The Nature of Laryngealization in St’át’imcets Laryngealized Resonants

Abstract

Phonetic variability-the variability with which we speak-has recently received much attention because of its implications for how sounds are represented lexically. This paper considers phonetic variability in laryngealized resonants, which are rare cross-linguistically but common in the Pacific Northwest languages (Salish and Wakashan). Previous literature on these sounds has focused primarily on variability in timing between the oral and laryngeal gestures. This paper explores instead variability in the realization of the laryngeal gesture, focusing on St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish). Pitch, amplitude, and duration measurements are taken to characterize the laryngeal gesture of intervocalic laryngealized resonants. Results exhibit a high degree of variability but show that, overall, realization depends primarily on the location of the laryngealized resonant with respect to word stress: the correlates of laryngealization are acoustically stronger in post-stress than in pre-stress position. Results are discussed in terms of their possible causes and in terms of their implications for how sound structure is lexically encoded.

Chukchansi Yokuts

“…Mid-glottalization is consistent with the third author’s native speaker intuitions about syllabification in (11b), with the strongest laryngealization flanked by the oral articulation of the sonorant on either side. Similar variation in the timing of the laryngeal gesture in laryngealized sonorants also occurs in St’át’imcets (Bird 2011).…”

“…In other tokens of laryngealized sonorants, there is no full glottal closure or silence, but creaky voicing instead. For example, in [saw̰itʰ] in Figure 11, the laryngealized sonorant /w̰/ has creaky voicing but not full glottal closure (see also Bird 2011 for St’át’imcets). The same variation occurs with intervocalic glottal stops /ʔ/, which are sometimes realized as a full closure [ʔ] and other times as creaky voice on the neighboring vowels.…”

The versatility of creaky phonation: Segmental, prosodic, and sociolinguistic uses in the world's languages

“…In Hupa, there is an unusual phonemic contrast between root‐final preglottalized and postglottalized nasals, which arose because the preglottalized nasals used to be in prevocalic position, but these words underwent an apocape process that eliminated the final short vowel (Gordon, 1996; Gordon & Ladefoged, 2001). Another consideration is the interaction between glottalization and stress; for example, Bird (2011) shows that in St'át'imcets, sonorants are more likely to be realized with glottalization in poststress position as compared when they are the onset of a stressed syllable. She speculates that the acoustic properties of glottalization may obscure the cues to stress, leading to prioritization of the stress cues.…”