy” (having aspiration noise), “creaky” (having voicing irregularity), or “breathy-creaky” (having both aspiration noise and voicing irregularity). In utterance-final position, speakers showed more frequent use of both modal and creaky voice when speaking in English, and more frequent use of breathy and breathy-creaky voice when speaking in Spanish. We find no role of language dominance on the rates of these four voice qualities. The electroglottographic and acoustic analyses show that all voice qualities, even utterance-final creak, are produced with increased glottal spreading; the combination of distinct noise measures and amplitude of voicing can distinguish breathy, creaky, and breathy-creaky voice qualities from one another, and from modal voice.

Variation and Change in Jakarta Indonesian: Evidence from Final Glottals

Abstract: Based on the observed patterns of variation in vowel-final [-ʔ], [-h], and [Ø] in seven function words that are produced in utterance-final position, this study offers a study of linguistic contact between Betawi and Standard Indonesian that together contribute to the emergence of a variety of Indonesian called Jakarta Indonesian. The relationship between these varieties is identified in the patterns of variation that show a general trend toward increased use of the Standard Indonesian-influenced form among educated speakers and females. Using a large-scale speech corpus, this investigation provides evidence of the patterns of variation and sound change that are taking place, their direction, and how their adoption correlates with genders and educational categories represented in the corpus. In addition, this study demonstrates the importance of a naturalistic speech corpus in examining the actual patterns of variation by focusing on colloquial speech, which we know to be the locus of language change.

Waḷḷāhi (‘by God’) as a marker of commitment and involvement in Egyptian Arabic conversation

This paper explores the interactional uses of the oath-expression waḷḷāhi ‘by God’ in Egyptian Arabic. Based on everyday conversational data (Arabic CALLHOME), and drawing on conversation-analytic and interactional linguistics methods, the analysis shows that waḷḷāhi rarely introduces a solemn act of swearing; rather, it is conventionally used as a marker expressing or inviting the expression of commitment and certainty. waḷḷāhi can occur in turn-initial and utterance-final position, where it frames or modifies the current speaker’s contribution, or as a freestanding response token. In epistemically divergent contexts, waḷḷāhi serves to resist the other party’s assumptions or claims about a certain state of affairs by asserting commitment to a different state of affairs, or by questioning the certainty of the prior speaker. Commitment indexed by turn-initial tokens is relativized to the speaker’s potentially restricted access and rights to knowledge, and is therefore more reserved; utterance-final tokens do not invoke this subjective reference and serve to express absolute commitment. In epistemically congruent and affiliative contexts, waḷḷāhi undergoes indexical reanalysis and is interpreted as an index of involvement, earnestness, and interest. The analysis aligns with a widely observed path of semantic and pragmatic development of discourse markers whereby markers come to assume more specific relational functions as they extend to new contexts of use.

A usage-based account of paragogic /e/ in 20th century New Mexican Spanish

Abstract This study tests if New Mexican Spanish speakers’ productions of words that variably display paragogic /e/ (rincón ∼ rincon e ‘corner’) are predictable from their lexical frequency, utterance position, and the frequency with which these words occur in an utterance position that conditions paragoge. In the study, the variable that measures the frequency with which words occur in the conditioning context is referred to as the FCC. The analysis of 77 word types and 2,235 tokens produced by 24 speakers demonstrates that the likelihood that a speaker produces paragogic /e/ increases when words are produced at the end of an utterance. The study also finds novel evidence for the mediating effect of lexical frequency on the effect of the FCC variable: the influence of the frequency with which words are produced in utterance-final position on the likelihood of paragogic /e/ is strengthened as lexical frequency decreases. Together with research on reductive phonological processes (e.g., Forrest, John. 2017. The dynamic interaction between lexical and contextual frequency: A case study of (ING). Language Variation and Change 29(2). 129–156), it seems that the effect of the FCC variable is amplified by lexical frequencies that already harbor the phonological process. These novel findings invite scholars to reconsider the assumption that such effects require many exemplars to shape lexical representation and speech production.

The pragmatics of ‘it is well’ in Nigerian English

Abstract This paper explores the pragmatics of the comment clause, it is well, with a view to examining its origin, frequency, structural features, and extended discourse-pragmatic functions in Nigerian English, from a grammatical-pragmatic approach. The data for the study are collected from the Global Web-based English corpus (Davies, Mark. 2013. Corpus of Global Web-Based English: 1.9 billion words from speakers in 20 countries (GloWbE). Available at: http://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/) and questionnaires, and are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show that the origin of the clause in Nigerian English is the Bible. The clause occurs most frequently at utterance-final position, and collocates with other discourse-pragmatic features. The results also reveal that the clause performs both textual and interpersonal functions. Textually, it is used as a silence filler and to terminate discourse. Interpersonally, it is employed as a part of a prayer, to express hope, offer comfort, indicate resignation, show (reluctant) acceptance of other people’s actions, and to express sarcasm, amongst other functions. The study shows that the use of it is well is related to the cultural and religious beliefs of Nigerians as well as to the political and economic situation in Nigeria.

