This study investigates the phonetic structures of Lushootseed obstruents from archival recordings dating to the 1950s, and seeks to address the following questions: (i) Which acoustic dimensions characterize the stop, affricate, and fricative contrast in Lushootseed? (ii) which acoustic dimensions characterize ejective types in Lushootseed? and (iii) which methods can be used to characterize acoustic properties of Lushootseed obstruents from old archival recordings? Several acoustic measures were used on two elder speakers. These measurements include: Voice Onset Timing (VOT); closure duration; burst intensity for stops; dynamic measures of intensity for affricates; voice onset quality measures for stops and affricates, which include f0 perturbation, jitter perturbation, and amplitude characteristics of the following vowel; and spectral measurements for affricates and fricatives, which includes the frequency of the main peak at the low- and mid-frequency ranges (FreqM) and DCT coefficients. The findings reveal that several of these acoustic measures characterize the stop, affricate, and fricative contrast in Lushootseed.

The paper reports the results of an articulatory 3D/4D ultrasound study showing the variation in the production of corresponding high central(ized) unrounded vowels of Polish, Russian and Ukrainian. We provide qualitative descriptions of the articulation and quantitative analyses of the vowels, compared across the three languages, and compared with the other high vowels in the respective languages. In the analysis, we focus on the position of the dorsum and the tongue root. The Russian ‘central’ vowel (transcribed often as [ɨ]) is most often realized in our sample with a back position of the dorsum and a relatively fronted tongue root position. The corresponding Polish vowel (also transcribed often as [ɨ]) shows a fronted dorsum, though it is centralized in comparison to /i/. The corresponding Ukrainian central(ized) vowels (transcribed in Pompino Marschall, Steriopolo & Żygis 2016 as [ɪ]) shows a lot of variation but the dorsum usually is more retracted than in Polish and less than in Russian. The Russian vowel /ɨ/ shows systematic grooving along the center of the tongue in the tongue root area, indicating a strong involvement of the tongue root musculature. Such a grooving is inconsistent in Ukrainian speakers and minimal in Polish. In general, we observe that functionally corresponding vowels in closely related languages may differ in articulation, which may have an impact on the phonological systems of the languages.

This paper reports on a web-based experiment to investigate the perception of prominence in words with different focus structures in Italian. In the experiment, native listeners of the Bari variety of Italian, and German learners of Italian, rated the perceived prominence of object nouns in broad and narrow focus and post-focally using a visual analogue scale. Although both groups of listeners rated words in narrow focus as higher in prominence than words in broad focus, there were differences between the two groups in rating post-focal words. While German learners rated post-focal words as less prominent than those in broad focus, native Italian listeners perceived words in both of these conditions as equally prominent. The Italian ratings are particularly striking, as post-focal words had flat pitch and were weaker in terms of periodic energy mass than words in broad focus, leading to the conclusion that the native listeners were rating the words by taking their knowledge of the prosodic system of Italian into account. Our results confirm phonological accounts of Italian as having post-focal accents, even when the pitch is flat.

Vocal fold vibrations are more difficult to achieve in obstruents than sonorants due to the aerodynamic voicing constraint (AVC), i.e., the fact that a buildup of air pressure in the supraglottal cavity during oral closures reduces the transglottal airflow. The AVC can be circumvented by various voicing adjustment gestures, such as larynx lowering, tongue root advancement and tongue body lowering. The current study employed laryngeal and lingual ultrasound to investigate the use of these strategies in Canadian French. The vertical movement of the larynx was measured using optical flow analysis, while lingual movement was analyzed by tracking X and Y coordinates at distinct fanlines across consecutive images.

Results revealed that there was more pronounced larynx lowering in voiced obstruents and that it tended to be greater in voiced stops than in voiced fricatives. Tongue-related maneuvers displayed more interspeaker variation but tendencies showed that the tongue root was more advanced in voiced stops than in voiced fricatives and slightly more for /d/ than /b/. Significant tongue body lowering was observed for both voiced stops and voiced fricatives only preceding the vowel /a/. Finally, larynx lowering was strongly correlated with voicing duration in voiced obstruents. A similar but weaker correlation was found for tongue root advancement.

Overall, this study suggests that larynx lowering is an efficient strategy to circumvent the AVC in Canadian French but that some speakers may also resort to lingual adjustments. Additional strategies that are known to play a role, such as nasal or oral leakage, were not considered.

