Tima has a typologically unusual 12-vowel advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony system, contrasting six [+ATR] vowels /i e ɨ ʌ o u/ with six [−ATR] vowels /ɪ ɛ ɘ a ɔ ʊ/. This harmony system provides a test case for generalisations about ATR systems: for example, that [−ATR] is less compatible with higher vowels; that [+ATR] is less compatible with lower vowels and that central vowels are incompatible with [ATR] systems. After showing that all vowels participate fully in ATR harmony, this article presents an acoustic study of the Tima ATR contrast. We show that /ʌ/, the [+ATR] counterpart of /a/, patterns as a mid vowel, and that duration and voice quality differences characterise Tima’s crowded vowel inventory. Though F1 is the primary individual correlate of the ATR contrast, as is true cross-linguistically, a number of measures support voice quality differences as well, as predicted by the Laryngeal Articulator Model account of ATR systems.

Tima (ISO 639-3: tms) is a Niger-Congo language spoken by roughly 7,000 people in the Nuba mountains of Sudan, in north-eastern Africa, as well as in smaller communities in the bigger towns of Sudan such as Khartoum and Port Sudan. It is part of the Katla language group which includes the languages Katla and Julut as well as Tima, with Tima being the most distinct of the three. All three languages are regarded as endangered, mainly due to the spreading influence of Arabic in recent decades, but also due to greater speaker mobility. Broadly speaking, there is a decline in speaker fluency from older to younger speakers of Tima. The Tima people are not only exposed to Arabic as the lingua franca and official language of Sudan, but also to English and Kiswahili. These latter languages were introduced into the school system during the extremely difficult circumstances of the second civil war (1983–2005), when teachers from Kenya came to the Tima region (in addition, many Tima people went to Kenya for further education).1

Qaqet (Glottocode qaqe1238; ISO 639-3: byx) is a Papuan (i.e. non-Austronesian) Baining language that is spoken by an estimated 15,000 people in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province. Figure 1 shows a map of where Qaqet and the four other known Baining languages (Mali, Kairak (also spelt Qairaq – see map), Simbali and Ura) are spoken (see Stebbins, Evans & Terrill 2017 for an overview of Baining; for phonological descriptions, see Stanton 2007 on Ura, and Stebbins 2011 on Mali). The wider affiliations of the Baining languages are unknown. They share typological features with other East Papuan languages (i.e. the non-Austronesian languages of Island Melanesia), but there is no historical-comparative evidence to establish genealogical relationships.1 In terms of phonology, there are no structures shared across all of East Papuan, but Baining languages have similarities to the East Papuan language Kuot spoken on neighbouring New Ireland (i.e. the intervocalic lenition of voiceless plosives; pitch movements at the right edge of intonation units).2 Furthermore, language contact is known to have taken place across the entire region, and Baining languages share typological features with Oceanic languages. This includes phonemic contrasts between voiceless and voiced plosives and between /r/ and /l/; as well as a number of morphosyntactic structures (e.g. a large inventory of definite and indefinite articles, AVO/SV constituent order, prepositions).

This study examines trans-vocalic CVC coarticulation of the coronal (dental, alveolar, retroflex and (alveo-)palatal) stop, nasal and lateral consonants of Arrernte, an Aboriginal language of Central Australia, using electro-palatographic (EPG) recordings of continuous speech. Coronal consonants are known to be more coarticulatorily resistant than peripheral consonants such as bilabials and velars, and this study teases out the coarticulatory differences between these four coronal places of articulation. Results confirm findings from previous studies that laminal consonants (dental and alveo-palatal) are broadly more coarticulatorily aggressive than apical consonants (alveolars and retroflexes), with the alveolars the least resistant to coarticulation. Dental consonants exert fronting effects on both preceding and following consonants, a result consistent with previous acoustic results for these sounds. Similarly, alveo-palatal consonants show both anticipatory and carryover effects, though their exact coarticulatory effect depends on the affected consonant place and manner. The retroflex consonants exert strong fronting effects on the following consonant, and it is suggested that this is due to the anterior release of retroflexes following ballistic forward movement during closure. There is also some evidence of a retraction effect of retroflexes on preceding consonants. Despite this evidence of coarticulatory aggression, retroflexes are particularly affected by preceding and following palatals: in these cases, the retroflex articulation becomes more forward, and dorsal contact for the retroflex is increased. In sum, by examining speech in an understudied language, we learn that there are still greater complexities in the co-ordination of consonants produced using the tongue tip and blade.

