Michaela Hejná

LAGB, London 2013

Are pre-aspiration and gemination

related in Aberystwyth English?

motivation: both seemed to be conditioned by

the same environments

gemination = traditionally used term in Welsh linguistics

consonantal lengthening probably more appropriate

2

both pre-aspiration and gemination observed for Welsh and Welsh English

(Morris 2010; e.g. Awbery 1986, Hannahs forthcoming; Wells 1982, Penhallurick 2004)

also found in Icelandic and some dialects of Italian (Sienese Italian, Standard Italian spoken by respondents from Southern, Central, and Northern Italy; e.g. Stevens 2011, Hajek & Stevens 2010)

Is there any relationship between the two in these languages?

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strengthening or weakening of gemination, i.e. degemination (Stevens 2011)

bocca “mouth” /k:/ ~ /hk/ ~ /k/

acoustic analyses fortition (Stevens 2011)

perceptual analyses degemination (Stevens

and Reubold 2013), but not for all speakers a diachronic process

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geminated voiceless plosives

> pre- aspirated voiceless plosives

diachronic process (Thráinsson 1978, in Kirchner 1998: 143 and Keer 1998)

pre-aspirated and geminated stops both

derived from underlying geminates (Keer 1998)

synchronic operational rule

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If there is a relationship, what type of a

relationship would this be?

allophonic (complementary, free variation)

perceptual (cuing stress)

sociolinguistic (“free variation” actually having systematic

distribution in terms of styles)

synchronic

diachronic (including degemination scenario)

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General Research Question Defining Pre-aspiration Predictions: conditioning Overview of the Experiments Methodology and Data Experiment 1: pre-aspiration & place of articulation Experiment 2: pre-aspiration & vowel phoneme Experiment 3: pre-aspiration & sonority hierarchy Experiment 4: gemination & closure duration Experiment 5: gemination & place of articulation Experiment 6: gemination & vowel phoneme Suggestions for further research

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A period of voicelessness preceded by a vowel

and followed by a voiceless obstruent, typically

a plosive.

in the analyses to follow,

a period of voicelessness = pre-aspiration

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9

10

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Broad prediction:

If the two are related, this should be reflected

in their distribution, i.e. segmental, prosodic,

and stylistic conditioning.

In today’s talk:

If the two are allophonic, this should be

reflected in their segmental conditioning.

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Series of exploratory studies designed to answer the following questions.

Experiment 1:

If pre-aspiration is treated as categorical, is this categoricity conditioned by the place of articulation of the plosive following? Experiment 2:

If pre-aspiration is treated as categorical, is this categoricity conditioned by the vowel phoneme preceding?

Experiment 3:

Does the relationship between the vowel phoneme and the frequency of pre-aspiration reflect the sonority hierarchy of vowels?

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Experiment 4: Is gemination/consonantal lengthening categorical?

Experiment 5:

Does the place of articulation of the plosive influence presence of pre-aspiration and closure duration in the same way? Experiment 6:

Does the preceding vowel phoneme influence presence of pre-aspiration and closure duration in the same way?

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five female native speakers of Welsh, also proficient in English

age differs (31, 47, 53, 71, 89)

in this study, disyllabic and monosyllabic words with a post-tonic

plosive

/æ/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ɒ/, /Λ/, /ʊ/, /ɑ:/, /o:/, and /a:/ combined with /p/, /t/,

/k/ in monosyllables

/æ/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ɒ/, and /Λ/ combined with /p/, /t/, /k/ in disyllables

desirable combinations: bap, bat, back; lapper, latter, lacquer

each type three tokens, two in a carrier sentences Say ___ once.

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17

Logistic Regression with Helmert Coding

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19

Logistic Regression

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21

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high vowels favour devoicing (e.g. Rodgers 1997)

pre-aspiration ≠ devoicing

part of the plosive?

Does a change in sonority result in a change of the likelihood of pre-aspiration?

sonority scale of vowels (de Lacy 2002: 55) does not deal with long vowels long vowels excluded

“The rounding and backing found in /ɒ/ favour devoicing more than /æ/.” (Rodgers 1997: 185)

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not reflected in the data

Logistic Regression with polynomial coding

(a, o, v, e, u, i)

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not reflected in the data

Logistic Regression with Helmert coding

(a, o, v, e, u, i)

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consonantal lengthening – not contrastive

impressionistically and even sociolinguistically salient

influence of Welsh

presence or absence relational

impresionistically not either or

not immediately categorical

Experiment 4:

Is gemination/consonantal lengthening categorical?

