A glottalized tone in Muong (Vietic): a pilot study based on audio and electroglottographic recordings

Proceedings of ICPhS XIX (19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences). Melbourne.International audienceThe combination of pitch and glottalization (glottal constriction or lapse into creaky voice) as relevant phonetic/phonological dimensions of lexical tone is found in several language families in Asia. The Vietic subbranch of Austroasiatic stands out in that all its languages have at least one glottalized tone. Vietnamese is a well documented example, but the others remain little studied. The research reported here contributes experimental evidence on one of these languages: Muong (Mường). Excerpts from a database of audio and electroglottographic recordings of twenty speakers allow for a characterization of this dialect's glottalized tone, as contrasted with the four other tones of this five tone system. The ultimate goal is to determine what (sub)types of glottalized tones exist in the world's languages, bringing out typological differences in terms of (i) phonetic realizations and (ii) degree of importance of glottalization as a feature of linguistic tones

Pitch contours of Northern Vietnamese tones vary with focus marking

Intonation is a means of structuring discourse and one of its functions is to highlight new or contrasting information, i.e., focus. Speakers of different languages use a range of prosodic cues to mark focus. Compared to non-tonal languages such as English, tonal languages use pitch to distinguish lexical tones and focus marking. Determining the interplay between intonation and lexical tone is therefore important. Previous studies found that tonal languages use different strategies to mark focus. For example, some use an increase (e.g., Mandarin Chinese), others a decrease in pitch (e.g., Kammu). The Vietnamese language has six lexical tones and is particularly interesting for examining pitch contours in focus marking. In this article, we present a production study with 70 Northern Vietnamese speakers. Participants read six sentences aloud under two different conditions (narrow/wide focus). In each sentence, focus marked a single noun (‘focus item’) which occurred in the final position of the sentence and carried one of the six tones. Acoustic analyses of the focus item showed that Vietnamese speakers realized focus with significant differences in pitch at the beginning of the word, but the strategies to increase or decrease pitch varied across tones. Our findings add important insights to the discussion about Information Structure and the role of intonation in tonal languages by analyzing the use of prosodic cues in a complex tone system. The large number of speakers in our study also adds further methodological rigor compared to other studies, which often rely on a few speakers

Pitch contours of Northern Vietnamese tones vary with focus marking

Intonation is a means of structuring discourse and one of its functions is to highlight new or contrasting information, i.e., focus. Speakers of different languages use a range of prosodic cues to mark focus. Compared to non-tonal languages such as English, tonal languages use pitch to distinguish lexical tones and focus marking. Determining the interplay between intonation and lexical tone is therefore important. Previous studies found that tonal languages use different strategies to mark focus. For example, some use an increase (e.g., Mandarin Chinese), others a decrease in pitch (e.g., Kammu). The Vietnamese language has six lexical tones and is particularly interesting for examining pitch contours in focus marking. In this article, we present a production study with 70 Northern Vietnamese speakers. Participants read six sentences aloud under two different conditions (narrow/wide focus). In each sentence, focus marked a single noun (‘focus item’) which occurred in the final position of the sentence and carried one of the six tones. Acoustic analyses of the focus item showed that Vietnamese speakers realized focus with significant differences in pitch at the beginning of the word, but the strategies to increase or decrease pitch varied across tones. Our findings add important insights to the discussion about Information Structure and the role of intonation in tonal languages by analyzing the use of prosodic cues in a complex tone system. The large number of speakers in our study also adds further methodological rigor compared to other studies, which often rely on a few speakers.1 Introduction 2 Using intonation for focus marking 2.1 Focus marking with intonation in tonal languages 2.2 Using intonation to mark pragmatic functions and focus in Vietnamese 3 Method 3.1 Participants 3.3 Material 3.2 Procedure 3.3 Pitch Analysis 4 Results 5 Discussio

Phonetic insights into a simple level-tone system: ‘careful’ vs. ‘impatient’ realizations of Naxi High, Mid and Low tones

International audienceThe Naxi language has three level tones: H, M and L (plus a marginal Rising tone). The present study aims to offer phonetic insights into this simple system through examination of production data from three male speakers and one female speaker: realizations of the three level tones on CV syllables, under two reading conditions, labelled as ‘CAREFUL’ and ‘IMPATIENT’. Fundamental frequency (F0), glottal open quotient (Oq), and formant frequency characteristics are estimated. The three level tones span about 8 semitones under ‘CAREFUL’ reading and 11 semitones under ‘IMPATIENT’ reading. The average distance separating H from M is on the same order as that separating M from L. Under ‘IMPATIENT’ reading, F0 register is higher. Oq follows speaker-specific patterns. No clear pattern of influence of tone or reading condition on vowel articulation was found. These findings (along with the original data, made available in full) offer a basis for cross-linguistic comparison

