This paper is concerned with the velarized lateral [ɫ] as a possible realization of the lateral phoneme /l/ in the rural Central Bavarian base dialects of German in Austria. So far, velarized laterals in Austrian German have mainly been described as a socially marked realization of /l/ in Vienna. However, descriptions of Austrian dialects mostly lack detailed acoustic analyses. Therefore, we analyzed the first two formants of alveolar laterals from dialect speakers in seventeen locations around Vienna that fall into the Central and South Central Bavarian dialect areas. Recordings were taken from the ‘German in Austria’ Corpus, from four speakers per location (two old, two young, each one male, one female), with thirty-two items per speaker with laterals in word-initial and twenty-two in word-final position. We asked whether the degree of velarization as measured by the difference between F2 and F1 (the smaller the more velarized) depends on this linguistic factor of position in the word – as has been shown for other Germanic languages – or social factors including the recording location’s distance from Vienna, age and gender of the speakers. Results showed that velarization was most frequently but not exclusively found in the Eastern region closest to Vienna (Central Bavarian dialects). Non-velarized and velarized laterals tended towards a complementary distribution in initial versus final word position and male speakers showed more velarization overall. Specifically, old speakers in locations close to Vienna tended towards more velarization in word-initial position compared to other regions, matching descriptions of Viennese dialect.

In laryngeal realism (LR), laryngeal specification of stops is explained by direct maps of cues (e.g. VOT) onto privative phonological laryngeal features [voice] or [spread glottis]. Phonetic realization of the segments and speakers’ ‘control’ (e.g. the degree of intervocalic voicing and speech rate manipulation effects on VOT duration) are used as diagnostics of phonological specification. Similar to some Arabic vernacular dialects (e.g. Qatari Arabic), Khuzestani Arabic in Iran presents a case where three voiced stops /b d ɡ/ are in contrast with voiceless stops /p t k/, but two voiceless guttural plosives /tˁ q/ have no voiced homorganic counterparts. In this paper we examine the phonetic realization of voicing in these stops at word-initial and intervocalic position, as well as the effects of speech rate manipulation on VOT and closure voicing. The data came from 12 native speakers recorded in Khorramshahr, Iran. Our findings suggest an over-specified voicing system in this Arabic variety. We found that voiced /b d ɡ/ were produced with voicing lead in initial position and complete closure voicing word medially, voiceless /p t k/ had long lag VOT, while guttural /tˁ q/ had short lag VOT. Speech rate manipulation revealed that only duration of (pre)voicing and duration of aspiration increased in slower speech. Also, f0, F1, and F2 were measured at vowel onset to evaluate the glottal state in production of stops. The results support the predictions of LR that voiced stops are specified by [voice], voiceless stops are [sg], while gutturals lack underlying specification for voice.

Ultrasound and center of gravity frequency data for the sequences /ʃ#s/ and /s#ʃ/ produced by Central Catalan speakers reveal that the former sequence is implemented through continuous articulatory and spectral trajectories which, depending on speaker, may be: intermediate between /ʃ/ and /s/ all throughout, thus supporting a dynamic blending mechanism; /ʃ/-like at onset and intermediate between the two fricatives at offset, which is indicative of C1-to-C2 carryover coarticulation. The sequence /s#ʃ/, on the other hand, undergoes regressive assimilation into [ʃ(ʃ)] according to the acoustic signal but less clearly so in the light of the articulatory data. This discrepancy appears to be due to the fact that, while C1=/s/ assimilates indeed to C2=/ʃ/ at constriction location, coarticulation-induced changes in tongue body configuration behind the primary articulator may occur as long as they do not jeopardize the front-cavity dependent frequency characteristics of the [ʃ] frication noise. Differences in articulatory complexity between /ʃ#s/ and /s#ʃ/ appear to result from the production mechanisms involved, i.e., tongue dorsum raising behind the /s/ constriction for /s#ʃ/ and tongue body repositioning for /ʃ#s/. In agreement with this interpretation, /ʃ#s/ but not /s#ʃ/ turned out to be longer than /s#s/ and /ʃ#ʃ/.

