Word-initial Consonant Clusters Research Articles

Salient sociophonetic features, stereotypes, and attitudes toward Jazani Arabic

Far more attention has been paid to attitudes toward Standard Arabic than colloquial varieties, especially Jazani Arabic. This study aimed to identify Saudis’ stereotypes, beliefs, and attitudes toward Jazani, as well as salient sociophonetic features that might have an impact on those attitudes. An additional goal was to determine whether Saudi speakers of other dialects could identify Jazani. The study asked the following questions. Can speakers of different Saudi dialects identify Jazani speakers from sociophonetic input alone? What are Saudi speakers’ attitudes toward Jazani Arabic? What are the salient sociophonetic features of Jazani Arabic? A total of 183 Saudi Arabic speakers participated in an online attitudinal survey. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted on the collected data. Findings showed that respondents could identify the speakers as Jazanis based solely on sociophonetic characteristics. Non-emphatic /r/ and word-initial consonant clusters were pointed out as salient features of Jazani Arabic. In addition, participants’ responses included general impressions, cultural associations, and social status. Overall, speakers of other Saudi dialects had more positive attitudes than Najdi speakers, who held more negative attitudes toward Jazani speakers. The results reflected the social stratification in Saudi Arabia and confirmed beliefs, stereotypical views, and misrepresentations of Jazani speakers’ social status.

Structure and usage do not explain each other: an analysis of German word-initial clusters

Abstract The present study focuses on German word-initial consonant clusters and asks whether feature-based phonotactic preferences correlate with patterns of type and token frequencies in present-day usage. The corpus-based analyses are based on a comprehensive list of such clusters, representing current usage, and on a number of feature-based phonotactic preferences. Correlating the variables by means of a correlation analysis and a regression analysis leads to a number of observations relevant to the general topic of featural-segmental structures versus usage. First, out of eighteen correlations between (raw and logarithmic) type and token frequencies, and preferred feature patterns, only one significant correlation was found. Second, a regression analysis led to similar results: out of thirteen variables tested, only two contribute to logarithmic type and token frequencies. Only a limited set of cluster properties investigated in the present paper constitutes a relevant predictor of frequency measures. The study thus demonstrates, in accordance with other recent evidence, that preferred phonetic/phonological structures and their usage frequency constitute two separate domains for which distributions may not have to coincide.

Fijian school students’ Fiji English speech sound acquisition

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate Fijian students’ acquisition of Fiji English speech sounds. Method: Participants were 72 multilingual students (5–10 years) living in Fiji who spoke the Fijian or Fiji Hindi dialects of Fiji English. The students’ productions of single words from the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP) were analysed according to dialect using the Children’s Independent and Relational Phonological Analysis (CHIRPA). Result: Most English consonants were acquired by 6;0. English consonants that were not in the inventories of Fijian or Fiji Hindi were the last acquired, while those that were common between English and the two languages were some of the earlier acquired consonants. Percentage of consonants correct (PCC) for Fiji English was significantly lower for Grade 1 students (M = 93.01, SD = 0.07) in comparison to Grade 4 students (M = 99.03, SD = 0.01). Plosive and nasal sounds were acquired by 90% of the students earlier than fricative, approximant and affricate sounds, though acquisition of some plosive and fricative sounds varied between Fiji English dialects. All word-initial consonant clusters were acquired by 90% of the students by 9;6, with r-clusters tending to be the latest acquired. The acquisition of word-final consonant clusters was highly variable as students often produced appropriate dialectal variants. Conclusion: Multilingual Fijian children may acquire English specific sounds later than their monolingual English-speaking peers. Consideration of the language environment and analysis of the speech sample with reference to the child’s dominant English dialect is imperative for valid identification of speech sound disorder (SSD) in children who speak different dialects of English.

A Study on the Place Name Notation of Jindo-gun in the Joseonjijijaryo(朝鮮地誌資料)

