24 research outputs found
Mechanisms of vowel devoicing in Japanese
The processes of vowel devoicing in Standard Japanese were examined with respect
to the phonetic and phonological environments and the syllable structure of Japanese, in
comparison with vowel reduction processes in other languages, in most of which vowel
reduction occurs optionally in fast or casual speech. This thesis examined whether
Japanese vowel devoicing was a phonetic phenomenon caused by glottal assimilation
between a high vowel and its adjacent voiceless consonants, or it was a more
phonologically controlled compulsory process.
Experimental results showed that Japanese high vowel devoicing must be analysed
separately in two devoicing conditions, namely single and consecutive devoicing
environments. Devoicing was almost compulsory regardless of the presence of
proposed blocking factors such as type of preceding consonant, accentuation, position
in an utterance, as long as there was no devoiceable vowel in adjacent morae (single
devoicing condition). However, under consecutive devoicing conditions, blocking
factors became effective and prevented some devoiceable vowels from becoming
voiceless.
The effect of speaking rate was also generally minimal in the single devoicing
condition, but in the consecutive devoicing condition, the vowels were devoiced more
at faster tempi than slower tempi, which created many examples of consecutively
devoiced vowels over two morae.
Durational observations found that vowel devoicing involves not only phonatory
change, but also slight durational reduction. However, the shorter duration of devoiced
syllables were adjusted at the word level, so that the whole duration of a word with
devoiced vowels remained similar to the word without devoiced vowels, regardless of
the number of devoiced vowels in the word.
It must be noted that there was no clear-cut distinction between voiced and
devoiced vowels, and the phonetic realisation of a devoiced vowel could vary from
fully voiced to completely voiceless. A high vowel may be voiced in a typical
devoicing environment, but its intensity is significantly weaker than those of vowels in
a non-devoicing environment, at all speaking tempi. The mean differences of vowel
intensities between these environments were generally higher at faster tempi.
The results implied that even when the vowel was voiced, its production process
moved in favour of devoicing. However, in consecutive devoicing conditions, this
process did not always apply. When some of the devoiceable vowels were devoiced in
the consecutive devoicing environment, the intensities of devoiceable vowels were not
significantly lower than those of other vowels.
The results of intensity measurements of voiced vowels in the devoicing and nondevoicing
environments suggested that Japanese vowel devoicing was part of the
overall process of complex vowel weakening, and that a completely devoiced vowel
was the final state of the weakening process. Japanese vowel devoicing is primarily a
process of glottal assimilation, but the results in the consecutive devoicing condition
showed that this process was constrained by Japanese syllable structure
Character Recognition
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