Vowel Insertion Research Articles

Acquisition of doubly articulated stops among Ga-speaking children

Abstract This study investigates the acquisition of labio-velar stops by Ga-speaking children in Ghana. Such stops were elicited in initial, intervocalic, and pre-lateral positions through a picture naming task. Sixty Ga-dominant and Ga-English children at 5-, 61/2-, and 8-years of age were tested. All age groups showed some difficulty with the doubly articulated stops, but this was relative to voicing, phonological environment, age, and input. Performance on the voiceless labio-velar stop was better than on the voiced labio-velar stop, and better in intervocalic position than in word-initial and pre-lateral positions. Older children performed better than younger children and Ga-dominant children better than Ga-English children. Performance was better when children did not receive a prompt than when they did. Analysis of modifications reveals frequent processes of simplification to labial singleton stops, some voicing changes, and the occurrence of processes of vowel insertion between the stops and /l/. These findings are discussed in terms of universals of speech sound acquisition, the role of input, and the influence of language-specific factors on children’s performance.

Finnish inserted vowels: a case of phonologized excrescence

AbstractIn this paper, I examine a case of vowel insertion found in Savo and Pohjanmaa dialects of Finnish that is typically called “epenthesis”, but which demonstrates characteristics of both phonetic excrescence and phonological epenthesis. Based on a phonological analysis paired with an acoustic corpus study, I argue that Finnish vowel insertion is the mixed result of phonetic excrescence and the phonologization of these vowels, and is related to second-mora lengthening, another dialectal phenomenon. I propose a gestural model of second-mora lengthening that would generate vowel insertion in its original phonetic state. The link to second-mora lengthening provides a unified account that addresses both the dialectal and phonological distribution of the phenomenon, which have not been linked in previous literature.

Syllable Structure and Word Stress in Central Kerala Konkani Variety: An OT Approach

This paper addresses the possible phonological patterns governing the syllable structures and word stress in Central Kerala Konkani. Unlike other northern dialects spoken in Kerala, Central Konkani variety does not allow any consonant clusters; instead it makes use of repair strategies such as vowel insertion and consonant deletion which result in resyllabification. The resulting words can be explained with the following constraints couched in Optimality Theory in the order: *CC >> NoCoda >> DEP-IO. Here we have observed that stress in Central Konkani is placed on the heaviest syllable. However, in cases where a word has two heavy syllables or only light syllables, stress is on the leftmost syllable. This is explained by the constraints ranked as WSP >> Edgemost (pk;L).

Особенности почерка и орфографии текста «Сутры Белого старца» (шифр В 228(1)) из собрания Института восточных рукописей РАН

Introduction. The manuscript of The Sutra of the White Old Man — call no. B 228(1) — in the collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (RAS) is written in the Oirat Clear Script. The manuscript was compiled during the period when the traditional rules of graphics and spelling were strongly influenced by the spoken language. Goals. The article aims at eliciting special features of the handwriting and spelling of this particular text of the Sutra. Results. If compared to the classical rules, the changes traced in the text affected both the graphics (letters and diacritic signs) and spelling of words. The spelling patterns in the manuscript reflect (although inconsistently and irregularly) some phonetic processes that took place in the spoken language, such as the development of diphthongs into long vowels, assimilation, insertion and reduction of vowels. The sign ‘udan’ denoting long vowels is used in the text only occasionally, and reduplication of labial vowels in the same function is only preserved in monosyllabic words and final syllables. The author speculates that the ‘udan’ sign could have lost its meaning to become a decorative element of the handwriting in certain positions. The paper transliterates the text and publishes a facsimile of the manuscript.

