EFFECTS OF NONNATIVE PHONOTACTIC CONSTRAINTS ON THE PERCEPTION OF NASAL-INITIAL CONSONANT CLUSTERS

This study examines the effects of non-native phonotactic constraints on the perception of nasal-initial consonant clusters (NICC), specifically whether native English speakers can perceive NICC as accurately as native Swahili speakers. The ABX task was conducted over Zoom to test L1 English speakers (N=12) and L1 Swahili speakers (N=12). Stimuli with four conditions were used: 1) The stimuli had one of the three nasal sounds (/m/, /n/, and /?/) in word-initial consonant clusters; 2) The stimuli had NICC composed of a nasal sound followed by either a voiced or voiceless consonant; 3) The consonant clusters were composed of sounds that are pronounced in the same or different place of articulation; 4) The stimuli had counterparts formed by either deleting a nasal sound or inserting a vowel sound between consonant clusters

Uncovering the Culture of Osing People in Palatalizing the Consonant Clusters

Osing dialect is one of the Javanese dialects used in Banyuwangi, East Java. This dialect has a unique phenomenon called as palatalization that does not exist in other Javanese dialects called as palatalization. Palatalization is an assimilation process that involves the interaction of sounds triggering the palatal articulation. Commonly, palatalization involves two sounds that consist of a single consonant (target) and a single vowel (trigger) as the environment in its appearance. Different from the common palatalization phenomena, the Osing dialect has palatalization in consonant clusters form. In the Osing dialect, there are 21 consonant clusters but only few of the consonant clusters undergo the palatalization. This study aimed to identify the consonant clusters which undergo the palatalization and find the palatalization pattern. The analysis method that we used in this study is descriptive-qualitative method. In the analysis, we also provided a discussion by using generative phonology. The data used in this article were taken from the Osing speaker in Kemiren, Banyuwangi. The result of this analysis showed that the palatalization of consonant clusters happens when the cluster are constructed by two consonants which have voiced features and they are followed by the trigger sounds. 

ARTICULATION ERRORS IN PRONUNCING INDONESIAN WORDS CONTAINING CONSONANT CLUSTERS

Tujuan penulisan skripsi ini adalah untuk mengetahui kemampuan anak mengucapkan bunyi–bunyi konsonan rangkap dan menjelaskan bentuk kesalahan artikulasi yang muncul pada pengucapan bunyi konsonan rangkap. Skripsi ini merupakan studi kasus pada tiga orang anak yang berusia antara 4-5 tahun. Penelitian ini menggunakan jenis penelitian deskriptif. Sampel berupa ucapan atau kata yang mengandung klaster /str/,/pr/,/kr/,/sp/,/tr/,/st/,/pl/,/br/,/kl/,/kw/. Dengan demikian pengambilan sampel ini menggunakan purposive sampling. Dalam mengumpulkan data, penulis menggunakan tes artikulasi dengan menggunakan 3 kata untuk masing- masing bunyi konsonan rangkap. Dalam penelitian ini penulis menemukan bahwa kemampuan anak yang berusia 4-5 tahun untuk mengucapkan bunyi konsonan rangkap secara umum masih tergolong rendah. Di antara bunyi konsonan rangkap, /pl/ dan /kl/ adalah konsonan rangkap yang paling mampu diucapkan, sedangkan bunyi konsonan rangkap yang paling sulit diucapkan adalah klaster yang mengandung /r/. Dari empat jenis kesalahan - Substitution, Omission, Distortion dan Addition – Distortion tidak muncul dalam ucapan-ucapan respondent. Kesalahan artikulasi yang paling banyak muncul pada pengucapan konsonan rangkap adalah Omission, sedangkan Substitution hanya muncul beberapa kali. Kesalahan artikulasi yang paling sedikit muncul pada pengucapan konsonan rangkap adalah Addition. Dari penelitian ini terdapat satu jenis variasi kesalahan artikulasi yang tidak disebut dalam teori yaitu Addition- Omission

Effects of orthography on production and perception of English initial consonant clusters by L1 Persian speakers

