UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) The phonetics of ...-kanga ŋ-khanga ɦanga khanga guinea fowl -kuni ŋ-khuni ɦuni khuni (piece of) firewood Table 1: Synchronic outcomes

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The phonetics of NCh in Tumbuka and its implications for diachronic change

Downing, L.J.; Hamann, S.DOI10.2218/pihph.3.2018.2825Publication date2018Document VersionFinal published versionPublished inPapers in Historical PhonologyLicenseCC BY

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Citation for published version (APA):Downing, L. J., & Hamann, S. (2018). The phonetics of NCh in Tumbuka and its implicationsfor diachronic change. Papers in Historical Phonology, 3, 77-95.https://doi.org/10.2218/pihph.3.2018.2825

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ThephoneticsofNChinTumbukaanditsimplicationsfordiachronicchange

LAURAJ.DOWNINGUniversityofGothenburg

SILKEHAMANNUniversityofAmsterdam

Abstract

Thephoneticmotivationforthesynchronicanddiachronicdevelopmentof post-nasal voicing (*NT > ND) is well understood. Less wellunderstoodisthephoneticmotivationforothercommonsynchronicanddiachronicdevelopmentsfrom*NT,widelyattestedinBantulanguages,suchasaspirationofthevoicelessplosiveandsubsequentlossofeitherthenasalortheplosiveportionofthesequence:*NT>NTh>Th,Nh.Inthis paper we first review the existing (scarce) phonetic literature onthesedevelopments.ThenwepresenttheresultsofaphoneticstudyofNCsequencesinTumbuka,aBantulanguagewhereNT>NTh,asawayof exploring how the acoustic and perceptual properties of NThsequences could motivate the development, found in other Bantulanguages, of Th or Nɦ from NTh. We conclude by proposing that aperceptual cue approach, rather than a gestural or other articulatoryapproach,providesthemostpersuasivephoneticaccount,notonlyofthemotivation for post-nasal aspirationof voiceless stops, but also for theinstabilityofnasalsandofvoicelessstopsintheNThcontextwhichleadstoothersoundchanges.

1 IntroductionAsKerremans’(1980)thoroughsurveyshows,awiderangeofreflexesof Proto-Bantu *NT are found in modern Bantu languages. Whilevoicingofthepost-nasalobstruent(*NT>ND)mightbethemostwell-known(see,e.g.,Pater1999),itisalsoextremelycommonforthepost-nasal obstruent to undergo aspiration: *NT > NTh (see Hamann &Downing2017fordetaileddiscussion).

InanumberofBantulanguages,wefindotherdevelopmentsfrom*NT:eitherthenasalorthestopportionofthe*NTsequenceisdeleted,asillustratedin(1).

LauraJ.Downing&SilkeHamann 78

(1a) *NT>Th (1b) *NT>Nɦ>ɦ

Both cases, (1a) and (1b), leave behind an aspirated or breathy

voiced consonant.1 Table 1 illustrates these outcomes by providing across-Bantu sample of the synchronic cognates of Proto-Bantu stemswhen a nasal noun class prefix (class 9/10) creates an NT sequence.(SeeKatamba2003foranoverviewofBantunounclasses.)

Proto-Bantu Chichewa Central

Shona Venda Englishtranslation

*-pada m-phalapala m-ɦara phala gazelle

*-peni m-phe(n)zi m-ɦeni phenyo lightning

*-pepo m-phepo m-ɦepo phepho wind(Venda:cold)

*-paka m-phaka — phaha wildcat

*-tanga n-thanga n-ɦanga (dzi-)thanga pumpkin(seed);othergourd

*-ntu mu-nthu mu-nɦu mu-thu person

— n-thomba n-ɦomba thomba smallpox

*-tanda n-thanda n-ɦanda thanda (morning)star;rudder

— n-thata n-ɦata thatha flea

*-koko ŋ-khuku ɦuku khuhu chicken

*-kanga ŋ-khanga ɦanga khanga guineafowl

*-kuni ŋ-khuni ɦuni khuni (pieceof)firewood

Table1:SynchronicoutcomesofProto-Bantu*NTinwordsinClass9/102

WorklikeGivón(1974),Hinnebusch(1973,1975),andKerremans

(1980)hasarguedthatthedevelopmentsin(1)motivatethehistoricalphonologisationscenarioin(2).