This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in oral stop consonants in Blackfoot, an Algonquian language without contrastive voicing. We focus on VOT as one of the key temporal acoustic correlates of voicing and investigate VOT variation in relation to (i) place of articulation (labial vs. alveolar vs. velar); (ii) length (long vs. short), quality (/a/ vs. /o/), and accent pattern (accented vs. unaccented) of the following vowel; (iii) word position (initial vs. medial); (iv) gender; and (v) age. We analyzed 2096 stop consonant tokens produced by 13 participants, who completed two different tasks: an English-to-Blackfoot translation task and a picture naming task. The key findings are as follows: (i) Blackfoot stop consonants fall into the short-lag range that overlaps with the English voiced category, with mean VOT values ranging from 11.6–32.7 ms; (ii) VOT values become progressively longer as the place of articulation moves to more posterior positions; (iii) VOT values are longer before high vowels than before low vowels; (iv) VOT values are longer before long vowels than before short vowels; (v) no statistically significant effect was found for the linguistic factors word position and accent pattern; (vi) no statistically significant effect was found for the socio-indexical factors age and gender; and (vii) no statistically significant effect was found for the experimental factor task type. The implications of our findings for the Blackfoot writing system and ongoing work on language documentation and revitalization are briefly discussed.

This paper investigates the acoustic correlates of stress in European Portuguese. Using a nonce word experiment, this study controls the phonological environment of the stimuli so stressed and unstressed vowels with the same quality can be directly compared. Of the five acoustic measures examined, duration is the most robust correlate of stress, but the effect is limited to certain vowels and speakers. Care is taken to separate the effects of independent phonological processes on acoustic properties that are also influenced by stress.

Jarai is a Chamic language of Vietnam and Cambodia that is traditionally described as preserving the original Austronesian voicing contrast in onset obstruents. However, there is anecdotal evidence that it has developed a register contrast, i.e. a binary contrast based on a bundle of spectral properties like pitch, voice quality and vowel quality. We conducted production and perception experiments of the voicing/register contrast in two Jarai varieties spoken in Saom Kaning, Cambodia, and Ea Sup, Vietnam, to determine if they preserve voicing and/or have developed a register contrast. Results show that both dialects have a register contrast primarily based on vowel height modulations (F1) and that onset voicing has become at best an optional secondary property of register. F1 is also the primary cue used for register identification in both dialects. Implications for the diachronic development of the register contrast in Chamic languages and in Mainland Southeast Asia in general are discussed.

This exploratory study investigates sibilants in Mixean Low Navarrese, an endangered variety of Basque. This variety has been described with ten different contrastive sibilants: /s̻, s̺, ʃ, t͡s̻, t͡s̺, t͡ʃ, z̻, z̺, ʒ, d͡z̺/. The objective of the paper is to (a) provide a detailed description of the acoustics of Mixean sibilants, and (b) elucidate whether ten categories can be proposed based only on acoustical data, or whether fewer categories should be considered. The study is based on free-conversation data of ten subjects (three females, seven males) aged between 80 and 85 years. We analyze metrics reflecting the place of articulation (spectral moments, and especially the center of gravity (CoG)), including also the temporal dynamics of CoG (using the discrete cosine transform of CoG measurements of nine intervals of each phone). We also explore the acoustic correlates of the contrasts between (a) voiced and voiceless sounds and (b) fricative and affricate sounds. The results show that only seven categories can be proposed based on acoustic measurements. The lamino-alveolar series reliably contrasts with the rest, but the distinction does not hold between the apico-alveolar and the postalveolar series. We found minimal differences in the analysis of dynamic data, and none in the static analysis.

Arabic has a vowel system with three long and three short monophthongs. One of the parameters that accounts for qualitative differences between long and short vowels across languages is tenseness/laxness of vowels located on the peripheral/non-peripheral tracks in the vowel space. The present study investigates acoustical cues (F1, F2, and duration) of vowels using the data obtained from 21 speakers of Qatari Arabic. The vowels were produced in four phonetic contexts: labial, alveolar, uvular, and pharyngeal. The results revealed considerable qualitative differences between long and short vowels. The long vowels were articulated at the periphery of vowel space; the short vowels occupied more centralized positions. The co-articulatory effect of the preceding consonant was more prominent in short vowels. Short high vowels /i u/ were lowered toward the mid position; short low /a/ was fronted; long low /aː/ was retracted and raised. The findings suggest that short vowels in Qatari Arabic are lax and non-peripheral.