This study aimed to investigate place name notations where correspondence was found between Chinese characters and Korean recorded in Jindo-gun of The 『JoseonjijiJaryo』. For this study, original texts were classified according to kinds and errors in notations were corrected. Then, notations of multi-place names where correspondence was found between Chinese characters and Korean were investigated and phonological phenomena and dialects reflected in place names were interpreted. It was assumed that erroneous notation was caused by simple errors in recording in consideration of correspondence of Chinese characters to Korean. However, misspelling and phonological phenomena were differentiated from notations reflecting dialects. Notation of proper place names in Chinese characters was made by the borrowed notation. Place names were divided into front part and rear part to interpret the borrowed notation. Chinese reading, phonetic notation, Korean reading and meaning borrowing were used. In Korean and Chinese place names, addition or omission were investigated. In respect to the notation of monophthongized ‘ae’, ‘ʌy[]’ was actively used in notation of native words. In the notation of final consonants, ‘siot’ appeared as the realization type of [t] and inter siot rarely appeared. When ‘eo[ㅓ] and woo[ㅜ]’ were connected under siot[ㅅ], jieut[ㅈ], and chieut[ㅊ], they were notated 􋺷조선지지자료(朝鮮地志資料)􋺸 진도군의 지명 표기 고찰 37 as diphthongs while when double vowels were connected, they were not notated as diphthongs. Word-Initial Glottalization was found in ‘Ssak’ of Sark(meaning a wildcat) and ‘Ssa’ of Sai(meaning between). Notation of word-initial consonant clusters were used for ‘, ,  and ’, and ‘ and ’ were reflections of word-initial glottalization while ‘ and ’ were notations of fortis. In addition, diverse phonological phenomena appeared although it was only in part of the relevant records; k[ㄱ]-palatalization, liquidization, Umlaut, substitution of monphthong and monophthongization of diphthong. Jeonnam dialects appearing in place names were Bangae[碓], Daepori[竹葉], Galmi[鷗], Borigʌy[連枷/連耞], Bawu[巖], Speol[鹵], Dere[野], Gat[邊], Solki[鳶], Dolpak[石], Naet[川], Won[堰] and Yeoleol[十日].

Vocalic Intrusions in Consonant Clusters in Child-Directed vs. Adult-Directed Speech.

In this paper, we investigate a prosodic-phonetic feature in child-directed speech within a dynamic, complex, interactive theoretical framework. We focus on vocalic intrusions, commonly occurring in Norwegian word initial consonant clusters. We analysed child-directed speech from nine Norwegian-speaking mothers to their children, aged 2;6, 4, and 6 years, and compared the incidence and duration of vocalic intrusions in initial consonant clusters in these data with those in adult-directed speech and child speech. When viewed overall, vocalic intrusion was found to be similar in incidence in child- and adult-directed speech. However, closer examination revealed differential behaviour in child-directed speech for certain conditions. Firstly, a difference emerged for one particular phonetic context: While vocalic intrusions in /Cr/ clusters are frequent in adult-directed speech, their presence is near-categorical in child-directed speech. Secondly, we found that the duration of vocalic intrusions was longer in child- than in adult-directed speech, but only when directed to 2;6-year-olds. We argue that vocalic intrusions in child-directed speech may have both a bonding as well as a didactic function, and that these may vary according to the age of the child being addressed.

Türkçe’de hece başında ünsüz kümelenmesinde ses türemesi ve İngiliz dili eğitimine etkisi

Abstract
 The phonological structure of Turkish does not allow word-initial consonant clusters. That is, the syllable onset position of borrowed vocabulary requires the insertion of an epenthetic high vowel. This changes the syllable structure by the addition of an extra syllable to the word. In Turkish schools, all grammar teachers teach those borrowed words as if they were one syllable words. However, the situation is different phonologically since these are not one syllable but two syllable words. Borrowed words such as tren (English train), plan (English plan) are pronounced with the insertion of the high vowel [i] and therefore become two syllable words. Our goal in this paper was to analyse such borrowed words drawing syllable diagrams in order to prove that these loan words actually consist of two syllables in Turkish. The diagrams were illustrated in phonetic transcription. We also concluded that Turkish initial consonant cluster epenthesis might affect Turkish EFL learners’ pronunciation of English words in their foreign language classes.
 
 Key words: epenthesis, consonant clusters, onset, Turkish.

The Acquisition of Russian Word-Initial Consonant Clusters in a Russian-American English Bilingual Child: An Overview of One Child’s Exceptional Production

abstract: The majority of approaches to the acquisition of phonology attempt to model discrepancies between child and adult speech, with less attention given to children whose pronunciation is accurate. This is especially true in the acquisition of consonant clusters, where models attempt to explain children’s “errors” or non-adult-like production in terms of articulatory difficulty or phonological markedness effects. In this study, dense longitudinal data from one child’s third year show exceptional production of Russian word-initial consonant clusters. Though other studies suggest that sonority sequencing plays a central role in consonant cluster acquisition, no support for sonority-based generalizations are found in the naturalistic speech data of a two-year-old bilingual Russian-American English girl, Ulijana. On the contrary, sonority reversals were acquired early, while ideal sonority clines were acquired late. Alternative explanations for observed patterns include frequency effects and the articulatory difficulty of segments.

