Vowel Devoicing Research Articles

Is vowel devoicing in Japanese lexically specified?—An eye-tracking study

In Tokyo Japanese, high vowels can be devoiced typically between voiceless consonants. Traditionally, devoiced vowels are treated as allophones of corresponding vowels in which the devoicing process is a result of phonetic implementation commonly affected by speech rate. An opposing view is that devoicing is lexically specified since there are cases of interactions between devoicing and compounding that can be naturally accounted for by lexical phonology. To investigate this issue, the present study conducted an eye-tracking experiment. Edited mismatch stimuli where vowels were voiced before a voiceless consonant (M1) or devoiced before a voiced consonant (M2) were auditorily presented with pictures of the target word, a competing word, and a distractor presented visually. This design is based on a prediction that M1 and M2 invoke confusion in the recognition process if devoicing is specified lexically. Sixteen participants were recruited for an experiment of about 200 trials. Results showed that only M1 stimuli invoked a different pattern of fixation rates than M2 and other natural stimuli. This can be interpreted as partial support for the traditional view of devoicing. The asymmetry between M1 and M2 calls for an account based on markedness theory which is independent of the lexical specification.

Gasp! The reality of ingressive speech in contemporary French

Pulmonic ingressive speech, the use of an inhalation airstream in speech, serves a set of similar paralinguistic functions in a wide variety of languages (Eklund, 2007). This phenomenon is most closely associated with Swedish and related languages (Eklund, 2008), affirmative particles (Eklund, 2007), and female speakers (Clarke andMelchers, 2005). It is known to be highly interactive and therefore difficult to elicit (Eklund, 2002). While acknowledged to exist in French, particularly used by women on the word oui “yes” when expressing “reticence” (Léon, 1992), this mode of articulation and its uses have yet to be described systematically in that language. In this study, we extracted all tokens of ingressive oui produced spontaneously over one season (338 min) of the reality television series L’Agence, yielding 14 tokens. A detailed analysis of each in context, combined with observations from native speaker use and additional discourse-pragmatic observations from the study data, suggests that ingressive oui is used more often by men, is restricted to a semi-professional middle register, and is associated with final vowel devoicing, another known French phenomenon (Dalola, 2014). These data further indicate that, though rarer, ingressive oui is more perceptually salient when pronounced by a female speaker.

An ultrasound study of high vowel devoicing in Tokyo Japanese: Evidence for the vowel gesture retention

High vowels in Tokyo Japanese are typically devoiced between voiceless obstruents, but controversy remains over whether vowel gestures persist when devoiced or are instead deleted. A previous ultrasound study (Iwasaki et al., 2020) showed that the lingual articulation of the release burst of /kV/ differs by vowel context even when the vowels are devoiced. This study uses tongue surface contours derived from midsagittal ultrasound images to investigate the effects of vowel devoicing on changes in quantified tongue shape over time. Native speakers of Tokyo Japanese produced word pairs (/C1VC2e/) that contrasted in the voicing of V, which was either /i/ or /u/. Tongue shape was characterized by Fourier transforming tangent angles along each contour (Dawson et al., 2016). Time-normalized trajectories over the /C1VC2e/ sequence were compared by vowel context (/i/ versus /u/) and voicing environment (devoiced versus voiced). Preliminary results show that the real component of the first Fourier coefficient is sensitive todetecting evolving shape differences between the two vowel contexts over the sequence, not just when the vowels are voiced, but also when they are devoiced. Based on these results, the high vowel contrast persists even in the devoiced environment, suggesting that devoiced vowels are not deleted.

Effects of vowel devoicing on the closure duration of japanese singleton and geminate stops

Closure duration is an acoustic variable known to distinguish Japanese singleton and geminate stops. It has been established that the closure duration varies with speaking rate. However, it has not been determined whether the closure duration is affected by devoicing of vowels preceding or following the stops. To determine the effects of such vowel devoicing, a production experiment was conducted with 20 Japanese native speakers. They pronounced four minimal pairs of onomatopoeic words contrasting singleton and geminate stops at various speaking rates. Devoiced vowels were found to affect closure duration preceding the stops, such that the closure with a devoiced preceding vowel is longer than that with a voiced preceding vowel, although the effect is weak for singleton stops. However, devoiced vowels do not affect the duration when they follow stops. These results suggest that vowel devoicing interacts with an acoustic variable of stop consonants, especially in the case of geminate stop.

A Unified Account of Two Vowel Devoicing Phenomena: the Case of Cheyenne

This paper investigates two vowel devoicing processes in Cheyenne, which appear on the surface to be fundamentally different, occurring in distinct segmental and prosodic environments. One process occurs in phrase-final vowels in any segmental environment, while the other occurs only before voiceless consonants in the surface penultimate vowels of some words. The first is consistent with typological expectations and is phonetically grounded, whereas the second is at first glance, neither typologically expected nor phonetically motivated. I provide a unified Stratal Optimality Theory account of these processes, demonstrating that both can, in fact, be treated as cases of domain-final devoicing, and attributed to the same family of positional markedness constraints. Different rankings of the markedness constraints relative to a faithfulness constraint result in different segmental conditions for the two processes. Moreover, I suggest that the two processes may be related via Domain Generalization, whereby a phonetically motivated utterance-final effect phonologizes and extends to smaller prosodic domains. In this way, while the word-level process is not itself phonetically motivated, it can be understood as an extension of another phonetically motivated process in the same language.

