Nasal Vowels Research Articles

On the Divergence of a Proto-Indo-European Velar Syllabic Nasal in Indo-European Languages

Introduction. The proposed article critically examines the explanation of the origin of nasal vowels in Slavic languages by incorporating an open syllable law. It is shown that the convergence of many closed syllables, ending with nasal consonants, into two kinds of open syllables with nasal vowels contradicts a number of facts of evolution in the opposite direction, e. g., evolution of nasal vowels towards combinations ”a vowel – a nasal consonant“ in Balkan Slavic languages (Bulg. пент ”five“, вънзел ”knot“), as well as to the observed interpretation of Slavic nasal vowels in acts of borrowing by languages without nasal vowels, e. g. OCS дѫбрава ”oak forest“ > Rom. dumbrávă. Methodology and sources. The proposed model results from generalization of the data of instrumental phonetical research, which show that the articulation of palatal consonants is unstable leading to there divergent evolution, i. e. transformation to sounds with more definite zones of articulation, e. g. palatal lateral approximant *[ʎ] split into palatalized lateral liquid [l'] and fricative [j]. In the proposed model Proto-Indo-European (PIE) syllable velar nasal consonant *ŋ̍ in the process of its phonetic evolution in Indo-European (IE) languages split into a variety of nasal vowels with different articulations, which further on irregularly transformed into vowels without nasalization or into combinations of vowels with nasal consonants (e. g. OInd. paŋktíṣ, OIsl. fimt, Lith. penkì, OCS пѩть, OHG finf, fimf, funf "пять", etc., from the common PIE prototype with syllable nasal *ŋ̍). Results and discussion. Examples of PIE prototypes of lexemes meaning “water bird”, “tooth, sharp edge”, “five”, as well as lexemes, related to Russ. нутро, ядро, неясыть, уж, угорь, нагой, нога, ноготь are presented. All prototypes contain a nasal syllabic, which is split producing four types of reflexes in IE languages. Newly discovered etymological links, such as the connection between Russ. Lexemes meaning “leg” and “corner”, are discussed.Conclusion. The proposed model permits to uniformly explain the facts of synchronous existence of related Rus. недро ”insides“ and ядро ”nucleos“, related нутро и утроба ”belly“, related OCS ѫты, Lith. ántis and AGr. Att. νῆττα “duck”, related Rus. неясыть “a kind of owl; pelican” and ненасытный “insatiable”, etc., using the notion of divergent evolution of the PIE syllable velar nasal *ŋ̍.

Penasalan Vokal dalam Dialek Melayu Hulu Pahang

Penasalan Vokal dalam Dialek Melayu Hulu Pahang

Influence of Altered Auditory Feedback on Oral-Nasal Balance in Speakers of Brazilian Portuguese.

Purpose This study explored the role of auditory feedback in the regulation of oral-nasal balance in speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Method Twenty typical speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (10 male, 10 female) wore a Nasometer headset and headphones while continuously repeating stimuli with oral and nasal sounds. Oral-nasal balance was quantified with nasalance scores. The signals from 2 additional oral and nasal microphones were played back to the participants through the headphones. The relative loudness of the nasal channel in the mix was gradually changed, so that the speakers heard themselves as more or less nasal. Results A repeated-measures analysis of variance of the mean nasalance scores of the stimuli at baseline, minimum, and maximum nasal feedback conditions demonstrated significant effects of nasal feedback condition (p < .0001) and stimuli (p < .0001). Post hoc analyses demonstrated that the mean nasalance scores were lowest for the maximum nasal feedback condition. The scores of the minimum nasal feedback condition were significantly higher than 2 of 3 baseline feedback conditions. The speaking amplitude of the participants did not change between the nasal feedback conditions. Conclusions Increased nasal signal level feedback led to a compensatory adjustment in the opposite direction, confirming that oral-nasal balance is regulated by auditory feedback. However, reduced nasal signal level feedback resulted in a compensatory response that was lower in magnitude. This suggests that, even in Brazilian Portuguese, a language with phonetic and phonological vowel nasalization, decreased nasality was not perceived as critically as increased nasality by the speakers.