Measuring word-final consonant clusters in developmental child speech

ABSTRACT The correlation between the measure for cluster proximity (MCP) and the percentage of consonants correct (PCC) for word-initial two-member consonant clusters was recently found in the literature to be strong and statistically significant in developmental child speech. Because of this, MCP norms that quantitatively define stages in cluster development (omission, reduction, vowel epenthesis, and two-member production with a distinction on member accuracy) can be predicted from PCC norms that only measure cluster-member accuracy. In the present study, this investigation is extended to word-final two-member clusters for the purpose of examining whether the correlation between MCP and PCC is also strong and statistically significant as well as comparing stage performance between word-initial and word-final clusters using the MCP measure. The study employs 31 speech samples from 18 children, 16 in atypical and 2 in typical development. The results show that the correlation between MCP and PCC for word-final clusters is as strong and as statistically significant as for word-initial clusters. Furthermore, the correlation between word-initial and word-final MCP is also positive, but somewhat weak. Nevertheless, it indicates that word-final clusters as a whole may be developing earlier than word-initial clusters.

Estimating the accuracy of word-initial consonant clusters in child speech data

Children have difficulty in producing consonant clusters in adult-like manner. A widely used measure for the proximity of consonant clusters is the proportion of accurately produced clusters to intended clusters (PClC). Recently, Babatsouli and Sotiropoulos proposed the measure for cluster proximity (MCP) which differentiates inaccurate clusters in developmental stages. The purpose here is two-fold: to highlight the differences between the two measures for individual children in typical or atypical speech development, and to examine the correlation between the two measures for speech data from several children. The data comprise 33 speech samples each with 18 word-initial clusters from 17 children: 1 monolingual male at age 2 years and six months; 1 bilingual female at ages 2 years and seven months, three years, and three years and five months; and 15 other children in atypical development whose speech data was collected before and after therapy. The results show that the two measures are strongly and significantly correlated across children, cumulatively for all word-initial clusters and classes of clusters, cumulatively for all children. Therefore, a universal norm for MCP can be predicted linearly from a universal norm for PClC, with a high coefficient of determination.

Some Characteristics of Syllable Structure in Qassimi Arabic (QA): An Optimality Theoretic Framework

The paper investigates the syllable structures of Qassimi Arabic (QA), which is a sub-dialect of Najdi Arabic (NA) and is spoken in the north-central region of Saudi Arabia, particularly in the Qassim Region. Within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT), we show how the well-formed syllable is derived from the interaction of constraints. We show how the OT captures some of the major processes for structuring the syllables of QA, such as syncope, epenthesis, and geminate. The analysis revealed that onsetless syllables are prohibited in QA. The dialect allows word-initial consonant clusters, which is a result of the syncope process. Coda clusters also occur in QA that must obey the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP); otherwise, epenthesis presents to repair the violation. As for the geminates, QA permits geminates medially and finally, but not initially. The data revealed that QA demonstrates seven fundamental syllable structures grouped into three categories: light syllables, as in CV; heavy syllables, as in CVV and CVC; and super heavy syllables, as in CVVC, CVCC, CCVVC and CVVCC.

Cross-linguistic variation in word-initial cluster production in adult and child language: evidence from English and Norwegian

Young children simplify word initial consonant clusters by omitting or substituting one (or both) of the elements. Vocalic insertion, coalescence and metathesis are said to be used more seldom (McLeod, van Doorn & Reed, 2001). Data from Norwegian children, however, have shown vocalic insertion to be more frequently used (Simonsen, 1990; Simonsen, Garmann & Kristoffersen, 2019). To investigate the extent to which children use this strategy to differing degrees depending on the ambient language, we analysed word initial cluster production acoustically in nine Norwegian and nine English speaking children aged 2;6-6 years, and eight adults, four from each language. The results showed that Norwegian-speaking children produce significantly more instances of vocalic insertions than English-speaking children do. The same pattern is found in Norwegian- versus English-speaking adults. We argue that this cross-linguistic difference is an example of the influence of prosodic-phonetic biases in language-specific developmental paths in the acquisition of speech.