Northern Paiute

Northern Paiute

Reconciling CV phonotactics and high vowel deletion in Japanese

High vowel devoicing is a productive process in Japanese, where /i, u/ become unphonated between voiceless obstruents. Recent studies have shown that the vowels can completely delete as a result of the process, resulting in surface consonant clusters. This seemingly conflicts with the strong CV phonotactic preference that has repeatedly been shown in both phonological and psycholinguistic studies of Japanese. This paper proposes that the apparent conflict can be resolved by having phonotactic repairs and high vowel devoicing apply at different phonological levels, adopting a more sophisticated phonological representation than simple /underlying/ vs. [surface] forms. The proposed framework also makes an empirically testable prediction regarding syllabification of clusters that result from high vowel deletion.

The Devoicing Intensity of Vowels [I] and [Ɯ] in Japanese Language

The research analyzed the intensity of devoicing vowels [i] and [ɯ] in Japanese language by its learners. The research used theory of Accoustic Phonetics with Praat Program to measure the intensity of vowels [i] and [ɯ]. It analyzed 6 target words uttered by two Japanese Language Learners. A native Japanese speaker was used as the utterance model. It began with recording the voice of the learners in Medan. The research problem was how the intensity of the devoicing of vowels [i] and [ɯ] in the first syllable uttered by Japanese Language learners in Medan. The findings, based on Praat analysis with intensity measurement, showed that the intensity of the devoicing of vowels [i] and [ɯ] in the first syllable uttered by the four Japanese Language learners was not maximal.

Durational Evidence That Tokyo Japanese Vowel Devoicing Is Not Gradient Reduction.

A central question in the Japanese high vowel devoicing literature concerns whether vowels are devoiced through a categorical process or via gradient reduction. Examining how vowel height and consonantal voicing condition phrase-internal CV duration in a corpus of spontaneous Tokyo Japanese, it was found that CVs containing high vowels are substantially shorter before voiceless consonants, whilst non-high vowels do not exhibit comparable shortening. This quantitative difference between CV durations suggests a controlled temporal compression of the CV, consistent with views that Japanese vowel devoicing is produced through a categorical process targeting high vowels preceding voiceless consonants, and supports previous observations made of elicited productions.

Reference data on Japanese vowel devoicing: Effects of speakers' and parents' places of origin and within-speaker reproducibility

Reference data on Japanese vowel devoicing: Effects of speakers' and parents' places of origin and within-speaker reproducibility

Sociolinguistic Factors Affecting Vowel Devoicing in Spontaneous Japanese: A Preliminary Corpus-based Analysis

Abstract Maekawa and Kikuchi (2005) used the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ) to analyse the frequency of vowel devoicing in different phonological environments. According to their analysis, the devoicing rate is highest when a fricative is followed by a stop and lowest when an affricate is followed by a fricative. Moreover, the results of their study suggest that devoicing also occurs in atypical environments, as in non-close vowels and in contexts where a vowel is followed by a voiced consonant. However, the frequency of devoicing is conditioned not only by phonological factors but, at a certain extent, also by extra-linguistic and sociological factors such as age, gender and speech style. This paper aims to analyse the sociolinguistic variation of vowel devoicing in spontaneous Japanese using the CSJ-Core consisting of about 45 hours of speech, all of which have been (sub-)phonemically segmented. Age, gender and speech style variation has been analysed for different phonological environments. Particular attention will be given to atypical environments which showed a higher rate of variability.

OnsetCyand High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese

AbstractJapanese has contrasts between onsets romanized as singletons andCyclusters (e.g.,kaku‘rank’ vs.kyaku‘guest’). It is uncertain whetherCyshould be treated as a distinctively palatalized consonant /Cy/ or as a /Cy/ cluster; the phonetic realization is compatible with either. A distributional argument favoring the /Cy/ analysis is the neutralization of the contrast before front vowels:Ci, Ce, *Cyi, *Cye; the absence of */Cyi/ and */Cye/ follows automatically from */yi/ and */ye/. In this paper, high vowel devoicing is used as a diagnostic to investigate this phonemicization issue. A production experiment was conducted, comparing the rates of vowel devoicing in words containingCu/iCandCyuCsequences (e.g.,maputavs.mapyuta). The devoicing rate was significantly lower inCyuCthan inCu/iC. This supports the cluster analysis /Cy/ (with the /y/ inhibiting devoicing) over the singleton analysis /Cy/ for the onset palatalized consonants of Japanese.

Recoverability-driven coarticulation: Acoustic evidence from Japanese high vowel devoicing.

