This acoustic study investigates voiceless stops in Guaraní that are described as transparent to nasal harmony. Voiceless stops in oral versus nasal contexts are examined in relation to theoretical issues of locality and phonetic implementation. First, the oral/nasal and voicing properties of the stops are considered in connection to proposals in phonological theory that feature spreading produces strictly continuous spans of a spreading property. The stops are discovered to display the acoustic attributes of voiceless oral obstruents; no evidence of nasal airflow energy was observed during closure nor was the closure fully voiced. These results suggest that strict continuity of a spreading featural property is not always found in the phonetic output. Second, the timing of the voicelessness is addressed. Interestingly, the duration of voicelessness of the stops [p, t] remains the same across oral/nasal environments, although the voiceless interval shifts to persevere longer into the following vowel in nasal contexts. The velar stop does not exhibit an increased perseverance of voicelessness after closure release—it displays the longest VOT of all places of articulation, and its VOT remains unaffected by oral/nasal context. It is suggested that incorporating a notion of conflicting realizational requirements in models of phonetic implementation is important in interpreting these results.

This study examines the potential of frequency of clicking (the production of velaric ingressive stops) as a possible basis for discriminating among speakers of English by forensic phoneticians. From analyses of clicking behavior among 100 young male speakers of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) recorded in two interactional tasks, it concludes that, contrary to the view of some forensic practitioners, the majority of speakers – of this language variety at least – do not vary sufficiently from one another in their rates of clicking for this feature to serve as a reliable discriminator. Further, speakers are generally not stable in their clicking behavior, either within or across interactions, and their rates of clicking may vary through accommodation to the click rates of their interlocutors. In view of these findings, it is suggested that the mere comparison of clicking rates across questioned and known recordings is unlikely to be of assistance to forensic phoneticians in the majority of forensic speaker comparison cases.

This study examines the discrimination of words ending with voiceless stops /p t k/ in first language (L1) and second language (L2) by three groups of native Thai participants. These participants differed in their countries of residence and experience with L2 English in the formal education system. The first group (T1) was a group of 18 Thai listeners who were living in Australia. The second and third groups consisted of 12 university students (T2) and 12 high-school students (T3) living in Thailand. Eighteen Australian English (AusE) listeners were included as controls. English and Thai words minimally contrasting in the final stop (e.g. ‘cap’ vs. ‘cat’) were presented to the listeners to investigate whether L2 phonetic learning occurs even for the contrasts that are expected to be discriminated with high accuracy from the onset of L2 learning and if so, how it is influenced by L2 experience. All three Thai groups showed reasonably accurate discrimination for both English and Thai words, but only T1 showed discrimination accuracy comparable to AusE in English. Further, only T3 was clearly more accurate in discriminating unreleased Thai than English stop contrasts, most of which were accompanied with release bursts. These two findings are taken to be evidence for phonetic learning of specific aspects of L2 contrasts rather than positive L1 transfer.

Achieving voicing during fricatives is complex because voicing and frication require opposite production strategies that must be managed effectively at the supralaryngeal level. Previous research has suggested that there are differences in tongue-to-palate contact patterns that are conditioned by voicing. However, findings have been restricted to a single time point and have been generally inconclusive. This study used electropalatography (EPG) to investigate differences in the dynamics of contact in voiced and voiceless lingual fricatives. Participants were six typically speaking Croatian adults. The speech material consisted of symmetrical VCV sequences, where C was /s z ʃ ʒ/. EPG measures were taken throughout the fricatives and indices were used to quantify place of articulation (CoG), groove width and target configuration onset. The EPG measures showed similar results for voiced and voiceless fricatives during their central portions. However, there were notable differences at the periphery of the fricative period, the most significant being that the voiceless fricatives reached a stable period in terms of tongue placement and groove configuration later than the voiced fricatives. The results support aerodynamic evidence that voiced and voiceless fricatives differ in the onset and the offset of turbulence.

In a well-known introductory text on linguistics, Langacker maintained (1968: 161), expressing a widely held view:

Linguists do not fully understand just what constitutes stress. The best we can say is that stressed vowels are apparently different from unstressed ones in that they are of greater length, higher pitch and greater articulatory force.