1Aspiratedstopsareabbreviatedas‘Th’andaspiratednasalsas‘Nɦ’,throughout.2Datasources:Proto-Bantu(Bastinetal.2002);Chichewa(N.31,Malawi:Paas2010);Shona (S.11-15, Zimbabwe: Hannan 1984, Vashona Project Dictionary: https://vashona.com/en/dictionary); Venda (S.20, South Africa, Zimbabwe: Wentzel &Muloiwa 1982, Ziervogel & Dau 1961, Venda-English dictionary online: https://glosbe.com/ve/en).

79 ThephoneticsofNChinTumbukaanditsimplicationsfordiachronicchange

(2) *NT>NT>NTh>Nɦ/Th

Notefirstthatneither*NT>Nɦnor*NT>Thisconsideredtoresult

fromaone-stepchange.Rather,theseoutcomeshavedevelopedfromaphonologisation ‘seriation.’ (See Hyman 1976, 2013, Barnes 2006 fordetailed discussion of the role of phonologisation in sound change.)NotefurtherthattheseproposalscruciallyassumethatthenasalintheintermediateNThsequenceisvoiceless,inordertomotivatethefurtherdevelopmentstoNɦorTh.

Inthispaper,weevaluatetheplausibilityofthishistoricalscenario,basedonacarefulphoneticstudyofNCsequencesinTumbuka,aBantulanguage (N.21, Malawi) where NT > NTh (both diachronically andsynchronically).Aftersurveyingpreviousworkonthetopicinsection2,wegoontopresenttheresultsofourphoneticstudyinsection3and,insection 4, we discuss how the acoustic and perceptual properties ofNThsequencescouldmotivate thedevelopment, found inotherBantulanguages,ofThorNɦfromNThsequences.

2 BackgroundtoourstudyWhilethebasicpathofdiachronicdevelopmentofthemodernreflexesof *NT is uncontroversial — it could be a Historical Phonology 101problem,ifTable1includedcognatesfromlanguageswhere*NT>NT—morecontroversialisthemotivationforeachstepintheseriation.

It is commonly agreed that natural sound changes should have aphoneticbasis(see,e.g.,Barnes2006,Kiparsky2003).Therefore,eachstep in the phonologisation seriation given in (2), from *NT to itsmodern reflexes, shouldbegrounded inphonetics. In this section,wecriticallyreviewthephoneticmotivationsthathavebeenofferedintheliterature.

2.1 Accountingforthephoneticnaturalnessof*NT>NThThefirststepintheseriationisforavoicelessstopfollowinganasaltobecome aspirated. Givón (1974, 110) suggests the following phonetichypothesis (which he ascribes to John Ohala, via Leon Jacobson, viaTomHinnebusch);theunderliningisfoundintheoriginal:

Naturalassimilationwouldde-voicethenasalbeforeavoicelesshomorganicstop [.] Since voiceless stops tend to be universally aspirated […], thepresenceofa ‘breath’effectbeforethevoicelessconsonantcreatesaratherunderstandable perceptual confusion. This in turn gives rise to aperceptually motivated metathesis, whereby the speaker interprets thevoicelessnasalasanaspirationonthefollowingvoicelessstop.


In short, aspiration is the result of two natural processes, first,assimilation of the nasal to the voiceless stop, then metathesis (orassimilation)ofthestopandthe‘breathiness’ofthenasal.

This interestingproposalcriesoutforphonetic investigations,andwe do find a few. Huffman & Hinnebusch (1998), Ladefoged &Maddieson(1996),andMaddieson(1991)carriedoutphoneticstudiesof Bantu languages with either aspirated post-nasal voiceless stops(NTh) or aspirated nasals (Nɦ). They found that the nasal in thesecontexts is not (systematically) devoiced. Indeed, Maddieson (1991,152) concludes that the “diachronic development of aspirated nasalsdidnotinvolveanystageinwhichthenasalportionbecamedevoiced.”This implies that postnasal aspiration cannot be conditioned bybreathiness(orvoicelessness)ofthenasal.

Maddieson and others following him, like Huffman& Hinnebusch(1998) and Halpert (2010, 2012), argue instead for a gesturalalignment account of postnasal aspiration, schematised in Figure 1(fromHamann&Downing,Figure3).

Figure1:Gesturalmisalignmentleadstoaspiration(basedonHalpert2010)

That is, in the unmarked case, all of the gestures in an NC sequenceshouldbealigned.Toavoidamarkedvoicelessnasal, theopenglottisgestureismisalignedwiththesequenceandisinsteadleft-alignedonlywiththevoicelessstop.Asaresult,theopenglottisgesture(itsdurationdeterminedbytheoriginalsequence)spillsoverbeyondthereleaseofthestop,resultinginaspiration.

