Liquid + Nasal Acoustics

December 6, 2010

The Path Before Us• Right now: Take-home quizzes are due!

• Also: Production Exercise #3 has finally been graded.

• Production Exercise #4 is due on Wednesday the 8th.

• due on Wednesday the 8th

• This Wednesday: lecture wrap + evaluations of instruction

• Friday: (optional) review for the final exam

• Reminder--Final Exam info:

• Saturday, December 18th, 8:00-10:00 am

• Engineering E 239

The Third Way• We have talked at length about F1 + F2 in vowels--

• F1 corresponds to high/low distinctions

• F2 corresponds to front/back distinctions

• What about F3 distinctions?

• They’re unusual.

• For auditory reasons:

• sensitivity to frequency distinctions drops off in the higher frequency regions.

• However: English has very low F3.

English• English is distinctive because it has a very low F3.

And Again

Toothpick Time• typically combines three different approximant

constrictions:

1. Post-alveolar (retroflex)

2. Lip rounding (labialization)

3. Pharyngeal constriction (pharyngealization)• Hence, might be a better transcription.

• English speakers make the retroflex constriction in two different ways:

1.Tongue bunching

2.Tongue curling

• The articulation of is very complex.

Bunching and Curling

Back to the videotape…

Rhoticized Vowels• Retroflexion is a feature which may be superimposed on other vowel articulations.

• These vowels are said to be rhoticized.

• Rhoticized vowels are contrastive in Badaga, a language spoken in southern India.

Retroflex Vowel Spectrograms

[be]

Rhoticized vowels in English• Vowels before in Canadian + American English are consistently rhoticized.

• Check out Bruce + Peter’s productions of “hard”.

• Recall that there is a reduced set of vowel contrasts in this environment:

•

• Also note that there are alternative transcriptions for syllabic .

• Namely:

Laterals• Laterals are produced by constricting the sides of the tongue towards the center of the mouth.

• Ex: [l], a lateral approximant

• Laterals can also be formed by constricting on one side of the mouth only…

Lateral Palatography

Lateral Places• The IPA includes symbols for lateral approximants at four different places of articulation

Peter says:

• There are also two symbols for lateral fricatives.

• They are voiceless and voiced alveolars.

Lateral Approximant Contrasts• Italian contrasts alveolar and palatal laterals.

Retroflex Laterals• Toda contrasts dental and retroflex laterals.

• Toda is spoken in southern India.

• In syllable-final position, Korean laterals are typically retroflex.

Other Laterals• Mid-Waghi contrasts dental, alveolar and velar laterals.

• Mid-Waghi is spoken in the highlands of New Guinea.

• Zulu contrasts alveolar lateral approximants and fricatives.

• Zulu is spoken in South Africa.

Lateral Acoustics• Laterals have resonances like vowels…

Mid-Waghi: [alala]

• but are weaker in intensity.

[l] vs.• [l] and are primarily distinguished by F3

• much lower in

• Also: [l] usually has lower F2 in English

[ ] [ ]

Dark vs. Clear /l/

[alala]

•/l/ often has low F2 in English because it is velarized.

Velarization in English• Different dialects:

1. [l] is velarized only in syllable-final position.

2. [l] is velarized everywhere except before front vowels.

3. [l] is velarized everywhere

Velarization in English• Note: velarization of [l] leads to low F1 and low F2.

• closely resembles [o].

• Leading to dialect Option 4:

• The [l] disappears and the velarization is left behind.

• The Columbus, Ohio “[o:]dies” station

• Coldplay (Devon accent):

The Remainders• There are a handful of approximants in the IPA which are not considered glides, because they don’t correspond to high vowel articulations.

• These approximants correspond to flaps at the same places of articulation.

• An alveolar lateral flap is also possible:

Taps and Flaps• There is a technical distinction made between taps and flaps.

• Tap:

• strictly up and down movement, with brief contact between articulators.

• Spanish: “expensive”

• Flap:

• brief contact during backwards or forwards movement of an active articulator.

• N.A. English: “ladder” or “latter”

• Note: Deadheaded Ed had edited it.

Tap and Trill Acoustics

[pero] ‘dog’

From Spanish:

‘but’

Full Circle• The labio-dental flap was just introduced into the IPA in 2005.

• Re-check out the labio-dental flap movie.

Nasals• Nasals are the sonorants with the greatest amount of constriction in the vocal tract.

• Nasals are produced with an open velo-pharyngeal port

• Flow of air is stopped in the mouth

• Air flows freely through the nose

• Air pressure does not build up behind stop constriction.

• Voicing is not impeded at the glottis.

• Note: the speech ready position

• Check out the Ken Stevens X-ray film.

Nasal Stops• Note: anywhere you can produce an oral stop, you can also produce a nasal stop.

• Check out all the nasals in Yanyuwa:

Plus One• You can also get a nasal stop at one place of articulation where oral stops never occur

• Labio-dental:

• Peter says: [ama]

• occurs allophonically in:

• English “dumbfounded”, “comfort”, (“Banff”)

• Catalan “infermer”; Italian “invece”• Note: flow of air through nose reduces airflow through mouth

• vocal tract airflow too weak for frication at the labio-dental closure.

Voiceless Nasals• Nasalization is disastrous for fricatives.

• (Uncontroversial) nasal fricatives are extremely rare in the languages of the world.

• There are, however, voiceless nasals in a few languages.

• Examples from Burmese:

Breathy Voiced Nasals• Distinctions between voiced and breathy voiced nasals are also possible.

• Examples from Newari (spoken in Nepal):