the acoustics of lewis gaelic stop consonants claire nance and jane stuart-smith...
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The acoustics of Lewis Gaelic stop consonants
Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith
University of Glasgow
Overview
• Gaelic: a sociophonetician’s perspective• Stop consonants in Gaelic• Acoustics of stops in Gaelic• Research questions• Methods• Results• Ongoing work• Discussion
Gaelic: a sociophonetician’s perspective
• Bilingualism• Language contact (Thomason 2007)• Obsolescence and revitalisation (Dorian 1981,
Jones 1998)
• Acoustic phonetic study of linguistic variation
Stop consonants in Gaelic
• Stops• Word initial
/ph th kh/ and /p t k/• Word medial and word final
/hp ht hk/ and /p t k/ (Ladefoged et al. 1998)• (Also palatalised vs. velarised distinction)
Initial stops
bog ‘soft’
pòg ‘a kiss’
VOTVOT Vowel voicingVowel voicing ClosureClosure
Vowel voicingVowel voicing ClosureClosure
Pre-aspiration
• ‘Delay in the offset of normal voicing’ (Laver 1994:150)
• Vocal fold vibration and airflow independent
Pre-aspiration
smoc ‘smoke’
snog ‘nice’
Vowel voicingVowel voicing CloseClosePre-aspPre-asp
Vowel voicingVowel voicing ClosureClosure
Pre-aspiration zoom in
smoc ‘smoke’
Vowel voicingVowel voicing CloseClose
Pre-aspPre-asp
Pre-aspiration zoom in
smoc ‘smoke’
CloseClose
Pre-aspPre-aspBreathy VoiceBreathy Voice NoiseNoise
Research Questions
• What are the phonetic correlates of the contrast /ph th kh/ and /p t k/ in modern Gaelic?
• Is this system changing?
Methods
• Native speakers of Lewis Gaelic• 3 older generation, 3 younger• Recording conditions• Word list data• 2257 tokens analysed• Non-parametric statistical tests
Durational measures• Segmenting on the waveform in Praat
Modal voiceModal voiceVowelVowel
Pre-aspirationPre-aspirationBVBV NoiseNoise
a c a
• VOT: Cho and Ladefoged (1999)
Results – word initial
Results – word medial and final
• Pre-aspiration makes the contrast
Differences - initial
Differences – medial and final
• Calculated proportionally as well as raw numbers
• Breathy voice, closure, vot ns.• Detail of pre-aspiration
Can you hear the difference?
Older speaker: boc ‘male goat’ Younger speaker: boc ‘male goat’
Younger speaker: smoc ‘smoke’
Older speaker: smoc ‘smoke’
Summary
• Younger speakers:• Longer VOT word initial position• Shorter pre-aspiration word medial and final• Pre-aspiration different: less voiceless
Ongoing work
• Adapted Zero Crossing Rate (Gordeeva and Scobbie 2010)
• In collaboration with Olga Gordeeva• Quantifies pre- and post- aspiration• Counts zero crossings in a band pass filtered
sound file
Some preliminary results:Initial /kh/, /k/
Word medial /hk/, /k/
Conclusion
• Apparent time differences• Comparison to Ladefoged et al. (1998): Real
time change?
Conclusion
• Apparent time differences• Comparison to Ladefoged et al. (1998): Real
time change?
Conclusions
• Gradient phonetic shift (Babel 2009, Bybee 2010)
• Obsolescence / contact / ‘normal’ change?• Lexical attrition
References• Babel, M., 2009. The phonetic and phonological effects of obsolescence in Northern Paiute. In J.
Stanford and D. Preston, eds., Variation in indigenous minority languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
• Bybee, J., 2010. Language usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press• Cho, T., and Ladefoged, P., 1999. Variation and universals in VOT: evidence from 18 endangered
languages. Journal of phonetics, 27, pp. 207-229• Dorian, N., 1981. Language death: the life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press • Gordeeva, O., and Scobbie, J., 2010. Preaspiration as a correlate of word-final voice in Scottish
English fricatives. In S. Fuchs, M. Toda, M. Zygis, eds., Turbulent sounds: an interdisciplinary guide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter
• Jones, Mari, 1998. Obsolescence and revitalization: linguistic change in two sociolinguistically contrasting Welsh communities. Oxford: Blackwell
• Ladefoged, P., and Ladefoged, J., Turk, A., Hind, K., Skilton, St. J., 1998. Phonetic structures of Scottish Gaelic. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 28, pp. 1-41
• Laver, J., 1994. Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press• MacKinnon, K., 2010. Scottish Gaelic today: social history and contemporary status. In M. Ball and
N. Müller, eds., The Celtic languages. 2nd. ed. London: Routledge • Silverman, D., 2003. On the rarity of pre-aspirated stops. Journal of linguistics, 39:3. pp. 575-598• Thomason, S., 2007. Language contact: an introduction. 4th ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press
Mòran Taing• Collaborator: Olga Gordeeva, Acapela Group
[email protected]• My informants: Christeen Combe, Aonghas
MacCoinnich and all those who wished to remain anonymous
• Research funded by a Kelvin-Smith Scholarship, University of Glasgow
The acoustics of Lewis Gaelic stop consonants
Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith
University of Glasgow