A New Aspect of Morpho-Phonologically Triggered Vowel Insertion in English

A New Aspect of Morpho-Phonologically Triggered Vowel Insertion in English

Paradigm Structure in French Verbal Inflection

Verb inflectional morphology in French exhibits a range of complexities both in the structure of verb stems (stem-final latent consonant; vowel variation; stem-final nasal vowel ; suppletive forms ; etc.) and the organization of the inflectional system, marked for five grammatical categories: tense, aspect, mode, person and number, which in the majority of cases cannot be identified as a morphological or phonological unit. The main objective of this paper is to show that these morphosyntactic properties should be analyzed as a global affix, which operate within the same space, with no fixed order. This strategy has the advantage to 1) take into account all the verb syntactic properties, 2) avoid multiple zero suffixes, 3) avoid the use of different analyses depending on the verb class, 4) avoid non-productive and phonologically unmotivated rules of insertion of theme vowels as in [dorm-i-r-ons] dormirons, and epenthetic consonants as in [ku-d-r-ons] coudrons, 5) account for French verb inflectional system in a simple and more explanatory way than strictly segmental analyses without "motivated" processes, using massive suppletion and/or stems dependencies, where inflected verbal forms are related by arbitrary implicational associations or quantitative measures based on extensive memorization. This analysis also has the property of explaining by means of a very general principle (the Onset principle) the realization of a stem-final FC in front of the affixes 'ions' and 'iez' as in before any suffix beginning with an empty onset. The verb inflectional paradigmatic structures is captured within Construction Morphology (CxM) as stated in Booij, 2010.

Production Pattern of English C+liquid Clusters by L2 Proficiency of Korean Speakers

The present study investigates the production of English consonant+liquid onset clusters by Korean learners, with a specific focus on vowel insertion. Specifically, this study analyzes whether the production varies according to the type of consonants in onset clusters, i.e., voiceless stop or voiced stop or fricative+/r or l/. Furthermore, the influence of L2 proficiency on the pattern of production of consonant clusters is also examined. The results are as follows: 1) the error rate is higher in C+/l/ than C+/r/; 2) the error rate is higher in voiced stop or fricative+liquid than voiceless stop+liquid; 3) the error rate is significantly higher in fricative+/r/ than voiced stop or voiceless stop+/r/; and 4) the higher a learner’s L2 proficiency, the lower the error frequencies in C+/l/ clusters. In addition, the lower the proficiency, the stronger the [l]-gemination effect on the production of onset clusters. The first result may be due to the L1 transfer, while the second and the third results may be the effect of markedness of the segment itself. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for either the L1 transfer or the markedness effect and patterns in production according to L2 proficiency in consonant+liquid clusters.

When the tune shapes morphology: The origins of vocatives

AbstractMany languages use pitch to express pragmatic meaning (henceforth ‘tune’). This requires segmental carriers with rich harmonic structure and high periodic energy, making vowels the optimal carriers of the tune. Tunes can be phonetically impoverished when there is a shortage of vowels, endangering the recovery of their function. This biases sound systems towards the optimisation of tune transmission by processes such as the insertion of vowels. Vocative constructions—used to attract and maintain the addressee’s attention—are often characterised by specific tunes. Many languages additionally mark vocatives morphologically. In this article, we argue that one potential pathway for the emergence of vocative morphemes is the morphological re-analysis of tune-driven phonetic variation that helps to carry pitch patterns. Looking at a corpus of 101 languages, we compare vocatives to structural case markers in terms of their phonological make-up. We find that vocatives are often characterised by additional prosodic modulation (vowel lengthening, stress shift, tone change) and contain substantially fewer consonants, supporting our hypothesis that the acoustic properties of tunes interact with segmental features and can shape the emergence of morphological markers. This fits with the view that the efficient transmission of information is a driving force in the evolution of languages, but also highlights the importance of defining ‘information’ broadly to include pragmatic, social, and affectual components alongside propositional meaning.

Vowel insertion after coda plosives in the dialect of Paraíba (PB): reflections on the establishment of syllabic and social boundaries

The present study aimed to verify how Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speakers born in the city of Campina Grande (PB) produce coda plosives in word-medial and -final positions, considering the possibilities of dealing with stray consonants in BP. Thus, 960 tokens of syllables closed by /p, t, k, b, d, g/ were recorded in audio and submitted for multivariate analysis. The results indicate that the application of the vowel insertion rule is influenced by two internal factors, namely the stray consonants and the words’ etymology, and two extralinguistic ones, that is, speakers’ gender and their L2 proficiency levels.

