“Non-normative” preaspiration of voiceless

fricatives in Scottish English a comparison with Swedish preaspiration

Olga Gordeeva and James M.Scobbie,

Queen Margaret University College (Edinburgh)

Introduction

Descriptive aim: to present new data on preaspiration of voiceless fricatives in Scottish Standard English (SSE)

A cross-linguistic comparison is drawn to the so called “non-normative” preaspiration of voiceless stops and fricatives found in Central Standard Swedish (CSw).Helgason, 1998, 1999, 2002; Helgason et al 2003

compare frequency of occurrence, and prosodic conditioning of preaspiration

We also discuss the preaspiration in SSE and it’s possible socio-phonetic conditioning with a reference to recent studies in the UKDocherty & Foulkes 1999, Foulkes et al. 1999, Jones &

Llamas, 2003

What is Preaspiration? Preaspiration = “co-ordinatory relationship between the

vowel and the following voiceless segment” (Laver, 1994)

In North Western Europe, it occurs in many areas covering Scandinavian, Germanic and Celtic languages

It is often described as a property bound to the transition between a vowel (or sonorant) and the following voiceless stops

(Ladefoged & Madieson, 1996)

For British English, preaspiration of voiceless stops [p], [t] and [k] is reported in: Newcastle English

(Docherty & Foulkes 1999, Foulkes et al. 1999)

Middlesbrough English (Jones & Llamas, 2003)

Preaspiration of voiceless fricatives Is far less studied, even though devoicing before

voiceless fricatives is accomplished earlier than before voiced ones: either in CSw or in British English

(Gobl & Ní Chasaide 1988, 1999)

preaspiration of voiceless fricatives has been reported in: CSw Helgason, 2002 MdE Jones & Llamas, 2003

Both sources agree that preaspiration should be seen as ”a co-articulatory property of the voiceless coda segment”, rather than as a particular feature of voiceless stops

PLACE

Auditory Salience

PLAYS

Sounds as :

either a glottal fricative (usually a weak one)

or whispery

Subjects

Subject Age Birth Place ResidenceCW 23 Edinburgh Linlithgow BV 25 Aberdeen EdinburghGR 27 Edinburgh Edinburgh DW 45 Musselburgh MusselburghVM 37 Edinburgh Edinburgh

Materials

included a set of different vowels before voiced and voiceless stops, and fricatives.

since preaspiration was only found before voiceless fricatives, we only report for tokens GOOSE, FISH and BUS.

Per subject and per carrier, 20 realisations were gathered in two types of phrases:

(1) It’s a BUS.a phrase with a single pitch accent in a phrase final position (final1)

(2) A BUS is a BUS, and nothing but a BUS.a phrase with multiple pitch accents covering phrase initial , phrase medial, phrase final (final2) pitch accents.

Annotation

a 30 ms of glottal fricative or whispery transition between the offset of the modal voicing in the vowel and initiation of the friction of the following voiceless fricative

100 ms

74 ms

Frequency of Occurrence in BUSNr of preaspirated fricatives in word BUS per speaker.

Subject

GRDWVMCWBV

Num

ber

of

BU

S t

okens

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

preaspirated

no

yes

Frequency of Occurrence in FISHNr of preaspirated fricatives in FISH per speaker.

Subject

GRDWVMCWBV

Num

ber

of

FIS

H t

okens

20

10

0

preaspiration

no

yes

Vowel Duration and Preaspiration

0 50 100 150 200

duration (ms)

GOOSE(yes)

GOOSE(no)

FISH(yes)

FISH(no)

BUS(yes)

BUS(no)

carr

ier

wo

rd

(pre

asp

irat

ion

)

Differences in duration of vowel + preaspiration in preaspirated and non-preaspirated cases

V

Pr

SSE Pr/VPr ratio

BUS = 0.38FISH = 0.39

MASS in MbE = 0.54

CSw 0.32 to 0.37

Prosodic structure and duration

Similarly to CSw,

in SSE, phrase final pitch accent yields longer

duration of preaspiration

The Pr/V+Pr ratio increases from 0.34

(focal) to 0.44 (final1)

Mean duration the vowel and preaspiration in BUS tokens as a function of phrasal position

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

focal (24) final2 (14) final1 (24)

phrasal position

dura

tion

(ms)

Vowel

Preaspiration

Prosodic structure and frequency of occurrence in BUS

phrasal structure also affects the

frequency of occurrence of

preaspiration in SSE.

It is more likely to occur in phrase final positions.

phrasal position

final1final2medialinitial

Nr

of B

US

toke

ns

30

20

10

0

preaspirated

no

yes

Prosodic structure and frequency of occurrence in FISH

phrasal structure seems to affect the

frequency of occurrence of

preaspiration in SSE.

It is more likely to occur in phrase final positions.

Phrasal position

final1final2medialinitial

Nr

of F

ISH

toke

ns

20

10

0

preaspirated

no

yes

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

duration (ms)

FISH (C)

FACE

MESS

DEATH

BEST

BATH

PAST

FAST

GRASSin

div

idu

al

TO

KE

NS

Examples of other individual cases from SVLR project and child speech, and CDS

V

Pr

Other Contexts and Examples?

Examples of other read speech from the Scottish Vowel

Length Project (Scobbie). from CDS in my PhD

data.

Preaspiration appears also before

and + after other vowels

of all height including

Read speech versus spontaneous CDS

CW (23) from Linlithgow

Child DirectedRead

Nr

of

FIS

H t

okens

10

8

6

4

2

0

preaspirated

no

yes

Summary of Results (1)

We have observed preaspiration of word final voiceless fricatives in SSE.

No previous reports for SSE This finding supports the previous reports of

Helgason 2002 for CSw, and Jones& LLamas 2003 for MbE, that preaspiration can also accompany voiceless fricatives, not only voiceless stops.

It is observed before voiceless fricatives, but not before voiceless stops.

This shows that this preaspiration is not an automatic co-articulation due to segmental voicelessness. It is rather implemented in a LANGUAGE SPECIFIC way.

This language specificity is in line with Gobl & Ní Chasaide’s findings of 2 different cross-linguistic patterns of cessation of voicing before voiceless stops, but not before voiceless fricatives.

Summary of Results (2)

We have observed that preaspiration of word final voiceless fricatives is conditioned by the strength prominence in terms of:

(1)an increase of duration in phrase final positions as compared to phrase initial or medial

(2)an increase of the frequency of occurrence in phrase final positions, as compared to initial or medial

As compared to CSw, preaspiration in SSE shows quite some similarities in:

being “non-normative”, phonetic and non-obligatory, some speakers have it to a bigger extent than others

prosodic conditioning extent of duration (similar Pr/VPr ratios).

Open questions Is it an innovation from within the language, or from

language contact?> more dialectally stratified data is needed to answer this

Why fricatives and not stops?• Language specific patterns of cessation of voicing in

anticipation of voiceless stops (Gobl & Ní Chasaide 1988, 1999) CWs early cessation, BrE two types (early and late)

> A study of glottal source parameter is needed to prove that

Is it a recent innovation, or was it not noticed before?• previous studies of Scots or SSE gives no notice of

preaspiration Johnston (1997), McKenna (1988)• 3 younger speakers in the data have it to a bigger extent

than the older speakers (37,45)> A age-related socio-phonetically stratification in data is

needed to answer this question