Continuant Devoicing in Turkish: Reanalysis of Turkish Word-Final Devoicing

Previous research shows that Turkish voiced stops and affricates undergo devoicing in word-final position. There are some grammars claiming that rhotic [ɾ] is also affected by this phenomenon (Göksel & Kerslake, 2005 and Taylan, 2015) as well as liquid sonorants ([l] and [ʎ]) which can optionally undergo word-final devoicing, at least in the Istanbul dialect of Turkish (Kornfilt, 1990). This study tests the continuant consonants in Turkish for their devoicing properties in different environments. These environments include preceding phonemes of different voicing qualities, word-final position, sentence-final position, and isolation. Our experiment examines all the voiced continuant sounds of Turkish that can naturally occur in word-final positions ([ɾ], [l], [ɫ], [ʎ], [j], [v], [β], [z], and [ʒ]). The experiment involves 10 Turkish-speaking participants from different regional backgrounds in Turkey. Sets of words and sentences focusing on the target phones and environments were presented to the participants to read out loud while recording. The findings suggest that word-final devoicing does extend to the [+cont] consonants of Turkish in the word-final position, though it shows variance among the participants. This phonological process seems to be optional unlike stop devoicing in Turkish which is a systematic process. Another finding, also observed by Nichols (2016) for the rhotic only, was that the majority of the instances where “word-final” devoicing occurred, was in fact exclusively in utterance-final position. Environments that can be considered word-final but not utterance final, yielded mostly fully voiced consonants, showing evidence for [+cont] consonants having their own separate set of phonological rules and environments for devoicing than stop consonants. Overall, this analysis suggests an environment of devoicing for [+cont] consonants (voiced fricatives and non-nasal sonorants) in Turkish and reanalyzes the rhotic [ɾ] devoicing which was previously described as word-final only, similar to the stop consonants.

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.

Word stress at utterance-final position

Abstract This study investigates the realization of the two most common word-level stress patterns in Hebrew, final and penultimate, at utterance-final position. Twenty-six disyllabic words that form minimal pairs, which differ only in their stress pattern, were embedded in 52 sentences. The mean values of three acoustic parameters—duration, F0, and intensity—were measured for vowels of the target words. Findings show that duration is significantly longer at stressed vowels, similar to previous findings on words at utterance-mid position. Lower intensity is assigned to the utterance-final vowels regardless of the stress pattern, but the degree of lowering does depend on the stress pattern. Finally, lower F0 values are found in the utterance-final vowels, but the degree of lowering is similar to both stress patterns. We conclude that duration is the main cue at the prosodic word level, while F0 is used by Hebrew speakers to cue higher prosodic units.

Early grammatical marking development in Mandarin-speaking toddlers.

The current study examined early grammatical marking in a relatively understudied language, Mandarin, by using the Mandarin version of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. Two waves of data collection included 338 monolingual children (17-36 months; 143 female) at Time 1 and 308 children (32-55 months; 139 female) at Time 2 and their caregivers, whose education ranged from third grade (elementary school) or below to postgraduate with a median of high school. Our data showed a clear order of grammatical marking acquisition among these children and supported findings on the linguistic specificity of morphological development such that early- and late-acquired markers in Mandarin are not acquired in the same order as English or other languages. Negative "mei2," "bu4," possessive "-de," classifiers, and the aspect marker "le" were the earliest-acquired markers, followed by modals, negative "bie2," adverbs, sentence final particles, resultative verb compounds, and aspect markers "guo4" and "yao4." Complex clauses and the aspect marker "zheng4" were acquired the latest. Furthermore, consistent with previous cross-linguistic studies, the development patterns of a wide range of Mandarin grammatical markers indicate that markers that are more perceptually salient and obligatory, have clear form-meaning mappings, and often appear in isolation or utterance-final position were acquired earlier than others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Voice quality and speaking rate in Icelandic rhetorical questions

AbstractIn this paper, we show that Icelandic uses the phonetic parameters of speaking rate, duration and voice quality (VQ) to distinguish between information-seeking questions (ISQs) and rhetorical questions (RQs). Specifically, durations are longer (speaking rate is slower) and nonmodal VQs are used more in RQs than in ISQs. Our findings for temporal parameters fit in with previous studies on the prosody of RQs in various languages. With respect to VQ, Icelandic differs, for example, from German and English in the location of breathy voice in the utterance (utterance-initial in German and English, utterance-final in Icelandic). We interpret the utterance-final position of breathiness in Icelandic RQs as a potential compensating strategy for the lack of phonological cues, i.e. boundary tones.