Consonant Insertion in Iyinno: A Critique

Unlike vowel insertion (epenthesis), consonant insertion is a rare occurrence in languages. It is against this backdrop that this study examines the occurrence of consonant insertion in Ì̩yí̩nnó̩ as claimed by Ibikunle (2008:122). He (Ibikunle 2008:122) claimed that, there is an insertion of voiced bilabial nasal [m] between two nouns while combining them to form new words. This paper shows that, the voiced bilabial nasal [m] found between two nouns in the lect is not the case of consonant insertion but rather, an associative morpheme (a genitive marker) [mὲ] which has lost its vocalic anchor as a result of hiatus resolution across morpheme boundary. Also, our study reveals that, after [mέ] has lost its vocalic anchor, the nasal feature of [m] got transferred to the (oral) V1 of the second noun across morpheme boundary.

Consonant Insertion in Iyinno: A Critique

Unlike vowel insertion (epenthesis), consonant insertion is a rare occurrence in languages. It is against this backdrop that this study examines the occurrence of consonant insertion in Ì̩yí̩nnó̩ as claimed by Ibikunle (2008:122). He (Ibikunle 2008:122) claimed that, there is an insertion of voiced bilabial nasal [m] between two nouns while combining them to form new words. This paper shows that, the voiced bilabial nasal [m] found between two nouns in the lect is not the case of consonant insertion but rather, an associative morpheme (a genitive marker) [mὲ] which has lost its vocalic anchor as a result of hiatus resolution across morpheme boundary. Also, our study reveals that, after [mέ] has lost its vocalic anchor, the nasal feature of [m] got transferred to the (oral) V1 of the second noun across morpheme boundary.

Linguistic Factors in Arabic for Miscommunication of Medication Names.

A commentary and analysis on the miscommunication of medication names between native Arabic-speaking patients and pharmacists with a native English-speaking family physician using Medical English as a Lingua Franca (MELF), in a healthcare context. An important cause of communication difficulties is the different way native English and native Arabic speakers linguistically process medication names when using MELF. This is likely to be explained by the differences in the native grammars of English and Arabic which determine differences in pronunciation and predict potential error prone groupings of letters and sounds. This in turn leads to repeating linguistic errors such as epenthesis (insertion of additional vowels between consonants) and metathesis (the swapping of adjacent consonants). The article highlights a case where both epenthesis and metathesis occur simultaneously leading to a potential serious adverse event through a medication error and suggests further avenues of research to minimise such errors.

ГЛАСНАЯ ВСТАВКА В ДЕТСКОЙ РЕЧИ

The importance of word syllable structure acquisition by children can hardly be doubted. In 3-year-olds speech, there are specific pattern that, from the viewpoint of adult standards, are considered misnomers: examples of syllable elision, consonant elision and vowel insertion. It is believed that vowel insertion in adult native speakers of Russian occurs due to physiological reasons. However, according to the hypothesis, in child’s speech it is vowel phoneme that occurs between consonants and it leads to a change in the word syllable structure. The results of an acoustic study of vowel insertion in two-syllable words produced by three 3-year-old subjects showed well-expressed F-structure that was similar to the surrounding vowel phonemes. 2 types of vowel insertions were discovered: with [a]-like F-structure and [ɨ]-like F-structure. It was also found that vowel insertion mean duration was no different from the one of a “legitimate” vowel phoneme with similar acoustic pattern. 20 Russian native speakers performing a discrimination task during a perceptual study were unanimous in perceiving the number of syllables increase as a result of vowel insertion being interpreted as a “legitimate” phoneme presence. The participants were also unanimous in the phoneme affiliation of the vowel insertions that closely correlated with their F-structure.

