Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:51:16.671Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Stop bursts in Pitjantjatjara

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2015

Marija Tabain  and
Andrew Butcher
Marija Tabain
Affiliation:
La Trobe University m.tabain@latrobe.edu.au
Andrew Butcher
Affiliation:
Flinders University andy.butcher@flinders.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Pitjantjatjara is an Australian language with five stop places of articulation /pt ʈ ck/ in three vowel contexts /aiu/. We present word-medial stop burst data from nine speakers, examining duration, formant, spectral moment and spectral tilt measures. Our particular focus is on the apical contrast (alveolar /t/ vs. retroflex /ʈ/) and on the alveo-palatal /c/ vs. velar /k/ contrast. We observe differences between the palatal and the velar depending on vowel context, and we discuss the possible aerodynamic and acoustic sources for these differences. By contrast, we find that differences between the alveolar and the retroflex are minimal in all three vowel contexts. Unexpectedly, in the context of /i/, various spectral measures suggest that the articulatory release for the retroflex /ʈ/ is in fact more anterior than the release for the alveolar /t/ – we discuss this result in terms of possible articulatory overshoot of the target for /ʈ/ before /i/, and suggest that this result provides additional explanation for the cross-linguistic rarity of retroflexes in an /i/ vowel context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Phonetic Association , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , August 2015 , pp. 149 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © International Phonetic Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Breen, Gavan & Dobson, Veronica. 2005. Central Arrernte. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35, 249–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumstein, Sheila & Stevens, Kenneth. 1979. Acoustic invariance in speech production: Evidence from measurements of the spectral characteristics of stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 66, 1001–1017.Google Scholar
Bundgaard-Nielsen, Rikke, Baker, Brett, Kroos, Christian, Harvey, Mark & Best, Catherine. 2012. Vowel acoustics reliably differentiate three coronal stops of Wubuy across prosodic contexts. Laboratory Phonology 29, 133–161.Google Scholar
Butcher, Andrew. 1995. The phonetics of neutralisation: The case of Australian coronals. In Lewis, John Windsor (ed.), Studies in general and English phonetics: Essays in honour of Professor J. D. O’Connor, 10–38. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butcher, Andrew. 1995. The sounds of Australian languages. Ms., Flinders University, Adelaide.Google Scholar
Butcher, Andrew. 2006. Australian Aboriginal languages: Consonant-salient phonologies and the ‘Place-of-Articulation Imperative’. In Harrington, Jonathan & Tabain, Marija (eds.), Speech production: Models, phonetic processes, and techniques, 187–210. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Butcher, Andrew & Tabain, Marija. 2004. On the back of the tongue: Dorsal sounds in Australian languages. Phonetica 61, 22–52.Google Scholar
Dart, Sarah. 1991. Articulatory and acoustic properties of apical and laminal articulations (UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 79). Los Angeles, CA: UCLA.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1980. The languages of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 2002. Australian languages: Their nature and development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dorman, Michael, Studdert-Kennedy, Michael & Raphael, Lawrence. 1977. Stop-consonant recognition: Release bursts and formant transitions as functionally equivalent, context-dependent cues. Perception & Psychophysics 22, 109–122.Google Scholar
Douglas, Wilfrid. 1957. Phonology of the Aboriginal language spoken at Ooldea (Oceania 25:3). Sydney: Oceania.Google Scholar
Douglas, Wilfrid. 1964. An introduction to the Western Desert language of Australia (Oceania Linguistic Monographs 4). Sydney: Oceania.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 1995. Current issues in the phonology of Australian languages. In Goldsmith, John [A.] (ed.), The handbook of phonological theory, pp. 723–761. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fant, Gunnar. 1960. Acoustic theory of speech production. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Forrest, Karen, Weismer, Gary, Milenkovic, Paul & Dougall, Ronald. 1988. Statistical analysis of word-initial voiceless obstruents: Preliminary data. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 84, 115–123.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff. 1986. Yankunytjatjara grammar. Alice Springs: IAD Press.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff. 1993. A learner's guide to Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara. Alice Springs: IAD Press.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff. 1996. Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara to English dictionary, 2nd edn. Alice Springs: IAD Press.Google Scholar
Guignard-Guion, Susan. 1998. The role of perception in the sound change of velar palatalization. Phonetica 55, 18–52.Google Scholar
Hamann, Silke. 2003. The phonetics and phonology of retroflexes. Ph.D. dissertation, Utrecht University. [Utrecht: LOT Press]Google Scholar