A Longitudinal Study of Speech Acoustics in Older French Females: Analysis of the Filler Particle euh across Utterance Positions

Aging in speech production is a multidimensional process. Biological, cognitive, social, and communicative factors can change over time, stay relatively stable, or may even compensate for each other. In this longitudinal work, we focus on stability and change at the laryngeal and supralaryngeal levels in the discourse particle euh produced by 10 older French-speaking females at two times, 10 years apart. Recognizing the multiple discourse roles of euh, we divided out occurrences according to utterance position. We quantified the frequency of euh, and evaluated acoustic changes in formants, fundamental frequency, and voice quality across time and utterance position. Results showed that euh frequency was stable with age. The only acoustic measure that revealed an age effect was harmonics-to-noise ratio, showing less noise at older ages. Other measures mostly varied with utterance position, sometimes in interaction with age. Some voice quality changes could reflect laryngeal adjustments that provide for airflow conservation utterance-finally. The data suggest that aging effects may be evident in some prosodic positions (e.g., utterance-final position), but not others (utterance-initial position). Thus, it is essential to consider the interactions among these factors in future work and not assume that vocal aging is evident throughout the signal.

Systemic change and interactional motivation

AbstractThe paper focusses on the language-internal and -external motivations for the development of Chinese sentence-final particlebucheng. This particle, from an initial state as a negative verb string, developed into a sentence-final particle through intermediate adverbial stages, and was recruited to interpersonal functions in final position by the sixteenth century. Key motivating factors are identified for the expansion of its functional range, with particular attention to the development of the Written Vernacular in Early Modern Chinese and to interactional echoic contexts that contribute to the right-ward movement and thence the rise of the particle. Exploration of the diachronic development ofbuchengnot only expands the known inventory of morphosyntactic processes and linguistic contexts that give rise to pragmatic devices clause-finally but also yields a better understanding of the right-ward movement of lexemes towards clause-/utterance-final position.

Production of the utterance-final moraic nasal in Japanese: A real-time MRI study

ABSTRACTJapanese moraic nasal /N/ is a nasal segment having the status of an independent mora. In utterance-medial position, it is realized as a nasal segment sharing the same place of articulation as the immediately following segment, but in utterance-final position, it is believed to be realized as a uvular nasal. This final-/N/-as-uvular view, which is wide-spread in the literature on Japanese phonetics and phonology, was examined objectively by use of a real-time MRI movie of the articulatory movement of eleven Tokyo Japanese speakers. It turned out that the utterance-final /N/ is realized in a wide range of locations on the palate from the hard palate to the uvula. GLMM modeling showed that the closure locations of the utterance-final /N/ can be predicted accurately from the identity of the preceding vowel. In addition, leave-one-out cross validation showed that the model can be generalized to new data. We conclude that the realization of utterance-final /N/ is not fixed to uvular; its place of articulation is determined largely by the property of the preceding vowel.

Lenition and fortition of /r/ in utterance-final position, an ultrasound tongue imaging study of lingual gesture timing in spontaneous speech

The most fundamental division in English dialects is the rhotic/non-rhotic division. The mechanisms of historical /r/-loss sound change are not well understood, but studying a contemporary /r/-loss sound change in a rhotic variety of English can provide new insights. We know that /r/ weakening in contemporary Scottish English is a gesture-timing based phenomenon and that it is socially indexical, but we have no phonetic explanation for the predominance of weak /r/ variants in utterance-final position. Using a socially-stratified conversational ultrasound tongue imaging speech corpus, this study investigates the effects of boundary context, along with other linguistic and social factors such as syllable stress, following-consonant place and social class, on lingual gesture timing in /r/ and strength of rhoticity. Mixed-effects modelling identified that utterance-final context conditions greater anterior lingual gesture delay in /r/ and weaker-sounding /r/s, but only in working-class speech. Middle-class speech shows no anterior lingual gesture delay for /r/ in utterance-final position and /r/ is audibly strengthened in this position. It is unclear whether this divergence is due to variation in underlying tongue shape for /r/ in these social-class communities, or whether utterance-final position provides a key location for the performance of social class using salient variants of /r/.