AsHuffman&Hinnebusch(1998)pointout,oneproblemwiththismisalignment account is that aspiration requires an additionalaspirationgesture.Gestural(mis-)alignmentaloneisnotenoughtoleadto post-NT aspiration. Hamann&Downing (2017) provide a detailedcritique of the gestural alignment account and argue in favor of aperceptual cue account of postnasal aspiration. In brief, they proposethat the postnasal NT vs. ND contrast is hard to perceive withoutenhancement of the voiceless consonant. Aspiration enhances the


phoneticcuestothe laryngealqualityofNT.(SeeHamann&Downingforthecompleteanalysis.)

Theseobservationsleadtoourresearchquestion1:ThecritiquesofthealignmentaccountassumethataspirationinNThisdistinctiveandcomparabletothatfoundinTh:butisit?

2.2 AccountingforthephoneticnaturalnessofNTh>ThIf the nasal in NTh sequences is not voiceless, though, what otherphoneticqualityofthenasalcouldmakeitsusceptibletodeletion?Wereview some possibilities which emerge from previous work on NCsequencesinthissection.

Note first, that there appears to be no articulatorymotivation fordeletingthenasal.Thegesturalalignmentapproachcannotaccountforloss of a gesture (e.g., complete loss of velum raising gesture), asgesture deletion is not a legitimate ‘move’ in this approach. Cohn &Riehl’s(2012)studyof internaldurationofthenasalandstopportionofNCsequencesshowsthatthenasalportiontypicallyisquitelong,insome languages even longer than a plain nasal. Short duration of thenasalthereforeisnotafactorthatcouldmakeitunstable.

Turning to possible perceptual accounts, Stanton’s (2016) cross-linguisticsurveyofthedistributionofNCsequencesproposesthatNCisbestperceivedintervocalically.Itfollowsfromthisthatnasalswouldbemost susceptible to deletion in utterance-initial or utterance-finalposition.Couldpositionexplainthelossofthenasal?Theproblemwiththis potential perceptual motivation for deletion is that the NThsequences in the Bantu language data often occur intervocalically. InnoneofthelanguageswithNTh>Thisthenasalonlydeletedinword-initialposition.Rather,deletionisacross-the-board(oratleast,positioninthewordisnotafactor).

Theseobservationsleadtoourresearchquestion2:Whatphoneticqualitydoes thenasal inNThhave (compared toNDorN) that couldmakeitsusceptibletodeletion?

2.3 AccountingforthephoneticnaturalnessofNTh>NɦMaddieson (1991)alsoproposes to account forNTh>Nɦ in termsofgesturalalignment.ThisisillustratedinFigure2,wherewecanseethatthedurationofthewidevelicgestureisnotperfectlyright-alignedwiththelipclosuregesturein(a),whilethetwogesturesarealignedin(b).


Figure2:(a)Velarmisalignmentin[mph]and(b)velaralignmentin[mɦ]

(fromMaddieson1991,152)

Thatis,thevelarraisinggestureexpandstoalignitselfwiththeclosuregesture, eliminating the non-nasal stop and release portion of theoriginalNCsequence.

Thereareacoupleofproblemswiththisaccountofthelossofthenon-nasal stopclosure.First, itprovidesnomotivationorexplanationforwhyonlyNThlosesclosure,notND.AswecanseeinTable2,*NDsequences in words in class 9/10 do not undergo any change in thelanguageswherewefoundchangesin*NTsequences—cf.Table1.

Proto-Bantu Chichewa Central

Shona Venda Englishtranslation

*-budi m-buzi m-budzi m-budzi goat

*-gudube ŋ-guluwe ŋ-guruve ŋ-guluvhe pig

*-dege n-dege n-dege – bird,airplane

*-jogu n-jovu n-zou n-dou elephant

Table2:SynchronicoutcomesofProto-Bantu*NDforwordsinClass9/10

Secondly,Stanton’s(2016)surveyofphoneticstudiesofNCshowsthatthe stop portion of ND is usually very short compared to the stopportionofNT,cf.Figure3.

Figure3:InternaltimingofNCs(fromStanton2016,1092)

1092 J. Stanton

2008; Cohn and Riehl 2012). Schematic illustrations are in (2). Additionally, giventhese durational differences, the differences in burst amplitude between N and NT ispresumably greater than is the difference between N and ND.