Pre-Service English Language Teachers’ Problematic Sounds

Today, pronunciation is one of the least researched areas in the EFL context. The available studies focus on learner errors and aim to generalise the sound problems in differing contexts and L1 backgrounds. Studies reveal that some of the learner errors are caused by the input they receive at their learning environment. With the belief that the primary input in an EFL classroom is the teacher, this study analysed the sound problems of senior pre-service EFL teachers. The study was carried out in three universities in Turkey within the bounds of accessibility. A total of 66 pre-service English language teachers were randomly selected. “Please Call Stella” accent elicitation text was adapted to delineate the sound problems of the language segmentally. The analysis of the descriptive data revealed the major sound problems conforming to the previously mentioned literature in the field. Although the participants had completed their formal education in ELT, they committed errors with devoicing of word-final consonants, vowel insertion, vowel shortening, gemination and individual sounds /ɾ/, /ð/, /w/, /θ/, /ŋ/, /oʊ/, /ə/ and /æ/. It was assumed that mother tongue interference, fossilization of mistakes in language classrooms and non-existent sounds in L1 form the basis for errors in pronunciation.

Young vs. old Koreans’ vowel insertion after word-final English and French postvocalic plosives: A case of contact-induced borrowing change

This paper explores whether young vs. old Koreans’ vowel insertion after word-final English and French postvocalic plosives has changed or not. For this purpose, we conducted a perception experiment wherein 40 Koreans who were born before 1960 and another 40 Koreans who were born after 1989 were recruited with 20 male and 20 female subjects in each group. The results show that the release of plosives and the voicing of unreleased plosives are key variables for vowel insertion in both age groups. In addition, our young Koreans have no significant difference in vowel insertion after word-final English and French plosives, regardless of whether the plosives are released or unreleased, regardless of whether they are voiceless or voiced and regardless of whether they are preceded by the tense vowel [aI], as in English stimuli, or by the non-tense vowel [a], as in the French stimuli. On the other hand, our old Koreans have differences in vowel insertion after the non-native plosives in the examined contexts, depending on whether the plosives are English or French.Based on the results, we propose that vowel insertion in accordance with the plosive release and the voicing of unreleased plosives in the two groups is accounted for by Korean syllable structure with generational differences made by how two effects – the plosive voicing effect and the vowel-tenseness effect – are involved. We also propose that no significant difference in vowel insertion after word-final English and French plosives in the young group is a case of contact-induced borrowing change resulting from the English/French contact differences over time in Korean society.

The study of the relationship between Koreans' English proficiency and vowel insertion after word-final stops in English

Vowel insertion is one of the utterance errors that Korean learners of English commit frequently. Based on this fact, the purpose of this research is to determine whether the Koreans' English proficiency affects the phenomenon of vowel insertion. To achieve it, the study investigated the relationship between the Korean speakers' English proficiency and vowel insertion in their English read speech. For analysis, Korean-Spoken English Corpus (K-SEC, made in 2004) and rated K-SEC (made in 2017) were used where 32 Korean elementary school students from Seoul and Gyeonggi province had pronounced the 6 target items that are minimal pairs (e.g. cap-cab). The speakers in these speech corpus data were also classified in one of the three different groups according to their English proficiency—Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced. It turned out that the speakers who are in the advanced level showed a tendency of the least chance of inserting a vowel after word-final voiced stops (7%) whereas 35% of the speakers who are in the novice proficiency level did so. For voiceless stops, the result was similar; the advanced group had the lowest tendency of inserting a vowel after word-final voiceless stops (4%) while novice group made 18% of vowel insertion. From these finding, it is concluded that the more proficient the Korean speakers in English, the less they are likely to insert a vowel after word-final stops.

RESEARCHING STUDENTS’ ORAL PERFORMANCE: What’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation?

