Lexical tone in Modern Burmese is a complex contrast where systematic differences in intensity, duration, phonation type, and vowel quality operate alongside pitch distinctions. Prior phonetic studies have confirmed that speakers produce distinct values for each of these phonetic qualities with each tone (Thein Tun 1982, Watkins 2005, Gruber 2010). This study asked twelve native speakers of Burmese to identify resynthesized single syllable stimuli as bearing one of the four tones in a forced-choice test. Results indicate that Burmese listeners necessarily use all three properties examined (duration, pitch, and phonation type) in their perception grammar.

This paper examines the speech-accompanying gesture and other kinesic behaviour of bilingual English-Māori and monolingual English speakers in New Zealand. Physical expression has long been regarded a key component of Māori artistic and spoken performance, as well as in personal interactions. This study asks (1) if there are gestures more common to or exclusively employed by the Māori population of New Zealand and (2) if their frequency and form is influenced by speaking Māori? More generally, the study considers the effect of different languages on gesture within the same speaker. Four bilingual Māori and six monolingual New Zealanders of European ancestry were recorded providing similar narrations. We report three differences between the speaker groups: a prevalence among Māori speakers for flat-handed motion gestures, gestures of the head, and eyebrow flashes. The findings highlight the probabilistic nature of culturally-grounded variation in gesture and the appropriateness of sociolinguistic approaches to their study.

Abstract. This study describes the acoustic properties associated with tone and register in Louma Oeshi, a previously unstudied Akoid language of Laos. Louma Oeshi uses three tones (High, Mid, and Low) which overlap with a tense/lax register distinction to yield a six-way suprasegmental contrast. In this paper, we (1) offer a first account of the pitch and voice quality characteristics associated with each Tone-Register pair, (2) examine further the variability in glottalization strategies signaling the constricted register, and (3) explore the influence of contrastive voice quality on pitch and vice versa, particularly as a predictor of the variation in glottalization.Keywords. tone; register; voice quality; Tibeto-Burman; Louma; Oeshi 1. Introduction. This study describes the acoustic properties associated with tone and register in Louma Oeshi (henceforth Oeshi), a previously unstudied Akoid/Hanoid language in Laos, belonging to the Southern Lolo/Ngwi subgroup of Tibeto-Burman. Like other Southern Ngwi languages, Oeshi phonology employs three tone levels (High, Mid, and Low) and an overlapping a tense/lax register distinction. In the case of Oeshi, tone and register are fully intersective such that they combine to yield a six-way suprasegmental contrast. In recent decades, the phonetic literature has shown that the boundary between what have traditionally been known as "tone" and "register" languages is often quite blurred, particularly in languages of mainland Southeast Asia (Abramson & Luangthongkum, 2009). How a mixed tone-register prosodic system weighs or emphasizes its multiple contrasts has become an issue of great interest to both phoneticians and phonologists (Silverman 1997 The complete intersection of tone and register levels in Oeshi (Lax and Tense register co-occur with each Low, Mid and High tone) indicates that the qualities are phonologically independent in the sense of Kuang (2013), but raises questions about their phonetic interaction. In addition to providing a first account of Oeshi tonal phonetics, this paper explores how voice quality settings affect pitch across the tone-register combinations, and vice versa. The preliminary data presented here suggests that pitch and voice quality are mostly independent in their phonetic production as well. That is, Oeshi speakers manipulate pitch or voice quality characteristics without great influence on the other property. There is, however, a substantial exception to this observation --High Tense tone-register words, which are noteworthy for a variety of reasons.The paper proceeds as follows. We first describe the relationship of Oeshi to other regional languages with similar, but importantly different, complex tone-register systems ( §2). After explaining our experimental methods and analytic techniques ( §3), we provide the findings ( §4) for the two most successful acoustic correlates of the six-way prosodic contrasts: F0, the fundamental frequency of the acoustic signal (tone) and *H1-H2, the

Burmese vowels are pronounced with a four-way contrast in laryngeal configuration, described as high, low, creaky, and killed registers [Bradley, Tonation, Pacific Linguistics Series A-62 117–132 (1982)]. However, acoustic descriptions differ as to whether the registers should be defined in terms of pitch or voice quality [Watkins SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics: 10, 139–149 (2000)]. This study investigates whether voice quality or pitch is the more consistent carrier of contrast across the four registers. Four speakers pronounced 20 words (5 vowels ×4 registers) inside a frame sentence surrounded by syllables of low register. Each sentence was repeated five times consecutively. For each syllable, F0 measures were taken at each quartile, as well as peaks and valleys. Voice quality was quantified in terms of spectral slope [Gordon and Ladefoged, J. Phonetics 29, 383–406 (2001)], specifically the difference in dB between the first and second harmonics in an FFT spectrum over a 50-ms window. Results indicate that pitch more reliably indicates register than voice quality. While there was no significant difference in spectral slope between registers, the four registers differed consistently in height and timing of pitch peaks.

Louma Oeshi is an Akoid (Tibeto-Burman) language of Laos for which acoustic characteristics are undocumented with the exception of preliminary work by the present authors. This study focuses on the phonetic properties associated with Oeshi's three tones (high, mid, and low) and two registers (Tense, Lax), which fully intersect to yield a six-way suprasegmental contrast. Eight speakers were recorded in Phongsali Province, Lao PDR. Each spoke a 100 token word list, for which 30 tokens were repeated in a carrier sentence placing the token between high and mid-toned lax words. Decile measures of F0 and an array of measures reflecting phonation types (H1-H2, H1-A1, H1-A3, HNR, and SHR) were performed in Voicesauce (Shue et al. 2011) to capture dynamic values over the syllable duration. Our findings show a reliable three-way F0 contrast between tones and a single interaction with register such that High Tense words consistently fall (tones are otherwise level). Acoustic correlates of the Tense~Lax distinction are less clear. The picture that emerges is one where Tense register has variable phonetic manifestations — preglottalization of onsets, vocalic creaky voice, or a glottal stop coda — and the seemingly inconsistent acoustic results reflect these variable articulatory timing strategies.