This paper reports on an acoustic study of the retroflex lateral /ɭ/ and non-retroflex lateral /l/, as well as on the schwas following the two laterals in the Zibo dialect. Analyses of formants measured at the temporal midpoint of the lateral and schwa segments show that the retroflex lateral /ɭ/ has a significantly lower F1 as well as a significantly larger C/V duration ratio than the non-retroflex lateral. No significant difference is found in F2 or F3 of the two laterals. Moreover, the schwa following /ɭ/ has a significantly lower F1 than that following /l/, which could play a robust role of cue enhancement in distinguishing the preceding laterals, resulting in an overall enhancement of an otherwise auditorily vulnerable contrast in the laterals. Some inter-speaker variation is observed in the realization of /ɭ/, especially in F3, which may be indicative of a change in progress. These results provide insights into the phonemic status of the retroflex lateral in the Zibo dialect, which are further discussed in light of phonetic and phonological explanations.

This study investigated Intrinsic Vowel Pitch (If0) in the Belgian Limburg dialect of Hamont. Its main aim was to investigate a potential correlation between If0 and f0, which has been attested in previous research, especially on contour tone languages. The Hamont dialect is particularly interesting because it has a pitch accent distinction, but also because the vowel system has a high and low vowel contrast in the front and the back dimension of the vowel space. The results of this study are generally compatible with If0 research on many languages but adds some new insights. Firstly, it was found that If0 in the Hamont dialect is comparatively large (1.97 semitones). Secondly, it was confirmed that the front–back distinction in vowel articulation has no significant effect on If0. Thirdly, when If0 is expressed on a semitone scale, no significant differences in If0 were found between male and female speakers of the dialect. The most important finding of the paper is the significant positive correlation between f0 and If0 in that If0 is smaller in the lower pitch range and bigger in the higher pitch range. This phenomenon in Hamont Dutch is much the same to what is observed in contour tone languages that have been examined for this. There are indications that a similar tendency exists in register tone languages and intonation languages. Although the cause of this progressive If0 reduction is not entirely clear, its wide distribution across prosodic systems seems to point towards a universal tendency.

This study looked at the realization of the high-level Tone 1 in Taiwan Mandarin to examine a public impression of the central dialect, which is said to have a tendency to end with a rise. Fifty-three Mandarin native speakers (27 northern and 26 central) were recruited. Half performed a reading task and half a word-guessing task on 24 disyllabic words with Tone 1 embedded. Results showed rising realizations were the most prominent for the tone, regardless of dialect, gender, genre, and syllable position, but were more prevalent among females than males, and more common and enlarged in the final than the non-final position. Dialectal differences were twofold and mainly lay in the acoustic realization. Central speakers showed both a lower pitch register and a steeper declination than their northern counterparts, and central females also demonstrated an upstep in the final position of the word-guessing task, which completely annihilated the effect of the downtrend. This implies the impressionistic tendency to end high indeed exists in the Tone 1 of the central variety, but its percept is not based on rising realizations alone. Instead, it stands out as a dialectal feature via an enlargement of the rise in the foreground against a disruption of the downward trend in the background. The female lead in the realization suggests the rising Tone 1 does not come with a negative connotation. Perceptual tolerance for the variant likely stemmed from a long-standing free variation between high-level and high-rise for the tone.

This study examines articulation rate in three varieties of Canadian French and includes consideration of speaking style (reading vs. spontaneous), speaker’s age and gender, and length of inter-pause intervals. The varieties are spoken in different geographic areas of Canada – Quebec City (Quebec), Tracadie (New Brunswick), and Windsor (Ontario) – where there are different degrees of French–English contact. The main research question asks how these different contact situations are related to variation in articulation rate. Results show that in both reading and spontaneous speech articulation rates were faster among Quebec City speakers, where French is in a low-contact setting, and slower among speakers from Tracadie and Windsor, where there are greater degrees of contact. The effects of other factors are the same across the three regions: AR was faster in spontaneous productions than in reading; AR decreased with age in the reading task; AR was faster as the length of the inter-pausal intervals increased. The discussion points to similarities and differences with varieties of French spoken in Europe and underscores the importance of language contact in accounting for variation in articulation rate.