Hamilton, Philip. 1996. Phonetic constraints and markedness in the phonotactics of Australian Aboriginal languages. Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Harrington, Jonathan. 2010. Phonetic analysis of speech corpora. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harrington, Jonathan & Cassidy, Steve. 1999. Techniques in speech acoustics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Keating, Patricia A. 1991. Coronal places of articulation. In Paradis, Carole & Prunet, Jean-Francois (eds.), The special status of coronals, 29–48. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Keating, Patricia A. & Lahiri, Aditi. 1993. Fronted velars, palatalized velars, and palatals. Phonetica 50, 73–101.Google Scholar
Kewley-Port, Diane. 1983. Time-varying features as correlates of place of articulation in stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 73, 322–335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kewley-Port, Diane, Pisoni, David & Studdert-Kennedy, Michael. 1983. Perception of static and dynamic acoustic cues to place of articulation in initial stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 73, 1779–1793.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ladefoged, Peter. 2001. Vowels and consonants: An introduction to the sounds of languages. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter & Maddieson, Ian. 1996. The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lahiri, Aditi, Gewirth, Letitia & Blumstein, Sheila. 1984. A reconsideration of acoustic invariance for place of articulation in diffuse stop consonants: Evidence from a cross-language study. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 76, 391–404.Google Scholar
Langlois, Annie. 2004. Alive and kicking: Areyonga teenage Pitjantjatjara (Pacific Linguistics 56). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Perrier, Pascal, Payan, Yohan, Zandipour, Majid & Perkell, Joseph. 2003. Influences of tongue biomechanics on speech movements during the production of velar stop consonants: A modeling study. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 114, 1582–1599.Google Scholar
Proctor, Michael, Bundgaard-Nielsen, Rikke, Best, Catherine, Goldstein, Louis, Kroos, Christian & Harvey, Mark. 2010. Articulatory modelling of coronal stop contrasts in Wubuy. 13th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Melbourne, Australia, 90–93.Google Scholar
Quene, Hugo. 2007. On the just noticeable difference for tempo in speech. Journal of Phonetics 35, 353–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. 2012. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/.Google Scholar
Recasens, Daniel. 1990. The articulatory characteristics of palatal consonants. Journal of Phonetics 18, 267–280.Google Scholar
Recasens, Daniel. 2013. On the articulatory classification of (alveolo)palatal consonants. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Recasens, Daniel & Espinosa, Aina. 2010. Lingual kinematics and coarticulation for alveolopalatal and velar consonants in Catalan. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 127, 3154–3165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Recasens, Daniel, Fontdevila, Jordi & Pallarès, Maria Dolors. 1995. A production and perceptual account of palatalization. In Connell, Bruce & Arvaniti, Amalia (eds.), Phonology and phonetic evidence: Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV, 265–281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Recasens, Daniel & Romero, Joaquin. 1997. An EMMA study of segmental complexity in alveolopalatals and palatalized alveolars. Phonetica 54, 43–58.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Jean-Luc, Boe, Louis-Jean, Badin, Pierre & Sawallis, Thomas. 2012. Grounding stop place systems in the perceptuo-motor substance of speech: On the universality of the labial–coronal–velar stop series. Journal of Phonetics 40, 20–36.Google Scholar
Shadle, Christine. 1985. The acoustics of fricative consonants. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Shadle, Christine & Scully, Celia. 1995. An articulatory-acoustic-aerodynamic analysis of [s] in VCV sequences. Journal of Phonetics 23, 53–66.Google Scholar
Simonsen, Hanne Gram, Moen, Inge & Cowen, Steve. 2008. Norwegian retroflex stops in a cross-linguistic perspective. Journal of Phonetics 36, 385–405.Google Scholar
Speaks, Charles. 1999. Introduction to sound: Acoustics for the hearing and speech sciences, 3rd edn. San Diego, CA: Singular.Google Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth. 1989. On the quantal nature of speech. Journal of Phonetics 17, 3–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth. 1998. Acoustic phonetics. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth & Blumstein, Sheila. 1978. Invariant cues for place of articulation in stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 64, 1358–1368.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stoakes, Hywel, Butcher, Andrew, Fletcher, Janet & Tabain, Marija. 2011. Long term average speech spectra in Yolngu Matha and Pitjantjatjara speaking females and males. Interspeech2011, Florence, 1897–1900.Google Scholar
Tabain, Marija. 2009. An EPG study of the alveolar vs. retroflex apical contrast in Central Arrernte. Journal of Phonetics 37, 486–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabain, Marija. 2012. Jaw movement and coronal stop spectra in Central Arrernte. Journal of Phonetics 40, 551–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabain, Marija & Butcher, Andrew. 2014. Pitjantjatjara. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 44, 189–200.Google Scholar
Tabain, Marija, Fletcher, Janet & Butcher, Andrew. 2014. Lexical stress in Pitjantjatjara. Journal of Phonetics 42, 52–66.Google Scholar