This study uses electropalatography to examine linguopalatal contact differences between Japanese geminate and singleton consonants of various lingual places and manners of articulation. The analysis of over 8,000 tokens of these consonants produced by five Japanese speakers in three sets of stimuli (varying by the word lexical status, contrastive focus, and position within an utterance) showed significantly stronger constrictions for geminates of all places and manners, except for alveolopalatal fricatives. The geminate-singleton differences were the largest for alveolar and alveolopalatal nasals, while being the smallest for alveolopalatal affricates and velar stops. Durational differences between geminates and singletons were quite robust and tended to positively correlate with linguopalatal contact differences for most geminate and singleton consonants. No clear contact or durational differences were observed across the datasets, suggesting that the realization of the contrast is affected minimally by lexical status and position in the utterance. The findings for Japanese geminates are further discussed in the context of articulatory studies of similar contrasts in other languages.

The trap vowel /æ/ is known to display a complex variable duration in many English dialects, but this phenomenon is understudied in Australian English. Previous analyses suggest that trap duration is sensitive to the effects of following phonetic environments in complex ways, but that a lexically specific effect may also operate in determining duration. This study aims to investigate phonetic and lexical effects through an acoustic analysis of trap duration in Australian English. Speakers from a range of areas in Sydney that vary in their ethnic and linguistic diversity produced the trap vowel in select phonetic contexts. Results suggest that trap exhibits a complex hierarchy of durations which are conditioned by the characteristics of the following coda, as well as a notably long duration in the affective adjectives mad and sad compared to other words with coda /d/ that were tested. However, these effects were found to be relatively less pronounced among speakers from more ethnically and linguistically diverse regions of Sydney. This may be attributed to high levels of language and dialect contact occurring in more diverse areas resulting in a gradual reduction in the degree of trap durational variability.

Accounts of prosody in understudied languages are often impressionistic, potentially leading to conflicting accounts due to different researchers being drawn to different acoustic cues. The debate surrounding the location of primary stress in Plains Cree is such a case. One widely adopted claim states that stress is realized on the antepenult, whereas others argue for a penultimate accent. The present study investigates the phonetic properties of stress (duration, F0, intensity, vowel quality) in multisyllabic words and in phrases to understand the patterns that have led to the current debate. We find that there are cues supporting both previous claims: a high F0 on the antepenultimate syllable compatible with “antepenultimate stress” and a falling F0 on the penultimate syllable compatible with “penultimate accent.” Based on the acoustic evidence, we suggest that Plains Cree is a pitch-accent system, with a predictable penultimate HL word-level pitch-accent. Tonal patterns in other syllables are the result of prosodic boundaries, phonetic interpolation, or tonal spreading.

The study of vowel quality has traditionally been based on single-point formant frequency measurements. There is considerable evidence now acknowledging spectral change as an essential part of the vowel system. Previous descriptions of Singapore English vowels have generally been impressionistic, with few offering detailed analysis of vowel quality and based on single-point formant frequency measurements at that. Collectively, they converge on the observations that the target monophthong pairs /i, ɪ/, /u, ʊ/, /ɔ, ɒ/, /ɑ, ʌ/, /æ, ɛ/ and /ɜ, ə/ are each realized as conflated single vowel sounds and the target diphthongs /ɛi/, /ɛə/ and /oʊ/ are monophthongized, with some overlap with the monophthongs listed above. This study analyzes the inherent spectral change of Singapore English vowels based on a dataset from the National Speech Corpus and examines possible contrast in duration between its tense-lax vowel pairs with the aim of providing an update on the description of its vowel system. Contrary to past conclusions, the present study finds no clear conflation of the monophthong pairs /i, ɪ/, /u, ʊ/, /ɔ, ɒ/, /ɑ, ʌ/ and /ɜ, ə/, or the reduction of /ɛə/. However, results do show the conflation of /æ/ and /ɛ/, and the monophthongization of /ɛi/ and /oʊ/.

Gawarbati (ISO 639-3: gwt; Glottocode: gawa2147) is an underdescribed Indo-Aryan language spoken along the Kunar River, in the southern part of Lower Chitral District of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province as well as in adjacent areas across the border in Nari (Naray) and Ghaziabad Districts of Afghanistan’s Kunar Province (see Figure 1). As for the number of speakers, only rough estimations can be given. On the Pakistani side of the border, where credible information is somewhat easier to obtain, local residents estimate it to be 4,000 speakers (Fazal Akbar, pc in 2022), based on the number of known Gawarbati speaking houses and an average number of household members. On the Afghan side of the border, the number appears to range between 15,000 and 20,000, based on recent cross-border contacts with local residents (Fazal Akbar, pc in 2022). This would amount to a total of 19,000–24,000 speakers of Gawarbati. A few small linguistic enclaves situated further down the Kunar Valley in Afghanistan are closely related to Gawarbati: Shumashti (Morgenstierne 1945: 241), Ningalami (Morgenstierne 1950: 58) and Grangali (Grjunberg 1971). Both Shumashti and Ningalami were at the verge of extinction already at the time of Morgenstierne’s field studies in the first half of the twentieth century, whereas Grangali is still spoken in three villages in the Digal Valley, according to a recent report (Robert Tegethoff and Sviatoslav Kaverin, pc in 2021).