Language Specificity of Infant-directed Speech: Speaking Rate and Word Position in Word-learning Contexts

ABSTRACT Previous research indicates that infant-directed speech (IDS) is usually slower than adult-directed speech (ADS) and mothers prefer placing a focused word in isolation or utterance-final position in (English) IDS, which may benefit word learning. This study investigated the speaking rate and word position of IDS in two typologically-distinct languages: Dutch and Mandarin Chinese. We used a storybook-telling task to elicit semi-spontaneous ADS and IDS. The storybook contained target words that were familiar or unfamiliar to children. For each language, we asked: (1) whether IDS was slower than ADS; (2) whether mothers slowed down to highlight unfamiliar words; (3) whether the speaking rate of IDS changed between 18 and 24 months; and (4) whether mothers preferred placing unfamiliar words in isolation or utterance-final position in IDS. Results suggest that Dutch IDS, but not Mandarin Chinese IDS, was slower than ADS. Also, only Dutch mothers slowed down specifically when introducing unfamiliar words in IDS. In both languages, mothers placed target words in isolation (but not in utterance-final position) more frequently in IDS. These results suggest that the temporal modifications in IDS may vary across languages. Thus, language-specificity of IDS and its implications for language acquisition should be considered in future research.

An overview of the Japanese copuladaas an utterance-final expression in conversation

AbstractThe present study examines cases of the Japanese copuladaused in the utterance-final position in naturally occurring conversations. The morphemedain Japanese is typically categorized as a type of copula in linguistic studies, butdaalso functions as an utterance-final expression, especially in the spoken form of Japanese. The examined recordings of naturally occurring conversations for the present study contained 120 cases of utterance-finalda, and 89 (74.2%) of them were uttered immediately following statements of subjective evaluation. In addition, of these 89 cases of utterance-finaldathat followed statements of evaluation, 87 were determined to follow statements in which the speaker expressed his or her negative attitude toward the evaluated matter. The data analysis also showed that 26 cases (21.7%) of utterance-finaldain the examined recordings were uttered immediately after the speaker discovered a new piece of information. Based on the findings from the data analysis, the present study argues that utterance-finaldais considered to be one of the expressions in Japanese that can signal both discovery of new information and the speaker’s negative attitude toward a stated matter. In addition, the present study also argues thatdamarks the speaker’s emotional exclamatory reaction when it is used in the utterance-final position.

Disentangling the Effects of Position and Utterance-Level Declination on the Production of Complex Tones in Yoloxóchitl Mixtec.

Phrase-final position is cross-linguistically the locus of both processes of phonetic reduction and processes of phonetic enhancement. In tone languages, phrasal position is a conditioning environment for processes of tone sandhi/allotony, though such patterns emerge from local processes of tonal enhancement or reduction. The current article examines the production of tone in Yoloxóchitl Mixtec, an endangered language of Mexico with nine lexical tones and fixed, stem-final stress, across phrasal and utterance positions via three experiments. In the first two experiments, the findings show that speakers lengthen syllables and expand the tonal F0 range in utterance-final position. The effect of this range expansion is high tone raising, low tone lowering, and falling contour lowering. Rising contour tones undergo substantial leveling when produced in a non-utterance-final context, similar to Taiwanese Mandarin. These findings suggest that postural changes in F0 range are controlled, intonational effects in tonal languages and not paralinguistic. In the third experiment, we examine utterance-level declination and raising within sentences consisting entirely of level tones. We show that utterance-level F0 changes are independent from local tonal hyperarticulation effects in phrase-final position. Together, the experiments largely support prosodically-conditioned phonetic undershoot as a control mechanism in tone production and demonstrate how tonal complexity may constrain universal tendencies in speech production.

Word-Final Repetition in an Adult With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Case Report

Purpose The purpose of this report was to describe the nature of word-final repetition (WFR) in an adult with normal intelligence and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Method A 25-year-old man completed speaking tasks that differed in linguistic complexity to examine the nature of his WFRs and the effect a stimulant medication had on his frequency of WFR. Results WFR occurred as a single iteration on sentences containing 2 or more clauses and occurred most often during monologue speaking tasks, on the final complete syllable of multisyllabic words, on content words, and on words in the utterance-final position. A minimal increase in WFR occurred when the participant completed a speaking task with a stimulant medication than the same speaking task without a stimulant medication. Conclusion Findings are similar to previous cases of WFR among school-age children, which have reported the majority of WFRs during propositional speaking tasks and a limited awareness of WFR. Linguistic, motor, coexisting conditions, and genetic explanations of WFR are considered relative to this case. Intervention of WFR should consider the individual needs of the client and the client's awareness of WFR.