High vowel devoicing in Japanese, where /i, u/ in a C1VC2 sequence devoice when both C1 and C2 are voiceless, has been studied extensively, but factors that contribute to the devoiced vowels' likelihood of complete deletion is still debated. This study examines the effects of phonotactic predictability on the deletion of devoiced vowels. Native Tokyo Japanese speakers (N = 22) were recorded in a sound-attenuated booth reading sentences containing lexical stimuli. C1 of the stimuli were /k, ʃ/, after which either high vowel can occur, and /ʧ, ϕ, s, ç/, after which only one of the two occurs. C2 was always a stop. C1 duration and center of gravity (COG), the amplitude weighted mean of frequencies present in a signal, were measured. Duration results show that devoicing lengthens only non-fricatives, while it has either no effect or a shortening effect on fricatives. COG results show that coarticulatory effects of devoiced vowels are evident in /k, ʃ/ but not in /ʧ, ϕ, s, ç/. Devoiced high vowels, therefore, seem to be more likely to delete when the vowel is phonotactically predictable than when it is unpredictable.

On the Input Information of the C/D Model for Vowel Devoicing in Japanese

On the Input Information of the C/D Model for Vowel Devoicing in Japanese

子音環境と発話速度による母音無声化の促進・抑制効果 : 声門開大運動パタンの検討

子音環境と発話速度による母音無声化の促進・抑制効果 : 声門開大運動パタンの検討

日本語の母音無声化に関するC/Dモデルの入力情報について( 音声科学の最前線 : C/Dモデルその音声学・音形論への衝撃)

日本語の母音無声化に関するC/Dモデルの入力情報について( 音声科学の最前線 : C/Dモデルその音声学・音形論への衝撃)

日本語学習者における母音無声化 : 台湾人日本語学習者,東京・近畿方言話者を対象に

日本語学習者における母音無声化 : 台湾人日本語学習者,東京・近畿方言話者を対象に

한국어 학습자의 모음 변별에 한국어 무성 모음화가 미치는 영향 연구: 우즈베키스탄 한국어 학습자의 모음 /ㅣ/와 /ㅡ/ 대치 오류를 중심으로

한국어 학습자의 모음 변별에 한국어 무성 모음화가 미치는 영향 연구: 우즈베키스탄 한국어 학습자의 모음 /ㅣ/와 /ㅡ/ 대치 오류를 중심으로

Boundary phenomena and variability in Japanese high vowel devoicing

Devoicing of high vowels (HVD) in Tokyo Japanese applies in two environments—between voiceless consonants, and between a voiceless consonant and a “pause”—and applies variably as a function of a number of factors. The role and definition of “pause” in this process, in terms of a physical pause or prosodic position (word or phrase boundary), remains unclear, as does what is expected when these environments overlap, and why HVD appears to be categorical in some environments and variable in others. This paper addresses three outstanding issues about HVD—the role of “boundary phenomena” (prosodic position and physical pauses), the relationship between the two environments, and the sources of variability in HVD—by examining vowel devoicing in a large corpus of spontaneous Japanese. We use mixed-effects logistic regression to model how boundary phenomena affect the likelihood of devoicing and modulate the effects of other variables, controlling for other major factors, including a measure of gestural overlap. The results suggest that all boundary phenomena jointly affect devoicing rate, and that prosodic phrase boundaries play a key role: variability in HVD looks qualitatively different for phrase-internal and phrase-final vowels, which are affected differently by word frequency, speech rate, and pause duration. We argue the results support an account of HVD as the result of two overlapping vowel devoicing processes, each widely-attested cross-linguistically: devoicing between voiceless consonants, and devoicing before prosodic phrase boundaries. Variability in the application of these two processes can then be partially explained in terms of aspects of phonetic implementation and processing: gestural overlap (Beckman 1996), which often plays a role in reduction processes, and the locality of production planning (Wagner 2012), a recent explanation for variability in the application of external sandhi processes.

Voiceless vowels in Miyako

The present study investigates the nature of vowel devoicing in Miyako, a Ryukyuan language spoken on remote Japanese islands near Taiwan. High vowels in Japanese are commonly described as being devoiced after voiceless consonants in two environments: 1) before a voiceless consonant, 2) at the end of a word (Shibatani 1990). Being a Japonic language, Miyako is also described as having a similar phenomenon but devoices all vowels in its phonemic inventory /i, ɨ, ɑ, u/ (Hayashi 2013). Data from several speakers suggests that there may be cases of vowel deletion as well. Current data suggest vowel deletion between two voiceless consonants, creating the potential for consonant clusters in Miyako—something that is said not to occur in Japanese. The acoustic nature of voiceless vowels in Miyako is investigated using both elicited data and discourse data. Data were collected from the Ikema Island community, limiting data to the Ikema dialect. Data were analyzed in Praat to determine whether potential voiceless vowels are indeed devoiced or deleted. The present investigation contributes to our overall understanding of the nature of vowel devoicing/deletion in a highly under-documented language Miyako and Ryukyuan languages in general.