This study investigates the conditioning effects of neighbouring consonants on the realisation of the phonemes /k/ and /dʒ/ in Emirati Arabic (EA), which are optionally realised as [tʃ] and [j], respectively. Based on previous accounts of EA and other Gulf Arabic (GA) dialects, we set out to test the prediction that proximity of other, phonetically similar coronal (COR) obstruents [COR, −son, −cont] and coronal postalveolar fricatives [COR, −ant] inhibit the surface realisation of the affricate variants of these phonemes. We examine elicitation data from twenty young female native speakers of EA, using stimuli with the target segment in the presence of a similar neighbour, as compared to words with the neighbour at a longer distance or with another coronal consonant. The results point to an asymmetry in the behaviour of the voiced and voiceless targets, such that the predicted inhibitory effect is confirmed for the voiced, but not the voiceless target. We argue that this finding, coupled with a consideration of the intra-participant and lexical trends in the data, is compatible with an approach that treats the two processes as being at different stages of development, where the [k∼tʃ] alternation is a completed phonemic change, while the [dʒ∼j] alternation is a synchronic phonological process.

This study investigates the voice onset time (VOT) of stops in Bahdini Kurdish, which are characterized by a three-way laryngeal contrast of voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated and voiced stops. Thirty native speakers read a forty-word list three times, which included three examples of each stop in pre-vocalic onset position. Words were chosen based on specific contextual factors to account for place of articulation, laryngeal state, following vowel height, and length contrasts. The findings show that VOT distinguishes stop categories in Kurdish, with voicing lead indicating voiced stops, short lag for voiceless unaspirated stops and long lag for voiceless aspirated stops. Results of the linear mixed-effects model show that laryngeal state, place of articulation, following vowel height and length had significant effects on VOT. The gender of the participants, however, showed no significant effect on VOT. In line with most research on the effect of place of articulation on VOT, in voiceless aspirated stop categories, bilabials had the shortest VOT, followed by dentals and velars. Voiceless unaspirated bilabials had the shortest VOT values, followed by dentals, uvulars and then velars. Voiced stops do not show such a pattern. These results are compatible with other research on Indo-Iranian languages with three-way laryngeal categories.

Apical vowels are widely observed across Chinese dialects, such as the rime of [sɹ̩55] ‘think’ in Mandarin Chinese, which is a syllabic approximant homorganic to its preceding sibilant. The apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin differ from those in Mandarin Chinese and most other languages in three aspects: (i) there are three phonetic apical vowels [ɹ̩], [ɹ̩ʷ], and [ɻ̩] while others usually have one or two, (ii) the alveolar apical [ɹ̩] appears after both homorganic and non-homorganic consonants, e.g. [sɹ̩] vs. [pɹ̩], and (iii) there is a phonological contrast between an unrounded apical [ɹ̩] and a rounded apical [ɹ̩ʷ], e.g. [sɹ̩] vs. [sɹ̩ʷ]. The articulatory properties of the three apical vowels were examined in this study using ultrasound techniques and the results revealed that: (i) the commonalities of tongue gestures for the apical vowels include a retracted tongue root, a lowered tongue dorsum or blade, or both, together with a coronal constriction implemented with the blade and/or the tip; (ii) lip gestures are involved in distinguishing the three apical segments; (iii) the three segments each have its distinct articulatory gestures within a speaker that cannot be simply attributed to the influence from their preceding consonants, with [ɹ̩] and [ɹ̩ʷ] involving a grooving in the front part of the tongue and [ɻ̩] involving a retraction of tongue body in the back region of the vocal tract; (iv) the articulatory gesture of [ɹ̩] after a homorganic consonant, e.g. in [sɹ̩], is similar to that after a non-homorganic consonant, e.g. in [pɹ̩], suggesting an independent articulatory target for this segment.