(2) Internal timing of NCsa. Internal timing of ND: N > D

N Db. Internal timing of NT: N ≈ T

N T

NCs can also differ from other consonants according to the length of a preced-ing vowel. In Sukuma (Maddieson and Ladefoged 1993), vowels preceding NTs aresignificantly shorter than those preceding Ns or NDs. In some languages, vowels pre-ceding NDs are longer than vowels preceding Ns; this effect, however, is language-dependent. Languages where N/ND differ as a function of V1 duration are Lugandaand Sukuma (Maddieson and Ladefoged 1993), CiYao and Runyambo (Hubbard1995); languages where N and ND are not differentiated in this way include Fi-jian (Maddieson 1989), CiTonga (Hubbard 1995), Tamambo and Erromangan (Riehl2008: 113–116).

NCs, Cs, and Ns can also be differentiated by the quality of surrounding vow-els. In languages where oral and nasal vowels do not contrast, NCs are followed byoral vowels, and Ns are followed by nasal vowels. Evidence from a variety of lan-guages suggests that carryover nasalization is common: I have not found reports oflanguages with NCs that lack perseveratory nasal coarticulation. Instrumental evi-dence for post-N nasalization comes from Ikalanga (Beddor and Onsuwan 2003), Se-bikotane Saafi (Stanton 2012), Tamambo and Erromangan (Riehl 2008); impression-istic evidence comes from Sundanese (Robins 1957), Rejang (Coady and McGinn1982), Acehnese (Durie 1985: 25), Ulu Muar Malay, and three Dayak languages(Court 1970).2 Schematic illustrations follow (3).

(3) Vowel quality following N and NC (V2 quality)a. Vowels following NC: always oral (V)

NC Vb. Vowels following N: always nasal (V)

N V

A similar difference in vowel quality is apparent, in some languages, for vowels pre-ceding Cs vs. NCs. Vowels preceding Cs are oral and, in many cases, vowels preced-ing NCs are nasalized. Instrumental evidence for pre-NC nasalization comes fromSukuma (Maddieson and Ladefoged 1993) and Tamambo (Riehl 2008: 151–156); im-pressionistic descriptions of other languages report the same pattern (Vandame 1963:17 for Ngambay; Donohue 1999: 29 for Tukang Besi; Herbert 1976: 347, 350–1 andreferences there for others). There are, however, languages where pre-NC vowels donot appear to be nasalized: Maddieson and Ladefoged (1993) show that Luganda

2Of course, impressionistic evidence is less significant than instrumental evidence, but I cite both to beexhaustive.


Onewould,then,expectthenon-nasalportionofthestopclosuretobemoresusceptibletodeletioninNDsequencesthaninNT(h).Thisistheoppositeofwhatwefind.

A final problem with a gestural realignment account like thatschematized in Figure 2 is that the ‘aspirated nasal’ (Nɦ) is oftenbreathyvoicedoractslikeadepressorconsonant.AsphoneticstudieslikeTraill& Jackson’s(1988) investigationofbreathyvoicednasals inTsongashow,Nɦ(<*NT)isnotasimpleaspiratednasal(araresortofconsonantinanycase),asimpliedbythegesturalalignmentaccount.

These observations lead to our research question 3:Whatmakesthe non-nasal portion of the closure in NTh vulnerable to deletion,especiallycomparedtoND?

In the remainderof thispaper,we first present the results of ourphonetic study ofNC sequences in Tumbuka, and then discusswhy aperceptual cue account, rather than gestural realignment, is themostpromising approach to account for diachronic reductions of NTh >Nɦ/Th.Ourthreeresearchquestionsstructuretheinvestigation.

Tumbukaprovidesan ideal testingground forapossiblephoneticsupport of a phonologisation seriation, because it has a three-waylaryngeal contrast in plosives, but (synchronically and diachronically)NT is realized asNTh.Thus, this languagehas alreadyundergone theinitialpartofthedevelopmentintheseriationscenario.

3 ExperimentalsupportIn order to test whether present-day Tumbuka provides phoneticsupport for any of the three proposed diachronic developmentsdescribed in section 2, we performed an acoustic study. The threehypothetical diachronic developments and the resulting researchquestionsaresummarizedin(3).