Intelligibility in Chinese English Spoken in Central China

Abstract It is widely accepted nowadays that intelligibility is the essential goal for most learners of English, and it is not necessary for them to mimic all aspects of native-speaker English in order to achieve a high level of intelligibility. However, the features that are needed in order to make oneself easily understood by listeners from elsewhere remain controversial. The current research focuses on thirteen five-minute recordings of conversations between young speakers of English in central China and an interviewer from Britain, in order to determine which features of their speech gave rise to misunderstandings. It was found that, in the 18 tokens of misunderstanding identified, 4 resulted from lexical semantics (22%), 3 from Chinese place names (17%), 3 from grammar (17%) , and 11 from pronunciation (61%) (with some tokens cross-classified). The most common phonological factors giving rise to loss of intelligibility were omission of syllables and simplification of word-initial consonant clusters.

Phonological development of Finnish speaking children at 3;6 and associations to previous and simultaneous lexical ability

ABSTRACT Previous studies of Finnish children’s phonological development focus mainly on children under 2;0. Earlier findings have suggested that phonological and lexical development are strongly associated at an early age. However, less is known about the longitudinal association. This study describes the phonological skills of Finnish-speaking children at 3;6 and compares them with early lexicon size at 2;0 and lexical ability at 3;6 (N = 67). The children’s phonological development was measured using The Finnish Phonology Test. Lexical development was evaluated using the Finnish, long-form version of the Communicative Development Inventory at 2;0 and the Boston naming test at 3;6 At 3;6, all children mastered the vowels and diphthongs fully, and most of the children also mastered the consonants, with the exception of the phonemes/d/and/r/. Phonotactic skills had also been acquired well at this group level, although the word-medial and, especially, word-initial consonant clusters were still challenging. The percentage of phonemes correct was 95. Both paradigmatic and phonotactic skills at 3;6 were significantly associated with lexicon size at 2;0. In addition phonotactic skills correlated with naming ability at 3;6. Lexical development at 2;0 explained 21% of the variance in the phonological development at 3;6, whereas, the explaining value of simultaneous lexical skill was limited (9%). Present findings propose that associations between lexical and phonological skills weaken as phonological skills become more honed.

Temporal Coordination and Sonority of Jazani Arabic Word-Initial Clusters

Previous research on the organization of syllable-structure, relying on the timing of the articulators suggests that though both English and Moroccan Arabic have word-initial consonant clusters, Moroccan Arabic does not have complex onsets, while English does (Browman and Goldstein, 1988; Byrd, 1995; Shaw et al., 2011). However, typically, such research employs expensive articulatory equipment. This limits the research to those who have access to such technology. Here, we advocate the use of the acoustic measurements with carefully selected stimuli. We conducted an experiment on 7 native speakers of Jazani Arabic, who produced 6 repetitions of 78 target words (34 real, 44 nonce), which varied in the number of onset consonant (C1, C2), and the sonority profiles. Similarly, to Moroccan Arabic, the results show that onset consonant alignments in Jazani Arabic are consistent with the simplex onset organization. Unlike Italian, the temporal pattern of Jazani Arabic remained the same, as simplex onsets across the sonority profiles. The study shows the effectiveness of acoustic measurements as a tool to understand syllabic organization, through studying the temporal co-ordination patterns.

Production and perception of phonetically “non-native” clusters by Georgian native speakers

This study examines the role of native inter-consonant timing patterns in perception and production of word-initial consonant clusters, asking how phonotactically native clusters with non-native timing patterns are perceived and produced by speakers of a cluster-heavy language. We tested Georgian speakers in two experiments using CCV/CVCV stimuli produced by a French talker. Georgian is a cluster-heavy language with a relatively long inter-consonant lag, often resulting in transitional vowels between two consonants within a cluster. French onset clusters have shorter inter-consonant lag than Georgian ones. In Experiment 1 (shadowing), Georgian participants (n = 14) were exposed to French CCV/CVCV stimuli and asked to produce what they heard. In Experiment 2 (discrimination), the same Georgian participants heard the same French stimuli in AX pairs and determined whether the two sequences (A and X) were the same or different. The results from the two experiments suggest that Georgian participants often confused French CCV (without any vocalic transition) with French CVCV. The confusion occurred almost exclusively when the first vowel of CVCV was /ø/, which is acoustically similar to the transitional vowel in Georgian, but did not seem to stem from Georgian speakers' incapability of producing French short-lag CCV. We claim that native inter-consonant timing patterns influence perception and production of consonant clusters even when the clusters are phonotactically licit in one’s native language.