This paper investigates the acoustic correlates of word-level stress and phrase-level focus-related prominence in Mankiyali, a highly endangered Indo-Aryan language spoken in Northwest Pakistan that utilizes a weight-sensitive stress system. Of the acoustic properties measured (duration, f0, intensity, spectral tilt, and vowel quality), duration was the only feature found to robustly and consistently correlate with word-level stress across syllable types. In contrast, phrase-level focus-related prominence corresponded to an amplification of all five acoustic features measured. Given that vowel duration serves a vital role in preserving lexical contrast in Mankiyali, these findings present difficulties for a strong version of the Functional Load Hypothesis, which claims that acoustic properties bearing a high functional load in a language will not be used to mark prominence. In addition, results support an analysis of Mankiyali’s stress system as having five distinct levels of weight, a pattern which is extremely rare, if not unattested, elsewhere in the world’s languages.

The primary objective of this study is to identify the most salient prosodic features at the sentence level in Colombian Spanish. Data were collected from the country’s major cities, and the study examines the intensity, duration, and pitch (F0) of vowels in pre-stressed, stressed, and post-stressed syllables within both statements and questions. Stressed vowels were compared to adjacent unstressed vowels to determine the most significant features for identifying vowel prominence. The results indicate that duration is the most consistent acoustic cue of stress, reliably distinguishing stressed vowels from adjacent unstressed vowels. In contrast, intensity predicts stress only in relation to post-stressed vowels, and F0 plays a limited role, distinguishing stressed from post-stressed vowels in specific contexts. An important contribution of this study is the demonstration that the stressed versus unstressed distinction in Spanish is primarily explained by duration, rather than F0. These findings challenge traditional classifications of Spanish as a syllable-timed language by showing that rhythmic grouping, previously thought to be exclusive to stress-timed languages, is also present in syllable-timed languages.

Uzbek (ISO 639-1: uz) is a Turkic language spoken mainly in Uzbekistan, where the language is accorded the ‘state language’ status (Figure 1). Outside Uzbekistan, ethnic Uzbek populations are scattered across and beyond Central Asia in such countries as Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, and Saudi Arabia (Balcı, 2004; Yakup, 2020:411). Many Uzbeks in the diaspora speak one or more languages in addition to Uzbek for interethnic communication (Naby, 1984:11). Some ethnic Uzbek communities are reportedly being linguistically assimilated to ethnic groups that are dominant in their countries or regions (Shalinsky, 1979:12–13; Fevzi, 2013:256; Yıldırım, 2019:64). It is therefore unclear exactly what proportion of ethnic Uzbeks retain Uzbek as their first language today. In the case of ethnic Uzbeks in Xinjiang in China, gauging the extent of linguistic assimilation can be difficult because of the limited range of contrasting features that exist between their variety of Uzbek and Uyghur, the interethnic language of Xinjiang, with which it is generally mutually intelligible (Cheng & Abudureheman, 1987:1–2). The varieties of Uzbek spoken in Afghanistan and China have developed autonomously from those spoken within the borders of the former Soviet Union, and hence differ from the present-day standard Uzbek of Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, most notably in lexica but also in phonology, morphology, and syntax (Jarring, 1938; Abdullaev, 1979: Reichl, 1983; Cheng & Abudureheman, 1987; Hayitov et al., 1992:36; Gültekin, 2010).

San Sebastián del Monte Mixtec (henceforth SSM), also known as Tò’on Ndà’vi, is a language of the Mixtecan family, Otomanguean stock. SSM has lexical tones that are orthogonal to rearticulation on vowels. The aim of this production study is to examine both long modal and rearticulated vowels to gain insight into the SSM tonal system, contrastive voice quality, and any potential interactions between voice quality and f0. Rearticulated vowels are described as having a glottal gesture between two vowels of the same quality (V͡ˀV), while modal vowels have no such gesture (VV). To this end, we examined the phonetic realization of the lexical tones in long modal vowels in terms of f0. All tones are distinguished by f0; f0 patterns largely as expected given previously ascribed labels, with minor deviations. Secondly, the phasing and degree of glottalization in rearticulated vowels was measured using ‘strength of excitation’ (SoE); generally the glottal gesture was vowel medial with a dip in SoE at the beginning of the glottal gesture and a rise in SoE following the glottal gesture. However, there was a large degree of interspeaker variation in the production of rearticulated vowels. Additionally, lexical tone category was found to have an impact on the phasing and degree of glottal gesture in rearticulated vowels, and on voice quality in long modal vowels. This supports the idea that voice quality is an additional correlate of lexical tone in SSM.