Tongan (lea fakatonga, ISO 639-3 code ton) is a Polynesian language spoken mainly in Tonga, where it is one of two official languages (with English). There are about 104,000 speakers of the language in Tonga, with nearly 80,000 additional speakers elsewhere (Simons & Fennig 2017). It is most closely related to Niuean, and more distantly related to West Polynesian languages (such as Tokelauan and Samoan) and East Polynesian languages (such as Hawaiian, Māori, and Tahitian). Previous work on the phonetics and phonology of Tongan includes a general grammar (Churchward 1953), a dissertation with a grammatical overview (Taumoefolau 1998), a phonological sketch of the language (Feldman 1978), two dictionaries (Churchward 1959, Tu‘inukuafe 1992), journal and working papers on stress (Taumoefolau 2002, Garellek & White 2015), intonation (Kuo & Vicenik 2012), as well as the ‘definitive accent’ (discussed below) and the phonological status of identical vowel sequences (Poser 1985; Condax 1989; Schütz 2001; Anderson & Otsuka 2003, 2006; Garellek & White 2010; Ahn 2016; Zuraw 2018). This illustration is meant to provide an overview of the phonetic structures of the language, and includes novel acoustic data on its three-way word-initial laryngeal contrasts, which are cross-linguistically rare. The recordings accompanying this illustration come from Veiongo Hehepoto, a native speaker of Tongan currently living in Melbourne, Australia. Ms. Veiongo was born in 1950 on the island of Vava‘u (northern Tonga), but grew up and was educated in the capital city Nuku‘alofa on Tongatapu (see Figure 1). She moved to Vanuatu when she was 16 years old, and when she was 21 moved to Australia where she trained as a nurse. She continues to speak Tongan every day with family members (including children, who were born in Australia) and friends.

Lisu (ISO 639-2 lis) is spoken by just over a million members of the group of this name in south-western China, north-eastern Burma, northern Thailand and north-eastern India. It formerly also had other names used by outsiders, including Yeren (Chinese yeren ‘wild people’), and Yawyin in Burma and Yobin in India (both derived from the Chinese term). Other names included Lisaw from the Shan and Thai name for the group, also seen in the former Burmese name Lishaw. About two-thirds of the speakers live in China, especially in north-western Yunnan Province, but also scattered elsewhere in Yunnan and Sichuan. About a quarter live in the Kachin State and the northern Shan State in Burma, with a substantial number in Chiangmai, Chiangrai and other provinces of Thailand, and a few thousand in Arunachal Pradesh in India. It is also spoken as a second language by many speakers of Nusu, Anung, Rawang and others in north-western Yunnan and northern Burma. Lisu has almost completely replaced Anung in China and is replacing Lemei in China. The Lisu are one of the 55 national minorities recognised in China, one of 135 ethnic groups recognised in Burma, a scheduled (officially listed and recognised) tribe in India, and one of the recognised hill tribe groups of Thailand. Figure 1 shows a map of the area where Lisu is spoken.

Makasar is an Austronesian language belonging to the South Sulawesi subgroup within the large Western-Malayo Polynesian family. It is spoken by about two million people in the province of South Sulawesi in Indonesia, and is the second largest language on the island of Sulawesi (behind Bugis, with about three million speakers). The phonology is notable for the large number of geminate and pre-glottalised consonant sequences, while the morphology is characterised by highly productive affixation and pervasive encliticisation of pronominal and aspectual elements. The language has a literary tradition including detailed local histories (Cummings 2002), and over the centuries has been represented orthographically in many ways: with two indigenous Indic or aksara-based scripts, a system based on Arabic script, and a variety of Romanised conventions. From at least the early 18th century Macassan sailors travelled regularly to northern Australia to collect and process trepang or sea cucumber (Macknight 1976), and many loanwords passed into Aboriginal languages of the northern part of Australia (Evans 1992, 1997).

Pitjantjatjara is an Australian language with five stop places of articulation /pt ʈ ck/ in three vowel contexts /aiu/. We present word-medial stop burst data from nine speakers, examining duration, formant, spectral moment and spectral tilt measures. Our particular focus is on the apical contrast (alveolar /t/ vs. retroflex /ʈ/) and on the alveo-palatal /c/ vs. velar /k/ contrast. We observe differences between the palatal and the velar depending on vowel context, and we discuss the possible aerodynamic and acoustic sources for these differences. By contrast, we find that differences between the alveolar and the retroflex are minimal in all three vowel contexts. Unexpectedly, in the context of /i/, various spectral measures suggest that the articulatory release for the retroflex /ʈ/ is in fact more anterior than the release for the alveolar /t/ – we discuss this result in terms of possible articulatory overshoot of the target for /ʈ/ before /i/, and suggest that this result provides additional explanation for the cross-linguistic rarity of retroflexes in an /i/ vowel context.