Examining vowel nasalization in English word productions of bilingual and monolingual Cajun heritage speakers

One perceived characteristic of Cajun English (CE) spoken in the state of Louisiana is vowel nasalization, which has been attributed to Cajun French (CF) influence and has been reported in oldest generation Cajuns and young generation Cajun men (DuBois and Horvath, 1998, 2000). Previous research involved only CF-CE bilinguals and sociolinguistic coding based on auditory impressions. In this study, acoustic measures were used to investigate vowel nasalization among both CF-CE bilinguals (the oldest generation) and CE monolinguals. Five bilinguals and five monolinguals completed a word-reading task. In 39 monosyllabic words, four vowels occurred in both oral and nasal environments (CVC, CV, CVN). Nasality measures included bandwidth of F1; the difference between F1’s amplitude and the highest of the first or second harmonic (A1-P0); and the difference between F3’s amplitude and P0 (A3-P0). These were identified as most effective to distinguish oral and nasal vowels (Styler, 2017). Results showed that in comparison to monolinguals, vowels produced by bilinguals were more nasalized in both oral and nasal environments. This suggests that the vowel nasalization may be fading in CE, as it is lessened among young monolinguals. The results are discussed in relation to theories regarding cross-linguistic influence in bilingual communities.One perceived characteristic of Cajun English (CE) spoken in the state of Louisiana is vowel nasalization, which has been attributed to Cajun French (CF) influence and has been reported in oldest generation Cajuns and young generation Cajun men (DuBois and Horvath, 1998, 2000). Previous research involved only CF-CE bilinguals and sociolinguistic coding based on auditory impressions. In this study, acoustic measures were used to investigate vowel nasalization among both CF-CE bilinguals (the oldest generation) and CE monolinguals. Five bilinguals and five monolinguals completed a word-reading task. In 39 monosyllabic words, four vowels occurred in both oral and nasal environments (CVC, CV, CVN). Nasality measures included bandwidth of F1; the difference between F1’s amplitude and the highest of the first or second harmonic (A1-P0); and the difference between F3’s amplitude and P0 (A3-P0). These were identified as most effective to distinguish oral and nasal vowels (Styler, 2017). Results showed that in com...

Detection of nasals as a function of duration

Previous studies have shown distributional restrictions on nasal stops. Specifically, in many languages nasal stops are followed only by a nasal vowel, which is also usually comparatively longer to contrast with the vocalic context adjacent to oral stops. This was observed as a phonological constraint in Taiwanese (Southern Min), but not in French. This study tests the discriminability of Taiwanese and French listeners on plain and nasal stops. The speech stimuli were cross spliced nasal versus oral stops and oral versus nasal vowels: CV, NV, CṼ, NṼ. The vowel duration was also manipulated to see if the perceived nasality will be enhanced when the vowels are longer, and further affect the intelligibility for the consonants before them. Preliminary results indicated that the Taiwanese listeners predicted wrong consonantal categories when the nasality of the following vowel is not agree with the preceding consonant. French listeners showed no such effect. The durational effect shows the opposite: Taiwanese listeners perceived the same stop category regardless of the duration of the following vowel, whereas French listeners are biased toward the nasal category when the following vowel is longer.

The vowel nasalization found in Murcia, Spain: A case study of this phenomenon

The vowel nasalization found in Murcia, Spain: A case study of this phenomenon

진도 지역어의 비모음화 재고

진도 지역어의 비모음화 재고

Listeners maintain phonological uncertainty over time and across words: The case of vowel nasality in English

While the fact that phonetic information is evaluated in a non-discrete, probabilistic fashion is well established, there is less consensus regarding how long such encoding is maintained. Here, we examined whether people maintain in memory the amount of vowel nasality present in a word when processing a subsequent word that holds a semantic dependency with the first one. Vowel nasality in English is an acoustic correlate of the oral vs. nasal status of an adjacent consonant, and sometimes it is the only distinguishing phonetic feature (e.g., bet vs. bent). In Experiment 1, we show that people can perceive differences in nasality between two vowels above and beyond differences in the categorization of those vowels. In Experiment 2, we tracked listeners’ eye-movements as they heard a sentence that mentioned one of four displayed images (e.g., ‘money’) following a prime word (e.g., ‘bet’) that held a semantic relationship with the target word. Recognition of the target was found to be modulated by the degree of nasality in the first word’s vowel: Slightly greater uncertainty regarding the oral status of the post-vocalic consonant in the first word translated into a weaker semantic cue for the identification of the second word. Thus, listeners appear to maintain in memory the degree of vowel nasality they perceived on the first word and bring this information to bear onto the interpretation of a subsequent, semantically-dependent word. Probabilistic cue integration across words that hold semantic coherence, we argue, contributes to achieving robust language comprehension despite the inherent ambiguity of the speech signal.