(3)Diachronicdevelopment Researchquestions

*NT>NTh RQ1:Isthereacousticevidencethattheaspirationin NTh is due tomisalignment and therefore lessstrongthantheoneinTh?

NTh>Th RQ2: Is there acoustic evidence that the nasal inNTh is weaker and therefore more likely to bedeletedthaninND?

NTh>Nɦ RQ3: IsthereacousticevidencethattheplosiveinNTh is weaker and therefore more likely to bedeletedthaninND?


In this section, we first give some background information on therelevantphonemeinventoryandco-occurrencerestrictionsinTumbuka(section3.1),describetheacousticstudyweperformed(section3.2),andthen provide the results of this study (section 3.3) and a discussionthereofwithrespecttotheresearchquestions(section3.4).

3.1 TumbukanasalplosivesequencesTable3providesanoverviewoftheportionoftheTumbukaconsonantinventory that we are interested in. (See Vail 1972 for the completephoneme inventory.) Note that there is a three-way laryngeal contrastforplosives,butonlyatwo-waycontrastifanasalprecedestheplosive.3

voicing labial alveolar velar abbreviatedasplosive voiced b d g D

‘plain’ p t k Taspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ Th

nasal+plosive

voiced mb nd ŋg NDaspirated mpʰ ntʰ ŋkʰ NTh

Table3:Tumbukainventoryofplosivesandnasal+plosivesequences

Example (4) illustrates the three-way laryngeal contrast for the

velarplosives.

(4) ku-kama ‘tosqueeze,tomilk’ ku-khala ‘todwell,tosit’ ku-ganda ‘tobump’

TandThonlyrobustlycontrastinroot-initialposition,elsewhereonly

Toccurs.NTdoesnotoccur:anunderlyingN+TisobligatorilyrealizedasNTh.Thisisillustratedbythedatain(5),wherethetense-aspectmarker/-ka-/isrealizedasaspiratedifitfollowsanasalprefix,cf.(5b).

(5a) wa-ka-ndi-tumila ‘s/hesentmefor’(5b) ŋ-kha-tumikila ‘Iwassentfor’

3 For discussion of whether NC is phonologically a cluster or a complex singlesegment, seeDowning (2005).And seeDowning&Hamann (2017),Hyman (2001),Kerremans(1980)andOdden(2015)forotherBantulanguageswherevoicelessstopsaspirateinthepost-nasalcontext.


Because root-initial position realizes all phonemic contrasts, we

consider it a position of prominence, following work like Beckman(1997). Tumbuka is a phrasal stress language, with the correlates ofstressbeinglengtheningofthephrase-penultsyllableandassociationofa High tone with the penult syllable (Downing 2006, to appear). Thepenultis,then,alsoconsideredapositionofprominencewhenitrealizesthesestresscorrelates.(VowellengthisnotcontrastiveinTumbuka.)Aswork likeHubbard (1994) has shown for other Bantu languages, bothroot-initial consonants and consonants in the onset of syllables withphrasalstressarecommonlylongerindurationthanotherconsonantsintheword,asonewouldexpectiftheyareinprominentpositions.

3.2 Acousticstudy3.2.1 ParticipantsandstimuliWerecorded7nativespeakersofTumbuka(3male,4 female)readingsentences that contained D, T, Th, ND, NTh and N at the beginning ofprominentsyllables(mostlystressed,oftenroot-initial).Thesesegmentsor segment sequences were preceded and followed by a vowel. Anexamplesentenceisgivenin(6);theprominentsyllableisbolded.

(6) [ŋkhatungaˈmpháasa] ‘Isewedthemats’

Therewasatotalof108sentencesinthesetthatthespeakersread,and they were asked to produce at least four repetitions of eachsentence.TherecordingsweremadeinMalawi(inZombaandMzuzu)under fieldwork conditions, hence several of the tokens had to beexcludedduetobackgroundnoise.

Inthefollowing,wepresenttheanalysisofthedataoffourspeakers.

3.2.2 WhatwemeasuredandwhyWe used harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) as a way to evaluate thedegreesofvoicing/aspirationofthenasalsinourdata.HNRistheratiobetweenperiodicity(orvoicing)andfrictioninthesignal.Avowelhasavery high HNR with values above 20 dB because it is only periodic,whileavoicedfricativehasaHNRaround5dB,sinceitisperiodicandnoisy. A voiceless fricative has negative HNR values around -2 dBbecauseithasonlyaperiodicnoise.Nasalsarenotnoisybutvoiced,andtherefore have vowel-like, high HNR values (see Boersma 1993).Preaspirationinnasal-plosivesequencesisexpectedtolowertheHNRofthenasalconsiderablyduetoitsfricationnoise.SinceHNRcombines


voicingandnoisiness,wepreferredittothemorecommonmeasureofperiodicity,whichonlyconsidersvoicing.