Goemai is an Afroasiatic (Chadic, West Chadic A, Angas-Goemai group) language spoken in Central Nigeria. The name Goemai [ɡmi] is used by the speakers themselves to refer to both their language and their ethnic group. To outsiders, they are better known under the name Ankwe – a name that is also commonly found in the older linguistic, anthropological and historical literature. The Goemai live as farmers, fishermen and hunters in villages throughout the lowland savannah region south of the Jos Plateau and north of the Benue River, an area that is known geographically as the Great Muri Plains. The economy is based on agriculture (yam, millet, guineacorn, groundnut, beniseed) and is supplemented with fishing and hunting. Politically, the area belongs to Plateau State, and more specifically to the Local Government Areas Shendam and Qua’an Pan. Smaller Goemai-speaking communities are found in surrounding Local Government Areas as well as in Jos, the capital of Plateau State.

Pitjantjatjara is a dialect of the Western Desert Language (WDL) of central Australia (Douglas 1958). The Western Desert Language is a member of the south-west Pama-Nyungan group. Together with Warnman, it forms the Wati sub-group. It is spoken by 4000–5000 people, and covers the widest geographical area of any language in Australia, stretching from Woomera in central northern South Australia, as far west as Kalgoorlie and Meekatharra and north to Balgo Hills, in Western Australia. The main dialects, which differ most in regards the lexicon but also to some extent in grammar and phonology, include Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Ngaatjatjarra, Southern Luritja, Pintupi-Luritja, Kukatja, Gugarda, Ngalia, Wangkatja, Wangkatha, Manyjilyjarra, Kartutjarra and Yurlparija. It is perhaps more accurately conceived of as a dialect chain, whereby a dialect such as Pitjantjatjara is mutually intelligible with its neighbours Ngaanyatjatjarra and Yankunytjatjara, but not with dialects more distant than these, such as Kukatja and Manyjilyjarra.

This paper presents electropalatography (EPG) data from two female speakers of Central Arrernte, a language with six places of articulation, including four coronal contrasts. Both speakers were recorded reading the same list of words using two different types of artificial palate: the standard Reading palate, and the new Articulate palate. Data are presented from seventeen lingual consonants of this language. It is suggested that since the Articulate palate provides more coverage of the velar and dental regions, it may be able to better capture the crucial laminal and apical distinctions that exist in Australian languages such as Central Arrernte. However, caution is advised in interpreting the results from the two different types of artificial palate, since for many consonants, palatograms as well as values for standard analysis measures differ greatly between the two palate types.

This study presents jaw movement data from Central Arrernte, an Australian Aboriginal language with six places of articulation in the stop series, including four coronal places of articulation. The focus of the study is on jaw consonant targets, and on the opening and closing movements of the jaw. As a point of comparison, data are also presented for English, a language with three places of articulation in the stop series. In line with previous results for English, jaw position in Arrernte is lowest for the velar /k/. The apico-post-alveolar (retroflex) /ʈ/, which is not found in English, has a jaw position almost as low as /k/. By contrast, the lamino-alveo-palatal /c/, which is also not found in English, has the highest jaw position. The remaining coronal consonants in Arrernte, /t / (apico-alveolar and lamino-dental, respectively), show intermediate jaw positions, with differences between speakers. In terms of the kinematic measures examined (namely, variability in distance, duration and velocity of opening and closing movements), results show no consistent differences between English and Arrernte jaw movement.

Traditionally, phonological theory has held that the CV syllable is the basic syllable type across the world's languages. Recently however, Breen & Pensalfini (1999) have challenged the primacy of the CV syllable in phonological theory with data from Arrernte, an Aboriginal language spoken in central Australia. In this study, we set out to see if there is any acoustic phonetic basis to Breen & Pensalfini's claim. We examine real-word data from one speaker of Arrernte, five speakers of English, and three speakers each of Yanyuwa and Yindjibarndi (these are two other Aboriginal languages). Using F2 and F3 measures of the consonant, and locus equation measures, we find that CV does show more stability than VC in the English speakers' data, but that for the Aboriginal language speakers' data, there is a parity between the CV and VC measures. We suggest that this greater parity may be a necessary constraint on languages which have multiple places of articulation (six in the case of the Aboriginal languages studied here). We propose an alternative view of suprasegmental organization, and we suggest that more work is needed in order to understand the phonetic bases of suprasegmental structure.