This article investigates sound change in the vowels of Māori, the indigenous language of New Zealand. It examines the relationship between sound changes in Māori and in New Zealand English, the more dominant language, with which Māori has been in close contact for nearly 200 years. We report on the analysis of three adult speaker groups whose birth dates span 100 years. All speakers were bilingual in Māori and New Zealand English. In total the speech of 31 men and 31 women was investigated. Analysis was done on the first and second formant values, extracted from the vowel targets. There has been considerable movement in the Māori vowel space. We find that the sound change in the Māori monophthongs can be directly attributed to the impact of New Zealand English, however the situation for the diphthongs is not so clear cut. There is some evidence that both New Zealand English monophthongs and diphthongs are impacting on the Māori diphthongs, but so too are the Māori monophthongs. We conclude that although New Zealand English has had a strong influence on Māori, there is very strong evidence that new generations of speakers of Māori are acquiring a phonemic system with its own internal parameters and consistencies.

Chicahuaxtla Triqui [i.kaˈwaks.a ˈtɾi.ki] or Nânj ǹï'ïn [nã4hnɯ1ʔɯ3] ‘the complete language’, as named by the Triqui people, is one of three languages in the Triqui subfamily of the Mixtecan family. The Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI 2014; http://www.inali.gob.mx/clin-inali/) lists two other Triqui languages with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility for speakers of Chicahuaxtla Triqui (Casad 1974: 79) – the first is spoken in San Martín Itunyoso and the other in San Juan Copala.

In this paper we examine the realization of accentual prominence in downstep contexts (i.e. after another accented word) in the Northern Bizkaian Basque dialect of Lekeitio. Previous work has suggested that pitch is the primary correlate of accent in this language. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that in contexts where pitch differences are likely to be reduced or perhaps eliminated, duration will be recruited to convey accentual prominence. The results show that pitch-accents are reduced but not eliminated following other accents, including the context after a word with narrow focus. The reduced pitch excursions found in this context appear to reliably and consistently indicate the position of the accent. On the other hand, the participants in this study did not consistently employ duration to enhance the prominence of accented syllables (a durational effect was found for two out of five speakers). Given the robustness of the pitch cue in this language (always a fall from the accented syllable), even in contexts of downstep, other phonetic correlates of accent will be redundant, to the extent that they are used.

Sorbian is a West Slavic language spoken in eastern Germany, in Saxony and Brandenburg near the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic, and is recognized as an endangered language by UNESCO (Moseley 2012). It is commonly referred to as Sorbian in English, but has historically been referred to as both Wendish and Lusatian. The Sorbian speech area used to expand from its northernmost point approximately 50 km south-east of Berlin to its southernmost point approximately 8 km from the borders of the Czech Republic (Stone 1993). This area is also referred to as Lusatia (Figure 1). However, the Sorbian-speaking area continues to shrink every year and is currently much smaller than Stone (1993) describes. Upper Sorbian is currently only used in daily communication in and immediately around Budyšin (personal communication, Lechosław Jocz).

The Ersu language (/-xò/, 尔苏语 ěrsūyǔ, ISO-639 code ers) is spoken by approximately 16,800 people who reside in five counties in Sichuan Province (四川省) in the People's Republic of China: (i) Ganluo (甘洛县), and (ii) Yuexi (越西县) counties of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture (凉山彝族自治州), (iii) Shimian (石棉县) and (iv) Hanyuan (汉源县) counties of Ya’an Municipality (雅安市), and (iv) Jiulong (九龙县, Written Tibetan, hereafter WT brgyad zur) county of Ganzi (甘孜, WT dkar mdzes) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Ersu has two closely related sister languages: Lizu (/li55-zu55-hũ55/ or /ly55-zu55-hũ55/, 里汝语 lǐrǔyǔ or 栗苏语 lìsūyǔ) and Duoxu (/do33-ɕu33-na31/, 多续语 duōxùyǔ or 多须语 duōxūyǔ). Lizu is spoken in the neighbouring counties of (i) Muli Tibetan Autonomous County (木里藏族自治县, WT smi li rang skyong rdzong), (ii) Mianning (冕宁县), and (iii) Jiulong; whereas Duoxu is spoken in the county of Mianning, all in Sichuan province (see the map in Figure 1).