In order to answer research question 1 — whether present-dayTumbuka supports a misalignment account — we compared thedurationandtheHNRofaspirationinNThsequencestotheaspirationinTh.MisalignmentpredictsshorterandlessintenseaspirationforNThsequencesthanforTh.

Toanswerresearchquestion2—whetherthereissupportforthedevelopmentNTh>ThinTumbuka—wecomparedHNRanddurationof the nasals in three contexts: before T, before D, and without aprecedingplosive.Thenasal inNThisexpectedtobeweaker(i.e. lessvoicedandpossiblypreaspirated)thaninNDorplainnasalsandsobemorelikelytogetdeleted.

Inordertotestresearchquestion3—whetherthereissupportinTumbukaforthedevelopmentNTh>Nh—wecomparedthedurationof theclosurephase inNThwith that in theplainplosivesand inND.TheoralclosurephaseinNThisexpectedtobeshorterthaninNDandintheplosiveswithoutaprecedingnasal(Th/T/D)toaccountforwhyalaterlossoftheplosiveoccursonlyinNThsequences.

3.2.3 HowwemeasuredHNRanddurationFigure4isanillustrationofthethreeacousticeventsofanasal-plosivesequence, i.e. nasal closure, oral closure, and burst with possibleaspiration. These events are labeled in Praat (Boersma & Weenink2017).Theprecedingandfollowingvowels(V)arealsolabeled.

Figure4:Soundwave,spectrogramandtextgridof/mphasi/

0

0Freq

uenc

y (kH

z)

0

2

4

6

V m p burst+aspiration V

Time (s)0 0.34


Burst and aspiration noise, though usually easily distinguishable,

werenotlabeledormeasuredseparatelyinourstudy.In Figure 4, the nasal /m/ is clearly distinct from the preceding

vowel (by its lower amplitude and weaker formants) and from thefollowingclosurephaseoftheplosive/p/(wheretheamplitudeisevenlower). However, our data contained some instanceswhere the nasalandtheclosurephasewereindistinguishable,asillustratedinFigure5.

Figure5:Illustrationof/ŋkhi/withoutvisibleclosurephase

In the example in Figure 5, no oral plosive is discernible. Instead,voicingandnasalformantsspreadthroughoutthewholeclosurephase,whilefrictionnoisealreadystartsbeforethereleaseoftheplosive.Thelatter could be an instance of preaspiration. Items like thesewithoutvisibleclosurephasewereexcludedfromtheanalysis.

Severalitemsshowedvowelnasalisation,andinsuchinstancesweemployedamplitudeandchangeinformantvisibilitytodeterminetheboundarybetweenvowelandnasalsegment.

For the nasal, plosive closure and, if present, the aspiration, thedurationwasmeasured.Forthenasalandtheaspirationnoise,theHNRwascalculated(inPraat)withtimestepsof0.01s,aminimumpitchof75 Hz, a silence threshold of 0.1 and 1 period per window. Thiscalculation could only be performed if the duration of the nasal/aspirationnoisewasatleast0.026s.

3.3 ResultsFigure6summarizesthedurationmeasurementsofallsegments.

V ŋ k burst+aspiration V

Time (s)0 0.26


Figure6:Resultsofdurationmeasurements:green=nasalstops,white=oralstops,lavender=aspiration

As is obvious fromFigure6, thedurationof thenasals inNDand

NThisalmostthesame,whilebothareshorterthanthedurationofN.The oral stop in both nasal-stop sequences, on the other hand, isextremelyshortcomparedtoTh,TandD.

The following results are not statistically analysed, as they arepreliminary results, of only four of the seven speakers. We addedstandard deviations for each measure to give an impression of thevariationandpossibleoverlapinvalues.

Table4givestheresultsofthecomparisonofthenasalsinNTh,NDandNwith respect todurationandHNR.These results show that thenasal in NTh is minimally shorter than nasals in the other positions,while itsHNRof16dBindicatesthat it is lessvoicedandnoisierthanthenasalsinNDandN.

mean

duration(ms)

standarddeviation(ms)

meanHNR(dB)

standarddeviation(dB)

NTh 71 24 16 4.5ND 77 22 19 3.8N 87 23 20 4.1

Table4:ComparisonofdurationandHNRofnasalsindifferentcontexts

Table 5 gives the closure duration of the plosives in the different

contexts.

