/I/ velarisation as a continuum

In this paper, we present a production study to explore the controversial question about /l/ velarisation. Measurements of first (F1), second (F2) and third (F3) formant frequencies and the slope of F2 were analysed to clarify the /l/ velarisation behaviour in European Portuguese (EP). The acoustic data were collected from ten EP speakers, producing trisyllabic words with paroxytone stress pattern, with the liquid consonant at the middle of the word in onset, complex onset and coda positions. Results suggested that /l/ is produced on a continuum in EP. The consistently low F2 indicates that /l/ is velarised in all syllable positions, but variation especially in F1 and F3 revealed that /l/ could be “more velarised” or “less velarised” dependent on syllable positions and vowel contexts. These findings suggest that it is important to consider different acoustic measures to better understand /l/ velarisation in EP.</div

Articulating five liquids: A single speaker ultrasound study of Malayalam

We investigate the lingual shapes of the five liquid phonemes of Malayalam: two rhotics, two laterals and a more problematic 5th liquid. Ultrasound is used to image the mid-sagittal tongue surface, mainly in an intervocalic within-word /a__a/ context. The dark retroflex lateral and trill have a retracted tongue root and lowered tongue dorsum, while the three other clear liquids show advanced tongue root and dorsal raising. The 5th liquid is post-alveolar and laminal. Some additional data from an /a__i/ context is considered: the liquids are slightly clearer before /i/: all have a slightly advanced tongue root, and all bar the trill show palatalization. Dynamically, the trill and retroflex lateral have a very stable tongue root in /a__a/, and the 5th liquid has unusual anterior kinematic properties which require further investigation.caslpub3083pu

An auditory and acoustic study of liquids in Malayalam

This thesis aims to describe the auditory and acoustic characteristics of the rhotics in Malayalam. There is disagreement in the limited literature that exists on the language regarding the manner of articulation of the rhotics. Some refer to them as one tap and one trill (Kumari, 1972) while others describe both as trills differing slightly in place of articulation (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996; Srikumar and Reddy, 1988). The two rhotics are lexically contrastive, e.g. /kaɾi/ soot -/kari/ curry. One of the objectives of the present study is to describe the phonetic characteristics of the two rhotics and the contrast maintenance strategies used by speakers to distinguish between them. Apart from the two uncontested rhotics, there is a fifth liquid, an allegedly similar sound in Tamil and Malayalam that has previously been referred to as being a rhotic by some (Asher and Kumari, 1997; Krishnamurti, 2003, 152) and a lateral by others (Kumari, 1972). Recent studies on Tamil liquids (McDonough and Johnson, 1997; Narayanan et al. 1999) have described the fifth liquid as being a retroflex central approximant, i.e. another rhotic. The second objective of this study is to explore the possibility of the fifth liquid being a third rhotic in Malayalam. Eight male speakers were recorded reading out words, containing at least one of the five liquids in all permissible word-positions, in a carrier phrase. Results of the auditory and acoustic analyses showed that the two rhotics differed mainly in their tongue configurations (laminal and advanced vs. apical and retracted), resonance characteristics (clear vs. dark) and surrounding vowel quality (advanced and closer vs. retracted and open). F2 was found to be the most robust distinguishing acoustic cue. Manner of articulation varied for the apical rhotic from trill to tap to approximant across speakers and depending on word-position while the laminal rhotic was always realised as a tap. Duration was not found to be a robust cue in distinguishing between the two rhotics. The fifth liquid appears to be a clear post-alveolar approximant phonetically while functioning as a retroflex approximant from a phonological point of view. The lack of traditional phonetic cues separating the tap and trill segments in Malayalam highlights the importance of looking at non-segmental long-domain effects for the realisation of their clear (tap) and dark (trill) resonance, which was found to be more important than the actual manner of articulation and temporal cues. This, together with the discrepancy in the phonetic and phonological behaviour of the fifth liquid, suggests that phonetics and phonology share a „partly absolute-partly relative relationship‟ and supports the notion of an Extrinsic Phonetic Interpretation (EPI), which seems to better account for the paradox surrounding the phonologically unified yet phonetically asymmetric class of rhotics.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceCWIT : FFWG : ECLS : Newcastle UniversityGBUnited Kingdo

Rhotics.New Data and Perspectives

This book provides an insight into the patterns of variation and change of rhotics in different languages and from a variety of perspectives. It sheds light on the phonetics, the phonology, the socio-linguistics and the acquisition of /r/-sounds in languages as diverse as Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Kuikuro, Malayalam, Romanian, Slovak, Tyrolean and Washili Shingazidja thus contributing to the discussion on the unity and uniqueness of this group of sounds

Developments of the lateral in Occitan dialects and their Romance and cross-linguistic context

This thesis analyses sound changes that affected the lateral approximant inherited from Latin in Occitan dialects, in the Romance languages, and in a number of other languages from around the world. Chapter 1 gives a comprehensive overview of the research carried out on the lateral approximant; it discusses articulation and acoustics as well as abstract representations of the sound. Chapters 2 to 5 are devoted to specific sound changes which occurred in Occitan dialects at different points in time. These developments are systematically compared to similar phenomena in Romance and other languages. In chapter 2, I discuss the vocalisation of the dark lateral in preconsonantal and word-final position as well as intervocalically. It is argued there that Occitan and more generally Romance followed an unexpected pathway towards vocalisation, which cannot be explained by phonetic factors alone. Chapter 3 deals with palatalisation of the lateral in onset clusters. Rather than in articulatory assimilation, I propose that the origin of this sound change is to be sought in the frication which accompanied the obstruent + lateral onset clusters. Rhoticisation of the lateral, and its opposite, lambdacisation of the rhotic, is the topic of chapter 4. In this chapter, I discuss duration factors in these sound changes and present experimental evidence to substantiate the idea that duration plays an important role. Finally, chapter 5 looks at the developments of the Latin geminate lateral in Gascon and other Romance dialects; according to common opinion, the Latin geminate lateral underwent a retroflexion process, and I discuss how this might have been possible from a phonetic point of view