LES ÉTUDIANTS POLONOPHONES FACE AUX VOYELLES NASALES FRANÇAISES

In the process of the acquisition of the sound system of French as a foreign language, Polish students face numerous difficulties at the level of recognition, differentiation and correct production of French vowels. This is true for oral and nasal vowels. This article concentrates on nasal vowels, and its aim is to present a comparative description of nasal vowels in Polish and French, including recent changes in their production. Moreover, the paper presents the study reporting difficulty with correct perception and articulation of French nasal vowels faced by advanced Polish learners of French. While the paper does not describe corrective proce-dures, it indicates the necessity of undertaking further studies aiming at optimizing the process of the acquisition of the sound system in a foreign language.

Synchronically unexpected /n/ in the Balochi dialect of Iranshahr

Through the passage of time, changes take place in any language. Balochi has experienced historical changes in different layers of its structure. The aim of this article is to describe cases of /n/ in a specific Balochi dialect that are synchronically unexpected because, for instance, the equivalent word in Persian or in other Balochi dialects does not have an /n/, or there are certain forms in the paradigm of a lexeme that do not contain /n/. The focus is on the dialect spoken in and around the regions of Bompur and Iranshahr in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran. The insertion of unetymological /n/ in words with more than one syllable often causes a change of syllable structure from an open to a closed syllable. It is possible that a preference for closed syllables has got the process of /n/ insertion underway. The reason why /n/ is chosen could be that /n/ is available for nasalization of a vowel. This nasal vowel can then be re-interpreted as VC.

Produção de vogais nasais e de encontros consonantais do francês por aprendizes brasileiros e falantes nativos de francês

Nesta pesquisa, são analisadas acusticamente as produções de vogais nasais e de encontros consonantais em francês emitidos por seis brasileiros aprendizes do francês como língua estrangeira (FLE) (de diferentes regiões do Brasil e com experiência no ensino de francês) e de quatro franceses nativos (parisienses e não parisienses). Todos os informantes têm curso superior completo. Esta pesquisa desenvolveu-se sob os critérios do Projeto Interphonologie du Français Contemporain (IPFC), que visa sensibilizar a comunidade de educadores e aprendizes no que diz respeito às variações de pronúncia em francês. A partir de uma análise acústica detalhada, foram investigadas: (a) a qualidade das vogais nasais e (b) a presença de elementos vocálicos e de fenômenos de assimilação do francês nos encontros consonantais. Os resultados mostraram que a qualidade das vogais nasais vem mudando para o francês de Paris e essa produção é observada na pronúncia de brasileiros. Os elementos vocálicos em encontros consonantais tautossilábicos (consoante+róticos) foram observados somente quando a primeira consoante do encontro é vozeada (25% na produção de brasileiros e 33% na de franceses). Em encontros heterossilábicos, foram produzidas vogais epentéticas (15% na produção de brasileiros e 19% na produção de franceses). Foi observado ainda que as vogais epentéticas produzidas por brasileiros parecem ser mais longas do que as produzidas por franceses. Finalmente, é importante destacar a aplicação pedagógica desses resultados na identificação das dificuldades de aquisição do francês por aprendizes brasileiros.

Varia: Функционална субституция между орална и носова гласна (френски – български език)

This paper analyzes some cases of functional substitution of an oral vowel for a nasal one in the spoken varieties of French and Bulgarian, as well as in some varieties of French which are as spoken outside France. Other subjects of research include cases of functional replacement of a nasal vowel for an oral one in the spoken variety of French and its variants. The purpose of the study is not only to describe the observed processes, but also to identify their causes at the subsegmental, segmental and suprasegmental levels.