There are different views on how systems of speech perception and production function and if they are governed by the same system of rules and restrictions. The interrelation between learners’ perceptual and productive learning remains one of the central questions for investigation. This study investigated the influence of L1 orthography on Persian speakers’ production and perception of English initial consonant clusters. In contrast to English, word-initial consonant clusters do not occur in Persian. This structural difference between Persian and English may lead to L1interference and cause errors in the production and perception of L2 sounds. Previous studies reported that Persian speakers insert a vowel to break up the initial consonant clusters to comply with their L1 phonotactic rules. It was hypothesized that Persian speakers may depend on their first language orthography for reading in English and may produce more errors when faced with orthographic representation of words containing initial consonant clusters. In the perception of these clusters, Persian speakers were hypothesized to assimilate the consonant clusters to clusters containing vowels in order to adapt it to their native language phonology. To examine the production and perception of initial consonant clusters among Persian speakers and the effect of orthography, two production tasks and two perception tasks with different conditions were conducted. The first production task was a pseudoword repetition task with no orthographic representation and the second task was a pseudoword reading task with orthographic representation. The results from the speech production experiments showed fewer cases of vowel epenthesis when repeating the auditory stimuli, whereas, a significantly higher amount of vowel epenthesis occurred in reading the pseudowords. The results showed the inhibiting effect of orthography on speech production and its impact on the intelligibility of speech. In the perception tasks, there was an auditory task with no orthographic representation and an orthography task with orthographic representation. The results from the perception experiments showed significantly better performance with the visually presented pseudowords than the aurally presented pseudowords. In contrast to production, the findings suggest a facilitating effect of orthography on the perception of non-native consonant clusters. Persian speakers could create lexically contrastive representations for auditorily presented pseudowords containing initial consonant clusters when they were provided with visual support in the form of written forms. The results of the tasks showed that production and perception are not mirror images of one another, and are not governed by the same system of rules and restrictions

CONSONANT CLUSTERS IN INDONESIAN LOANWORDS

This paper investigates two types of loanwords in Indonesian from a list published by NUSA in 1997 and the online version of Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI, 2019):  those of Sanskrit origin, and of European origins. When languages borrow words from one another, they may employ various strategies in dealing with unfamiliar sounds and/or sound combinations. Overall, the study is conducted by means of descriptive qualitative method, having a focus on corpus research. Specifically, this research is concerned with the handling of syllable-initial consonant clusters that is not present in native Indonesian words. The two different patterns dealing with consonant clusters in loanwords are 1) The tendency for consonant cluster preservation in European loanwords; and 2) The tendency to insert a vowel sound to break up consonant clusters in Sanskrit loanwords. It happens due to the differences in the time frame and scope of Sanskrit and European language influences in Indonesia. The results show that onset consonant clusters have become a definite marker of loanwords in Indonesia

Patterns of Consonant Clusters in Word Initial, Medial, and Final Positions in Yemeni Arabic

Yemeni Arabic (YA) has a significant number of consonant clusters in word initial, medial, and final positions. However, their frequency of usage is not uniform. This study aims to investigate the patterns of consonant clusters in word initial, medial, and final positions in YA and also to find out the most and least frequent clusters in terms of their percentage. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used in data analysis in this study. All the words were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). There are features of consonant clusters in Yemeni Arabic which differ from Modern Standard Arabic and some other Arabic dialects. In Yemeni Arabic, there are 29 consonants and 10 vowels, 5 long and 5 short vowels. The maximum number of onset cluster is three (e.g. /∫tsu:q/ “she will drive” while coda cluster is two (e.g. /satˤħ/ “roof”). Furthermore, the maximum number of medial clusters are also two (e.g. /muχ.lsˤu/ “sincere”. The analysis undertaken will throw light on the frequency and percentages of the occurrences of the consonant clusters on the basis of a word list, which is justified with the help of statistical support