NDTThNDNTh

nasal stop aspiration

90

84

81

28

33

87

77

71 56

20

71

2001000Time (ms)


meanduration(ms)


NTh 33 17ND 28 10Th 81 21T 84 24D 90 18

Table5:Comparisonofclosuredurationacrossplosives

Wesawalready inFigure6 that there isaconsiderabledifferencebetweentheclosurephaseinnasal-plosivesequencesandthatinplainplosives. This is attested by the values in Table 5: the difference inclosuredurationbetweennasal-plosivesequencesandplosiveswithoutprecedingnasalisconsiderable,whilethedifferencebetweenNThandNDisminimal(5ms,andthusbelowtheperceptualthreshold).4

Whencomparingthedurationofthenasalandtheoralclosurepartfor the nasal-stop sequences, one can observe that the nasal is aboutfour times longer than the oral closure in Tumbuka. Similar relationshavebeen reported for otherBantu languages such as Ikalanga (S.10,Botswana: Beddor & Onuswan, 2003) or Sukuma (F.21, Tanzania:Maddieson1993,Maddieson&Ladefoged1993).

ThedurationandHNRmeasuresforaspirationaregiveninTable6. Note that we averaged across all following vowel contexts andthereforeignoredthefactorthatfollowinghighvowelscauselongeraspirationnoise.

mean

duration(ms)


meanHNR(dB)

standarddeviation(dB)

NTh 56 29 5 5.1Th 71 24 0.9 2.6T 20 11 — —

Table6:Comparisonofburstplusaspirationacrossvoicelessplosives

4These findings forTumbukadiffer fromStanton’s (2016) findings inher surveyofphonetic studies,where the stopportionofNDwasusuallyvery short compared tothestopportionofNT(recallFigure3).OnewouldexpectTumbukaNTh tobehavesimilartowhatStantonreportsforNTsequences.Thisishowever,notwhatwefound.


Aswe can see from themean values in Table 6, the aspiration in

NThisshorterthanthat inTh(by15ms),andthere isaconsiderabledifferenceinHNRbetweenthetwo:aspirationinNThhasameanHNRof5dB,indicatinglessnoisethanexpectedforvoicelessfriction,5cf.themeanvalueof0.9dBfortheaspirationinTh.

Note that we found strong individual differences in aspirationduration:foronespeakertheaspirationinNThwaslongerthaninTh,thusshowingthereversepatterntoallotherspeakers.

Table6alsoincludesthemeanburstdurationforthenon-aspiratedvoicelessTof20ms,showingthatthisburstdurationisquitelong.For53 of the 223 tokens of ND we could also measure distinct burstdurations of a mean of 10 ms, and for 70 of the 257 D tokens wemeasuredameanburstdurationof13ms.

3.4 DiscussionLet us consider our findings in the light of the research questions,repeatedin(7)forconvenience,withtheoutcomeadded:

(7) Researchquestionsandoutcome

*NT>NTh RQ1: Is there acoustic evidence that the aspiration inNTh is due to misalignment and therefore lessstrongthantheoneinTh? YES

NTh>Th RQ2: Is thereacousticevidence that thenasal inNTh isweaker and therefore more likely to be deletedthaninND? YES

NTh>Nɦ RQ3: IsthereacousticevidencethattheplosiveinNThisweaker and therefore more likely to be deletedthaninND? NO

Withrespecttoresearchquestion1,theaspirationinNThshoweda

shorter duration and higher HNR values indicating less frication, andtherefore providing acoustic support to a possible misalignmentaccount.

Withrespecttoresearchquestion2,acousticsupportforweaknessofthenasalinNTh,whichwouldmakeitmorepronetodeletioninthis5NotethatthehigherHNRvalueintheaspirationofNThcannotbeduetomorevoicing,sincetheboundaryfortheendofaspirationwassetatthepointwherevoicingstarted.Possible reasons for this higherHNR inNTh could be the shortness of the precedingclosurephase(andthustheshorttimetobuildupairpressure),andtheshortnessoftheaspirationphaseitself(theshortertheaspirationis,thelessstrongitis).


context,couldalsobefound:thenasalinNThhasameanHNRof16dB,indicating that it is lessvoicedand/ornoisier than thenasal inNDorthenasalwithoutfollowingplosive.Furthermore,thenasalinNThwasshorter(thoughminimally)thantheothertwonasals.