This study was conducted to investigate errors in oral performance among the third year English Education Department students of UIN Ar-Raniry. It was aimed at two folds of research objectives. First, it sought to investigate the most frequently-committed error of the third year English Education Department students of UINAr-Raniry. Second, it attempted to identify the causes of students’ errors in their oral performance. This study employed qualitative research methods. The participants of this study were 20 students registering in Public Speaking Course. To investigate the students’ errors, a speaking test was used as a research instrument. The test was in the form of individual speaking performance on a topic of “Do we need native speakers in our Tarbiyah Faculty?” The participants were required to speak about the issue, which lasted for 10 minutes each. 20 oral performances were transcribed to enable the analysis of the errors. To analyze the student’s oral performance errors, the content analysis was used. This process was followed by analyzing the different aspects of language: grammar, pronunciation, and categories of error causes in communication. The results revealed that puzzling vowel insertion was the most commonly committed error (316/62.7%) compared to shifts in tense (10/2.0%), word order (19/3.8%), subject verb agreement (14/2.8%), and case of referent (15/3%). These errors were identified to have been caused by interlanguage factor. In an effort to respond to these compelling issues in the students’ speaking performance, lecturers who teach English at the University are required to give their maximum attention in order to improve their students’ oral performance.

Inter-consonantal intervals in Tripolitanian Libyan Arabic: Accounting for variable epenthesis

This paper reports on an acoustic investigation of inter-consonantal intervals in plosive sequences in Tripolitanian Libyan Arabic (TLA). TLA permits a wide range of two, three, and four-consonant strings within and across word boundaries. Previous descriptive work has suggested that TLA is characterized by widespread, partly optional vowel epenthesis throughout these sequences. We conducted a production study to investigate the phonetic and phonological properties of inter-consonantal intervals (ICIs) in these sequences, including their durations and voicing characteristics, as well as the voicing of surrounding plosive hold phases. Our aim was to assess the extent of ‘variable epenthesis’ and narrow down the range of possible accounts for it. Unlike many previous studies, we did not rely on native speaker intuitions and made minimal use of manual categorical coding, instead focusing on modelling distributions of continuous acoustic parameters. The central question we address is whether our data contain patterns that can only be explained with reference to phonological vowel insertion—given that variable epenthesis can also be accounted for in terms of vocoid intrusion alone (Hall, 2006). Our study improves our understanding of consonant articulations in Arabic, and of epenthesis and related phenomena.

Beyond prosody: Foreign accent syndrome in a Spanish-speaking patient. Case report

Introduction: Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare speech disorder. It is becoming increasingly common to find reports of cases about alterations different from the suprasegmental aspects of speech, although these reports are not frequent in Spanish-speaking patients.Case presentation: 48-year-old female patient from Colombia diagnosed with FAS, segmental and suprasegmental speech alterations, and changes in cognitive domains (executive functions and language). The woman also presented with motor and affective changes. Brain imaging studies ruled out structural involvement and follow-up at one year did not show significant changes in speech.Discussion: This case presents the neurological, neuropsychological and speech features of a Spanish-speaking patient with FAS. Greater alteration in vowels than in consonants, alteration in pronunciation time, variation in rhythm and intonation of words and phrases, decrease of time between syllables, and insertion of vowels are common elements between this patient and other cases of FAS in non-Spanish speaking subjects.Conclusions: FAS is essentially a speech alteration; however, it can be accompanied by other physical and psychological signs. This case report allows recognizing the essential components for the definition, diagnosis and intervention of this syndrome.

Perceptual Similarity between English and Korean: Evidence from Online Adaptation

Korean loanwords borrowed from English that end in voiceless stops frequently undergo vowel insertion. This vowel insertion is interesting since voiceless stops are permissible in final position in Korean native words. The perceptual similarity approach claims that this seemingly unnecessary vowel insertion is motivated by perceptual similarity between English and Korean forms. The current study reports on a perception experiment designed to examine whether Korean listeners actually judge English forms to be similar to Korean forms. In an AXB similarity judgment experiment, Korean learners of English listened to a triplet, consisting of an English stop-final form (CVC) and two Korean forms, one ending in a stop (CVC) and the other ending in stop-vowel (CVCV), and indicated which of the two Korean forms the English form sounded more similar to. The experimental result showed that Korean listeners were more likely to judge Korean CVCV as more similar to English CVC than Korean CVC when the English form ended in a released stop, and that final stress did not have a significant effect. This finding turns out to be consistent with the perceptual similarity approach, indicating that the English form could be acoustically similar to the Korean pronunciation.