This article presents an acoustic analysis of vowel quality and duration in Chichicastenango K’iche’ (Maya) tense, lax and glottalized vowels through a controlled speech production experiment. The results show that most of the five tense–lax pairs can be distinguished through F1 and F2, with the high and mid lax vowels lower than their tense counterparts and the low lax vowel higher than its tense counterpart. Glottalized high and mid vowels have lax quality while glottalized low vowels have tense quality. The high lax vowels /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ and their glottalized counterparts show a high degree of overlap with surrounding categories and appear to be in process of being lost, though they retain distinct phonological behavior. Glottalized vowels are longer than tense vowels, which are longer than lax vowels. The voice quality of glottalized vowels is highly variable and is influenced by context. Realizations with full closures are almost entirely absent. Neither vowel quality nor voice quality results show clear evidence in favor of either a one-segment or two-segment analysis for glottalized vowels.

In spoken language, major prosodic boundaries can be marked by three types of prosodic cues: pitch change, final lengthening, and pause. Although these cues appear cross-linguistically, their relative weight in signaling boundaries is considered language-specific. However, very little is known about prosodic phrasing in the production of Dutch. Past studies on Dutch prosodic phrasing mostly focused on boundary perception, suggesting that pause is the most important cue in Dutch. The present study examined the use of boundary cues in the production of Dutch utterance-medial intonational phrase (IP) boundaries. We investigated these boundaries in two syntactically different contexts: coordinated name sequences and compound sentences. In both contexts, the IP boundary reflects the syntactic structure of the utterance. In the name sequences, the boundary serves as the only means to disambiguate a global syntactic ambiguity, while in the compound sentences it aligns with a clause ending. Sixteen native Dutch speakers produced the target utterances with or without an IP boundary. We measured pitch height, IP-final and pre-IP-final syllable durations, and pause duration at the boundary. All three types of cues were used to mark IP boundaries, but speakers used the pause cue to a larger extent in the name sequences than in the compound sentences. Additionally, we found that final lengthening was the most consistently used IP boundary-marking cue. Our results thus challenge the notion of pause as the most dominant cue in Dutch. They suggest that pre-boundary lengthening may be the most consistently used cue, at least, from a production perspective.

Vowel deletion is frequent in the Chichicastenango dialect of K’iche’ (Maya). Whereas deletion in content words is reportedly predictable based on vowel quality, syllable structure and stress, deletion in function words is much more variable. This article investigates vowel deletion in a corpus of spontaneous, monologic speech. The results show that deletion in content words is highly regular, occurring to lax vowels in unstressed, CV syllables adjacent to the stressed syllable. A difference can be observed between vowels belonging to stress domain internal morphemes and extrametrical morphemes. Deletion in extrametrical morphemes is somewhat less regular, and does not occur in word-final syllables. In function words, vowel deletion is sensitive to similar conditions to those that affect content words, but is highly variable and is influenced by the phrase-level context.

Mizo (ISO 639-3 code: lus) is a Tibeto-Burman tone language spoken in Mizoram, India. This work provides an acoustic-phonetic description of Mizo tones spoken in Aizawl. The acoustic features of Mizo tones are modelled after the four tones in the language. The patterns of the f0 contours of the four Mizo tones in this study indicate that three have dynamic f0 contours. The analysis also shows that the f0 slope is crucial in distinguishing the four Mizo tones. Discrete Cosine Transform is used to obtain the average f0 and the f0 slope features of the Mizo tone contours represented by the first three Discrete Cosine Transform coefficients. The first three coefficients of the Discrete Cosine Transform, which are associated with the average f0 and the f0 slope of the four Mizo tone f0 contours, along with the tonal duration, can automatically classify the Mizo tones with an average accuracy of 87.12% using a quadratic discriminant analysis.

Zhuang (ISO 639-3, zha) is a group of languages belonging to the Tai language family (Diller, Edmondson & Luo 2008: 7), spoken by the Zhuang people, who form the largest minority group in China with a population of approximately 17 million.1 Most Zhuang speakers live in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with over 14.4 million permanent residents.2 It is estimated that more than 20 million people speak a variety of Zhuang (Wei, Qin & Wei 2009: 7), including some other ethnic minorities, such as the Yao and Maonan, who live in the same regions as the Zhuang. A small number of Zhuang speakers inhabit regions in provinces adjacent to Guangxi, like Wenshan (Yunnan province) and Lianshan, in the northwest of Guangdong province (see the map in Figure 1).