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focus on the duration of the closure

1. Is the distribution bimodal?

2. Is closure categorical based on the place of articulation of

the following plosive?

3. Is closure categorical based on the vowel phoneme

preceding?

4. Differences in pre-aspirated vs non-pre-aspirated

populations?

Today: Is the distribution immediately bimodal?

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ABE24 [47yrs]

W = 0.9928, p-value = 0.737

Shapiro-Wilk normality test

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ABE14 [89yrs] ABE31 [71yrs] 14: W = 0.9791, p-value = 0.06545

31: W = 0.9702, p-value = 0.09864

ABE12 [53yrs] ABE33 [31yrs] 12: W = 0.9894, p-value = 0.4356

33: W = 0.9919, p-value = 0.6776

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Normally distributed:

ABE12 [53yrs] - W = 0.9945, p-value = 0.4816

ABE33 [31yrs] - W = 0.9907, p-value = 0.1029

Non-normally distributed:

ABE14 [89yrs] - W = 0.9748, p-value = 0.0003288

ABE31 [71yrs] - W = 0.9849, p-value = 0.007534

ABE24 [47yrs] - W = 0.9721, p-value = 4.746e-05

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Normally distributed:

ABE14 [89yrs] - W = 0.9806, p-value = 0.3778

ABE12 [53yrs] - W = 0.981, p-value = 0.3775

ABE24 [47yrs] - W = 0.978, p-value = 0.2725

ABE33 [31yrs] - W = 0.9711, p-value = 0.1145

Non-normally distributed:

ABE31 [71yrs] - W = 0.9849, p-value = 0.007534

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Normally distributed:

ABE14 [89yrs] - W = 0.9894, p-value = 0.3575

ABE12 [53yrs] - W = 0.9857, p-value = 0.1613

ABE24 [47yrs] - W = 0.9873, p-value = 0.2338

ABE31 [71yrs] - W = 0.9702, p-value = 0.09864

Non-normally distributed:

ABE33 [31yrs] - W = 0.9654, p-value = 0.001359

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Linear Regression with Helmert Coding

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PLACE OF ARTICULATION Except for ABE24 [47yrs], the results from closure duration seem to parallel those for presence of pre-aspiration

Would pre-aspiration show the same results if treated as continuous? pre-aspiration could be both categorical and continuous as could gemination

Is there simply negative correlation between the duration of the closure and that of pre-aspiration?

indeed there is to a variable extent

this could be explained by syllable-based rhythm

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ABE12 [53yrs]

Linear Regression

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VOWEL PHONEME Pre-aspiration

Closure duration

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categoricity of pre-aspiration

Only two categories?

Is it truly categorical?

duration of closure

tests for bimodality should be done as well

could still be categorical on the basis of its conditioning

Delimiting closure thresholds if treated as categorical

tests for other cues of gemination

release duration (Ridouane 2007, 2010)

duration of pre-aspiration & duration of the closure

less formal style

39

Special thanks to Wendell Kimper, James

Brookes, Yuni Kim, and Peter Jurgec

Awbery, G. (1986) Pembrokeshire Welsh: a Phonological Study. Cardiff: Welsh Folk Museum.

Awbery, G. (1984) “Phonotactic constraints in Welsh”. In Welsh Phonology. Selected Readings. Eds. M. Ball and G. Jones.

Cardiff: University of Wales Press. 65-104.

Ball, M., and B. Williams. (2001) Welsh Phonetics. USA: The Edwin Mellen Press.

Cohn, A. C., W. H. Ham, and R. J. Podesva. (1999) “The Phonetic Realization of Singleton-Geminate Contrasts in Three

Languages of Indonesia”. In ICPhS 99. 587-90.

Davis, S. (2011) “Geminates”. In The Blackwell Companion to Phonology. Eds M. van Oostendorp, C. J. Ewen, E. Hume,

and K. Rice. Blackwell Publishing. Blackwell reference online. 24 January 2012.

Hannahs, S. J. (forthcoming) The phonology of Welsh.

Jones, R. O. (1967) quoted from Ball and Williams

Keer, E. (1998) “Icelandic Preaspiration and the Moraic Theory of Geminates”. In Proceedings of the Xth Conference of

Nordic and General Linguistics. PP

Kirchner, Robert. (1998). An Effort-Based Approach to Consonant Lenition. PhD Dissertation, Department of Linguistics,

UCLA.

de Lacy, P. (2002) The Formal Expression of Markedness. University of Massachusetts Amser., PhD dissertation..