Online Adaptation of Word-initial Ukrainian CC Consonant Clusters by Native Speakers of English

The phenomenon of loanword adaptation occupies a prominent position in modern phonological literature. The present paper introduces the major theories which deal with this phenomenon as well as presenting the author’s experimental study of online adaptation of Ukrainian word-initial CC consonant clusters illegal in English. In this paper the findings of two experiments are compared and discussed. In the first one 25 native speakers of English imitated Ukrainian words containing word-initial CC consonant clusters absent in English. In the second task a different group of 25 native English speakers were asked to write down the same words in orthographic form. The analysis has shown certain similarities as well as differences between the two sets of data. The repetition task demonstrates that the sonority profile of a cluster has a significant influence on the reproduction of a sequence. Thus, the combinations of sounds which comply with the Sonority Sequencing Generalization pose less difficulty for English native speakers than clusters which violate this principle. The study has also revealed the number of patterns which clearly show that the structure of the CC consonant cluster influences the repair strategy chosen by the participants. Thus, vowel epenthesis is frequently employed with two voiced obstruents, and consonant deletion seems to be the prevalent repair strategy in the case of fricatives.

In search of phonotactic preferences

Abstract The objective of this contribution is to provide an analysis of consonant clusters based on the assumption that phonotactic preferences are encoded in phonological features of individual segments forming a cluster. This encoding is expressed by a set of parameters established for the following features: complexity, place of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing. On the basis of empirically observed tendencies of feature distribution and co-occurrence, novel phonotactic preferences for English word-initial consonant clusters are proposed. Statistical methods allow us to weigh the preferences and determine a ranking of phonological features in cluster formation.

Preferences and variation in word-initial phonotactics: A multi-dimensional evaluation of German and Polish

AbstractThe goal of this paper is to discuss phonotactic constraints that govern the formation of word-initial consonant clusters in two different languages, German and Polish, and to establish a general procedure for a rank-ordering of clusters. The description of clusters is based on corpus and dictionary data. We define several dimensions in cluster description, namely (i) complexity of clusters, (ii) place of articulation, (iii) manner of articulation and (iv) voicing of segments, for which a total of 15 parameters is derived, each expressing a structural preference for cluster formation true to various degrees in the two languages. These preferences can be seen in part as extensions of the frequently used measure of sonority based mainly on manner of articulation features, and can be considered to provide a more detailed description of clusters than one based on sonority. In addition, a cluster analysis for the two sets of clusters lends support to the conclusions on the fundamental difference between Polish and German word-initial phonotactics. For each cluster, values obtained for every parameter are summed up to calculate an empirically justified rank ordering of the clusters in both languages.

Strength-based faithfulness and the sibilant /s/ in Italian

Abstract Notwithstanding the primacy of the CV syllable, a number of languages allow for more complex types of syllables. In particular, word-initial consonant clusters are particularly challenging for any phonological theory. In this paper it is argued that obstruent clusters may be the result of casual speech processes where the most salient/ frequent phonemes and features occurring in most pronunciation variants of a word are preserved. As a result, sibilants, being acoustically salient, tend to occur more often than other obstruents as the first member of word-initial obstruent clusters. A framework couched in Optimality Theory is presented, where a subfamily of faithfulness constraints refer to strength values stored in the underlying representation. The more salient and/or frequent a phoneme/feature is, the higher the strength value assigned to it. Finally, a number of languages are compared, arguing that their phonotactic differences may be due to the different ranking of markedness constraints and MAX-STRENGTHVALUE constraints.

Rules from Words: A Dynamic Neural Basis for a Lawful Linguistic Process

Listeners show a reliable bias towards interpreting speech sounds in a way that conforms to linguistic restrictions (phonotactic constraints) on the permissible patterning of speech sounds in a language. This perceptual bias may enforce and strengthen the systematicity that is the hallmark of phonological representation. Using Granger causality analysis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)- constrained magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) data, we tested the differential predictions of rule-based, frequency–based, and top-down lexical influence-driven explanations of processes that produce phonotactic biases in phoneme categorization. Consistent with the top-down lexical influence account, brain regions associated with the representation of words had a stronger influence on acoustic-phonetic regions in trials that led to the identification of phonotactically legal (versus illegal) word-initial consonant clusters. Regions associated with the application of linguistic rules had no such effect. Similarly, high frequency phoneme clusters failed to produce stronger feedforward influences by acoustic-phonetic regions on areas associated with higher linguistic representation. These results suggest that top-down lexical influences contribute to the systematicity of phonological representation.