Exceptional prosodification effects revisited in Gradient Harmonic Grammar

This paper presents an analysis of exceptional prosodification effects, in which exceptional lexical items appear to follow a regular pattern that is found in a different prosodic context. These patterns have been analysed as cases of prosodic prespecification, where morphemes select a non-default prosodic representation. I argue that prespecification approaches should be reconsidered, and that such patterns are predicted without morpheme-specific prosody in Gradient Harmonic Grammar, a weighted constraint system with gradiently active symbols. Exceptional prosodification effects result from the interaction of two influences on constraint penalties: (i) scaling of constraint violations by prosodic context and (ii) contrastive activity values in underlying forms. This interaction is illustrated with the distribution of French nasal vowels and linking [n]. This approach reduces the amount of structure posited for URs, and provides new arguments for a more uniform syntax–prosody mapping.

Acquisition des voyelles nasales du français et interférences du cantonais1

Les voyelles nasalisees par coarticulation sont communement trouvees dans de nombreuses langues ; cependant, les voyelles nasales en tant que phonemes independants n’existent que dans peu de langues. Avec 3 voyelles nasales et une position specifique de la langue et des levres, les voyelles nasales du francais constituent une difficulte importante pour les apprenants cantonophones. Cet article vise a examiner les caracteristiques de l’interlangue des voyelles nasales francaises produites par des apprenants cantonophones. En comparant les taux de nasalite, la longueur des voyelles, les pics spectraux (formants) et la position des levres entre les apprenants cantonophones et les locuteurs natifs du francais, nous avons remarque des influences de la coarticulation nasale en L1 (le cantonais) sur l’interlangue des voyelles nasales francaises. Les resultats de l’analyse sont les suivants : 1) il existe une difference significative au niveau du taux de nasalite entre les apprenants et les locuteurs natifs enquetes ; 2) la L1 joue un role important sur la longueur des voyelles et les valeurs maximales de la nasalite de la production des voyelles nasales ; 3) les apprenants eprouvent des difficultes dans l’arrondissement au cours de la production de certaines voyelles nasales francaises.

Patterns of vowel nasality in Brazilian Portuguese

This study aims to establish differences in patterns of acoustic nasality between nasal and nasalized vowels in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The difference in how nasality is implemented in the acoustic signal is hypothesized to reflect the different phonological status of these two vowel categories. Acoustic nasality is the difference between the amplitude of the first formant (A1) and the amplitude of a harmonic in the low region of the vowel spectrum (P0) (Chen, 1997). The smaller the difference between these peaks, the more nasal a vowel is. A1-P0 measurements were taken at different time points from recordings of oral, nasal, and nasalized vowels in BP of five qualities. Results show that nasal and nasalized vowels were similar in all qualities. However, the way nasality is implemented over time between the vowel categories are different, with acoustic nasality in nasal vowels increasing more rapidly than in the nasalized counterparts. Although the patterns of nasality found are not consistent with the expected nasal profile difference (Cohn, 1990), the difference in acoustic nasality between nasal and nasalized vowels is consistent enough to consider it result of how the feature [nasal] is implemented in the language due to its variable phonological status in BP.

Gradient and categorical patterns of spoken-word recognition and processing of phonetic details.

The speech signal is inherently rich, and this reflects complexities of speech articulation. During spoken-word recognition, listeners must process time-dependent perceptual cues, and the role that these cues play varies depending on the phonological status of the sounds across languages. For example, Canadian French has both phonologically nasal vowels (i.e., contrastive) and coarticulatorily nasalized vowels, as opposed to English, which only has coarticulatorily nasalized vowels. We investigated how vowel nasalization duration, a time-dependent phonetic cue to the French nasal contrast, affects spoken-word recognition. Using eye tracking in two visual world paradigm experiments, the results show that fine-grained phonetic information is important for lexical recognition, and that lexical access is dependent on small variations in the signal. The results also show gradient interpretation of ambiguous vowel nasalization despite the phonemic distinction between phonological nasal vowels and coarticulatorily nasalized vowels in Canadian French. Gradience was found when words were ambiguous, and interpretation was more categorical when words were unambiguous. These results support the hypothesis of gradient interpretation of phonetic cues for ambiguously produced stimuli and the storage of coarticulatory information in phono-lexical representations for a language that has a phonological contrast for nasality (i.e., French).