Bendrinės lietuvių kalbos skiemenavimas sonoringumo teorijos požiūriu

The article discusses the research which aims to ascertain whether the sonority of sounds could be used to determine boundaries of syllables in consonant clusters and if this principle is commonly employed by a sample of language users. The research consists of a) the overview of more significant foreign authors’ works, which is then used to identify the theoretic hierarchy of consonant clusters in Lithuanian, b) the exploratory analysis of consonant sonority, c) the investigation of sonority in consonant clusters, d) the research of tendencies in language users’ syllabification. The results have revealed that after establishing the hierarchy of consonant clusters in Lithuanian and applying the principle of syllabification by sonority, one fifth of the consonant clusters in the empirical data base is impossible to syllabify. Neither predicted phonetic syllable, nor the phonological syllable is commonly employed by the language users. The users are likely to assign at least one consonant of a cluster to a preceding syllable, while only the last consonant of polynomial clusters is assigned to the onset of a later syllable. Fricative consonants in consonant clusters are assigned to the coda of a previous syllable.Straipsnyje aprašomo tyrimo tikslas – išsiaiškinti, ar gali būti pritaikomas garsų sonoringumo principas nustatant skiemenų ribą bendrinės lietuvių kalbos priebalsių samplaikose ir ar šį principą remia kalbos vartotojų skiemenavimo polinkiai. Tyrimą sudaro: a) reikšmingesnių užsienio autorių darbų apžvalga ir ja paremtos teorinės lietuvių kalbos priebalsių sonoringumo hierarchijos nustatymas, b) žvalgomoji lietuvių kalbos priebalsių sonoringumo analizė, c) priebalsinių samplaikų sonoringumo nagrinėjimas, d) kalbos vartotojų skiemenavimo polinkių tyrimas. Rezultatai rodo, kad nustačius bendrinės lietuvių kalbos priebalsių sonoringumo hierarchiją ir pritaikius skiemenavimo pagal sonoringumą principus, beveik penktadalio empirinėje medžiagoje rastų priebalsių samplaikų negalima suskiemenuoti. Vartotojų skiemenavimo polinkiai neremia nei prognozuoto fonetinio, nei fonologinio skiemens ribų. Vartotojai yra linkę ankstesniam skiemeniui priskirti bent vieną samplaikos priebalsį, tolesnio skiemens pratarui priskirti tik paskutinį daugianarės samplaikos priebalsį, priebalsių samplaikose esantį pučiamąjį priebalsį priskirti ankstesnio skiemens ištarui

Badanie poczucia subiektywnego związanego z dzieleniem na sylaby wyrazów języka polskiego – podział wieloelementowych grup spółgłoskowych

This paper presents the results of a preliminary investigation of subjective feelings related to the syllabification of Polish words written in orthographic form. The results are part of a wider study, and the data presented here are limited to polysegmental word-internal consonant clusters. In the author’s previous articles it was noted that some morphological boundaries are perceived as syllable boundaries – particularly boundaries between a prefix and a stem. The words that contain such boundaries were excluded from the investigation. The main goal was to verify whether the phonostatistical properties of consonant clusters influence subjective feelings related to syllabification. The investigated statistical proprieties concern the frequency of occurrence of consonant clusters, and of parts of them at the beginning of words, in the text corpus. Another goal was to verify whether the syllabification based on phonology differs from that based on subjective feelings

The Perception of Epenthetic Vowels in Voiced and Voiceless Contexts in Japanese

Dupoux et al. (1999) showed that Japanese native speakers perceptually inserted a vowel /u/ between consonant clusters when listening to nonce words containing consonant clusters. Our study aimed to examine the effect of voicing type of these clusters on perceptual vowel epenthesis and replicate the results of Dupoux et al. (1999) between English and Japanese. We constructed nonce words containing both voiced and voiceless consonant clusters and the stimuli were recorded by a female English native speaker. 10 English native speakers and 10 Japanese native speakers were recruited and asked to judge whether they heard a /u/ in the stimuli. The results showed that voicing does not have an effect on perceptual vowel epenthesis in Japanese and both Japanese and English participants in our study behaved similarly to their Japanese and French counterparts in Dupoux et al. (1999)