Local, J., and A. P. Simpson. (1999) “Phonetic Implementation of Geminates in Malayalam Nouns”. In ICPhS 99. 595-9.

Morris, J. (2010) “Phonetic Variation in Northern Wales”. In Proceedings of the Second Summer School of Sociolinguistics.

Eds M. Meyerhoff, C. Adachi, A. Daleszynska, and A. Strycharz. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University.

Penhallurick, R. (2004) “Welsh English: Phonology”. In A Handbook of Varieties of English 1. Volume 1: Phonology. Eds E.

W. Schneider, K. Burridge, B. Kortmann, R. Mesthrie, and C. Upton. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 98-112.

Ridouane, R. (2007) “Gemination in Tashlhiyt Berber: an acoustic and articulatory study”. In Journal of the International

Phonetic Association 37/2. 119-42.

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Ridouane, R. (2010) “Gemination at the junction of phonetics and phonology”. In Papers in Laboratory Phonology 10. Eds.

C. Fougeron, B. Kuhnert, M-P. D’imperio, and E. Delais-Roussarie. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. 61-90.

Rodgers, J, (1997) “Vowel devoicing/deletion in English and German”. In. 177-95..

Stevens, M., and U. Reubold. (2013) “Individual differences in the production and perception of consonant length:

implications for sound change”.

Stevens, M. (2011) “Consonant Length in Italian: Gemination, Degemination and Preaspiration”. In Selected Proceedings of

the 5th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology. Ed S. M. Alvord. 21-32.

Stevens, M., and J. Hajek. (2010) “Preaspirated /pp tt kk/ in standard Italian. A sociophonetic v. phonetic analysis”. In

Proceedings of the 13thAustralasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology. Ed M. Tabain.

Melbourne: ASSTA. S. 1-4.

Stevens, M., and J. Hajek. (2004) “Preaspiration in Sienese Italian and its Interaction with Stress in /VC:/ Sequences”. In

Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2004. Eds B. Bel and I. Marlien. 57-60.

Thráinsson, H. 1978. On the phonology of Icelandic preaspiration. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 1. 3-54.

Wells, J. C. (1982) Accents of English 2. The British Isles. CUP: Cambridge.

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No correlations between breathiness and the durational

properties of the closure of the post-tonic plosive or between

breathiness and pre-aspiration.

Moreover, breathiness on its own fairly rare.

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ABE14 [89yrs] ABE31 [71yrs]

ABE24 [47yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

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ABE14 [89yrs] ABE31 [71yrs]

ABE24 [47yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

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ABE14 [89yrs] ABE31 [71yrs]

ABE12 [53yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

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ABE14 [89yrs]

W = 0.9748, p-value = 0.0003288

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ABE31 [71yrs] ABE12 [53yrs]

ABE24 [47yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

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ABE14 [89yrs]

W = 0.9806, p-value = 0.3778

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ABE31 [71yrs] ABE12 [53yrs]

ABE24 [47yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

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ABE14 [89yrs]

W = 0.9894, p-value = 0.3575

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ABE31 [71yrs] ABE12 [53yrs]

ABE24 [47yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

52

ABE14 [89yrs]

ABE31 [71yrs]

ABE24 [47yrs]

ABE33 [31yrs]

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ABE14 [89yrs] ABE31 [71yrs]

ABE24 [47yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

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ABE14 [89yrs] ABE31 [71yrs] ABE12 [53yrs] ABE24 [47yrs] ABE33 [31yrs]

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and its interactions with the durational properties of the other durational aspects

ABE24 [47yrs] no statistically significant interactions

and she is the most geminating one

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should be taken into account in future analyses

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Preliminary threshold taken to be 109ms; gem | pre

ABE14 [89yrs] *** ABE31 [71yrs] ABE12 [53yrs] ***

ABE24 [47yrs] ** ABE33 [31yrs] ***

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ABE31 [71yrs] no pre-aspiration co-occurrig with geminated plosives,

similar to ABE14 [89yrs]

pre-aspirated stops can exclude geminated stops for some speakers

while the relationship can be more complex for other speakers; yet

always negatively correlated

Why should this be the case?

more speakers needed for conclusions relevant for diachrony

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