Vowel and consonant quantity in two Swiss German dialects and their corresponding varieties of Standard German: effects of region, age, and tempo

The diglossic situation in German-speaking Switzerland entails that both an Alemannic dialect and a Swiss standard variety of German are spoken. One phonological property of both Alemannic and Swiss Standard German (SSG) is contrastive quantity not only in vowels but also in consonants, namely lenis and fortis. This study aims to compare vowel and plosive closure durations as well as articulation rate (AR) between Alemannic and SSG in the varieties spoken in a rural area of the canton of Lucerne (LU) and an urban area of the canton of Zurich (ZH). In addition to the segment durations, an additional measure of vowel-to-vowel + consonant duration (V/(V + C)) ratios is calculated in order to account for possible compensation between vowel and closure durations. Stimuli consisted of words containing different vowel-consonant (VC) combinations. The main differences found are longer segment durations in Alemannic compared to SSG, three phonetic vowel categories in Alemannic that differ between LU and ZH, three stable V/(V + C) ratio categories, and three phonetic consonant categories lenis, fortis, and extrafortis in both Alemannic and SSG. Most importantly, younger ZH speakers produced overall shorter closure durations, calling into question a possible reduction of consonant categories due to a contact to German Standard German (GSG)

Increasing aspiration of Swiss German plosives: A Sound change in progress?

In Alemannic dialects of German-speaking Switzerland, the primary cue between lenis and fortis plosives is closure duration, with lenis plosives having a shorter closure than fortis plosives, while both are phonetically voiceless. Recently, it has been called into question whether there is an increasing tendency for speakers to additionally produce aspirated fortis plosives, possibly due to the contact to German Standard German. To investigate this, we recorded word-initial and word-medial fortis plosives produced by 24 older and 24 younger speakers of Zurich German and analysed their normalized VOT values. Results show that, although the word-medial plosives can probably all be considered unaspirated, younger speakers overall produced significantly longer VOT values compared to older speakers. Word-initial plosives differed much more between age groups and also resulted in considerable variability for certain words. These new results hint at a possible sound change in progress

The increasing importance of voice onset time in the perception and production of Zurich German plosives: an ongoing sound change

Recent evidence suggests an ongoing sound change in Zurich German, where the primary cue between lenis and fortis plosives is commonly considered to be closure duration, while both plosive types are traditionally unaspirated and phonetically voiceless. There has been a shift toward more lexical items being aspirated by younger speakers, who also are shown to produce generally longer voice onset times (VOTs) in comparison to older speakers. The current study investigates word-medial and word-initial plosives in speech perception and production. Using the apparent-time paradigm, two experiments were conducted with 48 speakers of Zurich German belonging to 2 age groups. Results confirm that younger speakers produce more aspiration in word-initial fortis plosives than older speakers but disconfirm previous findings which found a reduction in closure duration of fortis plosives. Results from the perception experiment reveal that, word-initially, VOT seems to increase in importance and closure duration is not always sufficient in distinguishing between lenis and fortis plosives. Results further highlight the importance of lexical differences, according to which production and perception are either aligned or misaligned. Overall, the current study provides evidence for a sound change affecting word-initial fortis plosives in Zurich German in speech perception and production

Age and growth of Distichodus antonii (Schilthuis, 1891) (Pisces, Teleostei, Distichontidae) in Pool Malebo, Congo River

The estimation of demographic parameters of Distichodus antonii, in Pool Malebo (Congo River), was obtained from analysis of 36 good scales samples. L‡ was estimated at 107.91 cm, K at 0.10 .year-1 and t0 at -0.67 year-1. The growth parameters calculated from this method revealed that this fish has a slow growth rate and it reaches a large size. The analysis of marginal increase shows that the formation of annulus takes place to the dry season. During the dry season, the environmental conditions are disturbed and the access to food becomes difficult. This is probably the base of the stress that induces the formation of annuli on the scales

Increased muscular volume and cuticular specialisations enhance jump velocity in solitarious compared to gregarious desert locusts, (Schistocerca gregaria)

The Desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria shows a strong phenotypic plasticity. It can develop, depending upon population density, into either a solitarious or gregarious phase that differ in many aspects of their behaviour, physiology and morphology. Prominent amongst these differences is that solitarious locusts have proportionately longer hind femora than gregarious locusts. The hind femora contain the muscles and energy-storing cuticular structures that propel powerful jumps using a catapult-like mechanism. We show that solitarious locusts jump on average 23% faster and 27% further than gregarious locusts and attribute this improved performance arises to three sources: first, a 17.5% increase in the relative volume of their hind femur, hence muscle volume; second, a 24.3% decrease in the stiffness of the energy-storing semi-lunar processes of the distal femur; third a 4.5% decrease in the stiffness of the tendon of the extensor tibiae muscle. These differences mean that solitarious locusts can generate more power and store more energy in preparation for a jump than can gregarious locusts. This improved performance comes at a cost: solitarious locusts expend nearly twice the energy of gregarious locusts during a single jump and the muscular co-contraction which energises the cuticular springs takes twice as long. There is thus a trade-off between achieving maximum jump velocity in the solitarious phase against the ability to engage jumping rapidly and repeatedly in the gregarious phase