Withrespecttoresearchquestion3,whethertheplosiveinNThisweaker/shorter than in ND, the closure durations measured in thisstudydidnotprovideevidenceforthis:theclosureinNThandNDarebothveryshortcomparedtothatofplosiveswithoutprecedingnasal.

4 ConclusionOur acoustic measurements of the present-day Tumbuka laryngealcontrast in plosives provide partial support for the historicalphonologisation scenario proposed by Givón (1974), Hinnebusch(1973, 1975), and Kerremans (1980), presented in (2). We split andadjust this scenario in (8) by not including a step of nasal devoicingbecausepreviousexperimentalstudiesdidnotsupportthisassumption(see thediscussion insection2.1), andbecause thenasal inTumbukaNThshowsnodevoicing.

(8a) NT>NTh>Nɦ (8b) NT>NTh>Th

Withrespecttothemotivationofthefirstdevelopmentcommonto

both (8a) and (8b), we found that aspiration in NTh is on averageweaker (shorter andwith lowerHNR values) than in Th, though onespeaker showed the reverse pattern. Weakness of aspiration in NThcould support amisalignment account, but thenwewouldnot expectsuchspeaker-specificvariation.Wepreferaperceptualaccountof thedevelopmentofaspirationasproposedbyHamann&Downing(2017):theplosives inNTandNDaredifficult todistinguish, especiallygiventheir short duration, and therefore languages prolong the burst andemployaspirationtoperceptuallyenhancethiscontrast.

Our acoustic study furthermore showed that the oral stop inTumbuka NTh is similar to that in ND, hence we found no acousticsupportforclaimingthatthestopinNThismorepronetodeletionthanthestopinND,cf. thesecondstepin(8a).WefollowagainHamann&Downing (2017) in proposing that there are perceptual reasons whythe stop in NTh can disappear. The presence of aspiration as aperceptualcuekeepsNThandNdistinct,whilethedeletionofDinNDwouldrenderNDandNperceptuallyindistinguishable.

OuracousticstudyfurthershowedthatthenasalinNThisweakerthananyothernasal inTumbuka,andit isthereforemorelikelytobe


deletedthanthenasalinND,cf.thesecondstepin(8b).Aswearguedinsection2.2, there isnoarticulatoryexplanation thatcouldaccount forthisdevelopment.Futurestudieswillhavetoshowwhetherthelossofthenasalin(8b)isduetotheaspirationofthestoporwhetheritisalsoobservableinNTsequences.Ideally,thiswouldbetestedbycomparingND,NTandNThwithinalanguage,thoughnolanguagewiththisthree-waycontrastexist,asfarasweknow.However,comparisonsofND-NTsequencese.g.inlanguageslikeZulucouldshedlightonthisquestion.

In sum, we need more phonetic studies of NC sequences inlanguages representing different points in the phonologizationseriationtoarriveatabetterunderstandingofthedevelopmentoftherangeofattestedsynchroniccorrelatesofProto-Bantu*NT.

CommentsinvitedPiHPhreliesonpost-publicationreviewofthepapersthatitpublishes.If you have any comments on this piece, please add them to itscommentssite.Youareencouragedtoconsultthissiteafterreadingthepaper,astheremaybecommentsfromotherreadersthere,andrepliesfromtheauthor.Thispaper’ssiteishere:

https://10.2218/pihph.3.2018.2825

AcknowledgementsWewould like to thank the 7Tumbuka speakerswhoparticipated intherecordings.Inparticular,wewouldliketothankDavidMsiska,whohelped develop the set of sentences the speakers read, recruited theTumbukaspeakersrecordedinMzuzuandalsofoundavenueinMzuzutomeetandmaketherecordingsin.Prof.PascalKishindoofChancellorCollegehelpedrecruittwoTumbukaspeakersbasedinZomba.Wearegrateful to audiences at the 2017 LaryngeFringe Workshop atEdinburgh and the 2018 FiNo workshop at Lund for comments andquestions.

AuthorcontactdetailsLauraDowning SilkeHamannUniversityofGothenburg UniversityofAmsterdamRenströmsgatan6 Spuistraat13440530Gothenburg 1012VBAmsterdamSweden TheNetherlands

[email protected] [email protected]


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