San Martín Peras Mixtec (autonym: Tu’un Nta’vi or Tu’un Savi ) is an Otomanguean language spoken by roughly 11,500 people in the municipality of San Martín Peras, in Oaxaca, Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, 2020), as shown in Figure 1. The municipality is in the district of Juxtlahuaca, bordering the state of Guerrero. As of 2020, approximately 97% of the population of the municipality over three years old is a speaker of an Indigenous language. Of those that speak an Indigenous language, approximately 60% also speak Spanish, meaning that around 37% of the total population is monolingual in Mixtec (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, 2020). Despite these figures, it is difficult to estimate the total number of native speakers of the language, as many community members have migrated to other parts of Mexico and the United States, especially to several towns in California (Mendoza, 2020).

Using electroglottography and acoustic measures, we characterize the strength and quality of voicing in voiced aspirated and unaspirated consonants (stops, fricatives, and approximants) in Yemba (Grassfields Bantu, Cameroon). We show that the Yemba voiced aspirates exhibit mixed voicing: modal voicing during the consonant constriction, but voiceless aspiration after release. Breathy or whispery phonation extends slightly into consonant constrictions preceding, and across the entire duration of vowels following, aspiration; this non-modal phonation extends further into prenasalized consonants. Mixed voicing has typically been excluded from the possible range of laryngeal–supralaryngeal coordinative patterns in consonants, and is thought to be unattested in the world’s languages; most previous work on this topic assumes that non-modal phonation after voiced consonant release is breathy-voiced. However, we argue that Yemba voiced aspirates differ from more commonly studied breathy-release aspirates only in the settings of some gestural parameters: the late glottal spread gesture is larger in magnitude and more resistant to coarticulation, yielding consistently devoiced aspiration which may even be more perceptually recoverable compared to breathiness.

This paper investigates the production of dental and retroflex stops, fricatives, nasals, and laterals in the Dravidian language Kannada. This is done using articulatory contours extracted from an extensive midsagittal MRI corpus of two female Kannada speakers’ static vocal tract postures intended to capture key aspects of phonemic articulations. Articulatory modelling was used to determine a set of components responsible for the implementation of place and manner contrasts (/t̪ s̪ n̪ l̪/ vs. /ʈ ʂ ɳ ɭ/). These components included both lingual and non-lingual articulatory parameters. Constriction location and length were also determined based on articulatory contours. The results showed that the two speakers produced non-fricative retroflexes with a retracted tongue tip making a constriction behind the alveolar ridge and a characteristic convex tongue shape, yet without a retraction of the posterior portion of the tongue. Apart from the lingual parameters, place differences were also manifested by the vertical position of the larynx (lower for retroflexes). The realisation of the place contrast in sibilant fricatives was different, as /ʂ/ appeared to be produced by both speakers with a laminal alveolopalatal constriction. Manner differences were captured by various non-lingual parameters, yet being also manifested in constriction locations (more anterior for stops). These findings are discussed in the context of previous descriptive and articulatory accounts of dental-retroflex contrasts.

San Juan Piñas Mixtec (endonym: Tò’ō Ndá’ví; henceforth SJPM) (ISO 639-3: vmc) is a previously undocumented Oto-Manguean language of the Mixtecan branch spoken in the municipality of Santiago Juxtlahuaca in Oaxaca, Mexico (shown in the map in Figure 1). According to a 2020 census conducted by the Mexican government (INEGI 2020), there are 717 inhabitants in the town of San Juan Piñas, almost all of whom speak SJPM as their native language. Additionally, speakers are found in diaspora communities in the western states of Baja California (Mexico), California, Oregon, Washington, and other places in Mexico and the United States. There are about half a million speakers of all Mixtec varieties in Mexico (INEGI 2020), and between 100,000 and 150,000 speakers of Mixtec in California (Kresge 2007). While elderly speakers in San Juan Piñas tend to be monolingual, younger speakers are bilingual in SJPM and Spanish. In diaspora communities in the United States, younger SJPM speakers shift to English and/or Spanish as their primary language(s) of communication.