Tone and intonation: introductory notes and practical recommendations

International audienceThe present article aims to propose a simple introduction to the topics of (i) lexical tone, (ii) intonation, and (iii) tone-intonation interactions, with practical recommendations for students. It builds on the authors' observations on various languages, tonal and non-tonal; much of the evidence reviewed concerns tonal languages of Asia. With a view to providing beginners with an adequate methodological apparatus for studying tone and intonation, the present notes emphasize two salient dimensions of linguistic diversity. The first is the nature of the lexical tones: we review the classical distinction between (i) contour tones that can be analyzed into sequences of level tones, and (ii) contour tones that are non-decomposable (phonetically complex). A second dimension of diversity is the presence or absence of intonational tones: tones of intonational origin that are formally identical with lexical (and morphological) tones

Vocal fold vibratory patterns in tense versus lax phonation contrasts

This study explores the vocal fold contact patterns of one type of phonation contrast--the tense vs lax phonation contrasts of three Yi (Loloish) languages. These contrasts are interesting because neither phonation category is very different from modal voice, and because both phonations are largely independent of the languages' tonal contrasts. Electroglottographic (EGG) recordings were made in the field, and traditional EGG measures were derived. These showed many small but significant differences between the phonations, with tense phonation having greater contact quotients and briefer but slower changes in contact. Functional data analysis was then applied to entire EGG pulse shapes. The resulting first principal component was found to be mostly strongly related to the phonation contrasts, and correlated with almost all the traditional EGG measures. Unlike the traditional measures, however, this component also seems to capture differences in abruptness of contact. Furthermore, previously collected perceptual responses from native speakers of one of the languages correlated better with this component than with any other EGG measure or any acoustic measure. The differences between these tense and lax phonations are not large, but apparently they are consistent enough, and perceptually robust enough, to support this linguistic contrast

Hakka tone training for native speakers of tonal and nontonal languages

Language learning becomes increasingly difficult when novel linguistic features are introduced. Studies have shown that learners from various language backgrounds can be trained to perceive lexical tone, which assigns meaning to words using variations in pitch. In this thesis, we investigated whether native speakers of tonal Mandarin Chinese and tonal Vietnamese outperformed native speakers of nontonal English when learning Hakka Chinese tones following five sessions of tone training, and whether the complexity (i.e., density) of a listener’s native tone inventory facilitated nonnative tone learning. All groups improved in tone identification and tone word learning following training, with improvements persisting three weeks following the cessation of training. Although both tonal groups outperformed the English group in most tasks, the Mandarin group showed the most consistent advantages over the English group across tasks. Findings suggest that tone experience bolsters tone learning, but density of the tone inventory does not provide an advantage. Confusion patterns offer detailed insight of the interaction between nonnative tones and native tonal and intonational categories

Cognitive factors in perception and imitation of Thai tones by Mandarin versus Vietnamese speakers

The thesis investigates how native language phonological and phonetic factors affect non-native lexical tone perception and imitation, and how cognitive factors, such as memory load and stimulus variability (talker and vowel context variability), bias listeners to a phonological versus phonetic mode of perception/imitation. Two perceptual experiments and one imitation experiment were conducted with Thai tones as the stimuli and with Mandarin and Vietnamese listeners, who had no experience with Thai (i.e., naive listeners/imitators). The results of the perceptual experiments (Chapters 5 and 6) showed phonological effects as reflected in assimilation types (Categorised vs. UnCategorised assimilation) and phonetic effects indicated by percent choice and goodness ratings in tone assimilation, largely in line with predictions based on the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM: Best, 1995). In addition, phonological assimilation types and phonological overlap of the contrasts affected their discrimination in line with predictions based on PAM. The thesis research has revealed the influence of cognitive factors on native language influences in perception and imitation of non-native lexical tones, which contribute differently to different tasks. The findings carry implications for current non-native speech perception theories. The fact that non-native tone imitation deviations can be traced back to native phonological and phonetic influences on perception supports and provides new insights about perception-production links in processing non-native tones. The findings uphold the extrapolation of PAM and ASP principles to non-native tone perception and imitation, indicating that both native language phonological and phonetic influences and their modulation by cognitive factors hold implications for non-native speech perception/learning theories, as well as for second language instruction