Are tense [æ]s really tense? The mapping between articulation and acoustics

Decker, Paul De; Nycz, Jennifer R.

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2012.01.003

Cited by 22 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…While such overt acoustic signatures of anatomical variation can in principle be heard and reinterpreted as phonetic variation, leading to sound change across repeated episodes of interactions and language acquisition, they might not be the main pathway for the amplification of such weak biases. We suggest here, building on earlier proposals in the same vein by Baker et al (2011), De Decker & Nycz (2012), and Mielke et al 2017, a more indirect causal mechanism that does not require direct overt acoustic effects and may therefore amplify covert, articulatorily-mediated anatomical variation. In a nutshell, we suggest that alternative articulatory strategies (partly due to anatomical variation, but not necessarily so) that produce indistinguishable acoustic output 7 can nevertheless have coarticulatory effects.…”

Section: The North American English /R/supporting

confidence: 76%

“…We propose here that the naturalness of sound change may not be universal, but rather, to a lesser or greater extent (depending on the sounds in question), vary from one community to the next. This would thus add another layer to the proposal that articulatory variation (in general) is important in the actuation of sound change (Baker et al 2011;De Decker & Nycz 2012).…”

Section: Vocal Tract Variation and Sound Changementioning

confidence: 97%

“…De Decker & Nycz (2012) point out that differences in articulatory strategy (arising from individual variation in the discovery of articulatory strategies to adequately approximate perceived acoustic targets) is critical for understanding sound change. They propose that such covert articulatory variation may manifest in distinct phonological patterns if learners converge on a particular strategy that differs from that used in previous generations.…”

Section: Vocal Tract Variation and Sound Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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Pushes and pulls from below: Anatomical variation, articulation and sound change

Dediu

Moisik

2019

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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This paper argues that inter-individual and inter-group variation in language acquisition, perception, processing and production, rooted in our biology, may play a largely neglected role in sound change. We begin by discussing the patterning of these differences, highlighting those related to vocal tract anatomy with a foundation in genetics and development. We use our ArtiVarK database, a large multi-ethnic sample comprising 3D intraoral optical scans, as well as structural, static and real-time MRI scans of vocal tract anatomy and speech articulation, to quantify the articulatory strategies used to produce the North American English /r/ and to statistically show that anatomical factors seem to influence these articulatory strategies. Building on work showing that these alternative articulatory strategies may have indirect coarticulatory effects, we propose two models for how biases due to variation in vocal tract anatomy may affect sound change. The first involves direct overt acoustic effects of such biases that are then reinterpreted by the hearers, while the second is based on indirect coarticulatory phenomena generated by acoustically covert biases that produce overt "at-a-distance" acoustic effects. This view implies that speaker communities might be "poised" for change because they always contain pools of "standing variation" of such biased speakers, and when factors such as the frequency of the biased speakers in the community, their positions in the communicative network or the topology of the network itself change, sound change may rapidly follow as a self-reinforcing network-level phenomenon, akin to a phase transition. Thus, inter-speaker variation in structured and dynamic communicative networks may couple the initiation and actuation of sound change.

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Section: The North American English /R/supporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Vocal Tract Variation and Sound Changementioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Vocal Tract Variation and Sound Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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Pushes and pulls from below: Anatomical variation, articulation and sound change

Dediu

Moisik

2019

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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“…The feature system in (3) may provide a new perspective on the nature of ‘tensed’ [æ] in Eastern seaboard dialects (e.g. Philadelphia glad , pass , path ), whose phonetic nature remains mysterious (De Decker and Nycz ). It may be another instance of track‐crossing: [æ] is already a tense vowel, and the change is actually a lengthening; the lengthened tense low vowel sounds much like a drawled lax mid [ɛ] (as in yeah ), and perhaps ‘crosses the tracks’ into phonemic /ɛ̄/.…”

Section: Chain Shiftsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labov, sound change, and phonological theory

Kiparsky

2016

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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Labov's empirical vindication of the neogrammarian hypothesis, his critique of functionalist accounts of sound change, and his formal principles governing vowel shifts, mergers and splits are major contributions towards solving the constraints problem in historical phonology. I explore their implications for phonological theory, and show that they connect with recent developments in Optimality Theory in mutually illuminating ways.Labov begins his landmark Principles of Linguistic Change with a volume on internal factors governing sound change (Labov 1994) that focuses on the CONSTRAINTS PROBLEM (Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968): what changes are possible for a language in a given state? On the basis of typological data on sound changes and his research on ongoing change in English, he puts forward a set of principled constraints and generalizations, which the field will be building on for decades to come. Here, I take up each of the four major theoretical themes of the bookthe regularity hypothesis, mergers and splits, chain shifts, and functionalismand explore the significance of Labov's findings for generative phonology, and the ways in which recent developments in phonological theory might help advance Labov's research program.In a longer essay I would have tried to trace the remarkable trajectory from Labov

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“…The curves are significantly different where the confidence intervals do not overlap. As this use of confidence intervals has become the standard for the SS ANOVA analysis in the field [e.g., Davidson, 2006;Simonet et al, 2008;Chen and Lin, 2011;Mielke et al, 2011;De Decker and Nycz, 2012;Zharkova et al, 2012;Kochetov et al, 2013;Lee-Kim et al, 2013], we used the confidence intervals to determine significant differences between curves. SS ANOVA was implemented using the gss package in R [Gu, 2012].…”

Section: Ultrasound Imagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Whistled' Fricative in Xitsonga: Its Articulation and Acoustics

2014

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The present study examines the articulation and acoustics of the typologically rare and understudied ‘whistled' fricative sound in Xitsonga, a Southern Bantu language. Using ultrasound imaging and video recording, we examine the lingual and labial articulation of the whistled fricative. For the acoustic analysis, we employ the multitaper spectral analysis, which ensures reliable spectral estimates. The results revealed an interplay between multiple articulators involved in the production of the sound: the retroflex lingual gesture and the narrowing of the lower lip toward the upper teeth. Acoustically, the spectra of the whistled fricative are more peaked and compact than the acoustically similar palatoalveolar fricative, and the differences manifest themselves most clearly in two acoustic parameters, dynamic amplitude (Ad) and M2 (variance). The acoustic differences are also manifested in F2 and F3 in the surrounding vowels. Additionally, the ‘whistled' fricative in Xitsonga is not quite whistled, contrary to the label given to the sound in previous studies. Building on the current articulatory and acoustic results, we discuss two different aerodynamic models for the whistled fricatives in Southern Bantu languages and conclude that the whistled fricative in Xitsonga is best characterized as a retroflex segment accompanied by weak whistling.

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Are tense [æ]s really tense? The mapping between articulation and acoustics

Cited by 22 publications

References 22 publications

Pushes and pulls from below: Anatomical variation, articulation and sound change

Pushes and pulls from below: Anatomical variation, articulation and sound change

Labov, sound change, and phonological theory

The ‘Whistled' Fricative in Xitsonga: Its Articulation and Acoustics

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