Nasal coarticulation in Bininj Kunwok: An aerodynamic analysis

Bininj Kunwok (BKw), a language spoken in Northern Australia, restricts the degree of anticipatory nasalization, as suggested by previous aerodynamic and acoustic analyses (Butcher 1999). The current study uses aerodynamic measurements of speech to investigate patterns of nasalization and nasal articulation in Bininj Kunwok to compare with Australian languages more generally. The role of nasal coarticulation in ensuring language compre-hensibility a key question in phonetics research today is explored. Nasal aerodynamics is measured in intervocalic, word-medial nasals in the speech of five female speakers of BKw and data are analyzed using Smoothing Spline Analysis of Variance (SSANOVA) and Functional Data Analysis averaging techniques. Results show that in a VNV sequence there is very little anticipatory vowel nasalization with no restriction on carryover nasalization for a following vowel. The maximum peak nasal flow is delayed until the oral release of a nasal for coronal articulations, indicating a delayed velum opening gesture. Patterns of anticipatory nasalization appears similar to nasal airflow in French non-nasalized vowels in oral vowel plus nasal environments (Delvaux et al. 2008). Findings show that Bininj Kunwok speakers use language specific strategies in order to limit anticipatory nasalization, enhancing place of articulation cues at a site of intonational prominence which also is also the location of the majority of place of articulation contrasts within the language. Patterns of airflow suggest enhancement and coarticulatory resistance in prosodically prominent VN and VNC sequences which we interpret as evidence of speakers maintaining a phonological contrast to enhance place of articulation cues.

A network-modeling approach to investigating individual differences in articulatory-to-acoustic relationship strategies

This study represents an exploratory analysis of a novel method of investigating variation among individual speakers with respect to the articulatory strategies used to modify acoustic characteristics of their speech. Articulatory data (nasalization, tongue height, breathiness) and acoustic data (F1 frequency) related to the distinction of three nasal-oral vowel contrasts in French were co-registered. Data were collected first from four Southern French (FR) speakers and, subsequently, from nine naïve Australian English listeners who imitated the FR productions. Articulatory measurements were mapped to F1 measurements using relative importance analysis (RIA), and the RIA coefficients were used to create similarity scores among all of the speakers. The similarity scores were then used to build network models for each nasal-oral vowel pair, using the spinglass algorithm to identify communities of shared articulatory-to-acoustic strategies within each network. The results show that network grouping is rarely based on language-dependent articulatory-to-acoustic strategies, but evidence of inter- and intra-speaker consistency is observed: Individual speakers tend to group together in their articulatory-to-acoustic strategies across vowel pairs, and most speakers have consistent articulatory-to-acoustic mappings across vowel pairs. Evidence is also observed which highlights the multi-dimensional nature of vowel nasality, rather than the uni-dimensional assumption of “nasal” vowels as merely oral vowels produced with a lowered velum.

North Slavic -ě vs. South Slavic -ę: A Problem of Forward Reconstruction

The long problematic correspondence of North Slavic -ě ~ South Slavic -ę in the jo-stem accusative plural and jā-stem genitive singular and nominative and accusative plural is best explained by positing a Proto-Slavic contrast within the soft jā-stems between gen. sg., nom. pl. *-ē and acc. pl. *-ę̄, which was leveled in different directions as NSl -ě and SSl -ę. With its nasal vowel, the acc. pl. ending must go back to *-jāns, thereby demonstrating that the PIE eh2-stem desinence *-eh2s > *-ās was remade to *-āns after the other declensional classes in the early prehistory of Slavic. The Baltic facts are consistent with a Proto-Balto-Slavic date for this innovation.

Kaingang: gender or classifiers?

The Kaingang language presents a particular vocalic alternation involving low nasal vowels, which has traditionally been treated either as dialect differences or as a case of “free variation”. My two-decade contact with native speakers of several Kaingang communities – particularly from Xapecó (SC), Nonoai, and Inhacorá (RS) – allows me to consider this vocalic alternation as a kind of “classifier” with some characteristics of “gender”. This paper argues that these distinctions in pronunciation are not mere dialect differences in Kaingang. The linguistic reality is much richer, more revealing and more interesting than the magical discard of “free variation”.