The majority of studies on phonation types have focused on low vowels due to the minimal effects of their first formant on harmonic amplitude. In studies of multiple vowel qualities, reports on the relationship between vowel and voice quality are mixed: some show similar formant frequencies across phonation types (e.g. Abramson, Nye & Luangthongkum 2007, Khan 2012), while others show different formant frequencies depending on voice quality (e.g. Ren 1992, Kuang 2011). Results differ as to whether the degree of non-modal phonation varies (Andruski & Ratliff 2000, Kuang 2011) or does not vary (Esposito 2012, Khan 2012) across different vowel qualities. The present study draws on innovations which allow for more accurate corrections for the effects of formant frequencies on spectral measures (i.e. Hanson 1995, Iseli, Shue & Alwan 2007) to examine the relationship between vowel quality and voice quality, in eight languages – !Xóõ, Burmese, Gujarati, Jalapa de Díaz Mazatec, Mon, Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec, White Hmong, and Yi. While no significant difference in the degree of non-modal phonation due to vowel quality was found, results showed a crosslinguistic pattern in the relationship between vowel quality and voice quality: vowels with higher log(F1) and log(F2) values tended to be produced with creakier phonation, while vowels with lower log(F1) and log(F2) values tended to be produced with breathier phonation, but only on the measure H1*-H2*.

While there is variation among existing impressionistic accounts where the description of the RP English LOT and THOUGHT vowels is concerned (compare Wells 1982 (vol. I), Collins & Mees 2003, Roach 2004, Cruttenden 2008), not much attention has been paid to this issue in acoustic studies of RP (e.g. Wells 1962, Deterding 1990, Hawkins & Midgley 2005). In the present study, seven female native speakers of RP or near-RP born between 1985 and 1993 (i.e. speakers aged between 18 and 25 years at the time of the study) were recorded saying English words containing monophthongal vowels. In addition, data consisting of read speech from 18 male native speakers of RP or near-RP born between 1983 and 1991 (i.e. speakers aged between 18 and 25 years at the time they were recorded) contained in the DyViS database (Nolan et al. 2009) were analysed. The data were analysed acoustically by measuring F1 and F2 and normalising the measurements according to Lobanov's (1971) formula along with the mean F1 and F2 frequencies reported in Wells (1962), Deterding (1990) and Hawkins & Midgley (2005). Statistical analysis revealed statistically significant differences between the F1 formant measurements of the seven female speakers and the 18 male speakers versus Hawkins & Midgley's speakers born between 1946 and 1951; mean F1 was higher for the speakers born between 1946 and 1951. As for the THOUGHT vowel, the F1 measurements overlapped with the means relating to all different age groups in Hawkins & Midgley's (2005) data. It is suggested that RP LOT is undergoing raising whereas there is no strong evidence of any shift of the THOUGHT vowel.

Cocos Malay, hereafter called Cocos, is referred to in the Ethnologue with the ISO code of ‘coa’. The Ethnologue considers Cocos to be a Malay-based Creole along with several other Malay-based creoles (Lewis 2009). Cocos is spoken in Australia and in Malaysia. In Australia, it is spoken on the islands of Cocos and Christmas with a total combined population of about 700 speakers on those two islands. In Malaysia, Cocos speakers are found primarily in the eastern and southeastern coastal districts of Sabah (Kunak, Semporna, Lahad Datu and Tawau). In early 2013, the Ethnologue listed the population of Cocos speakers in Malaysia as 4,000 and decreasing. The Ethnologue also stated that the total number of Cocos speakers in all places around the world is 5,000. However, both of these statements in the Ethnologue are not correct. The Cocos population in Malaysia is increasing, not decreasing, and the total worldwide population of Cocos speakers is much larger than the Ethnologue estimate. The 1970 population estimate for Cocos speakers in Malaysia was 2,731 (Moody 1984: 93, 100). But the 2012 population estimate for Cocos speakers worldwide is 22,400, with most Cocos speakers living in Sabah, Malaysia. Our study focused exclusively on Cocos speakers in Malaysia. Some Cocos speakers interviewed in our study claimed that their ancestors originated from the island of Cocos (also known as Keeling), southwest of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. Others claimed that their ancestors originally inhabited the Indonesian islands of the Malay Archipelaɡo and subsequently migrated to Cocos Island and then to Sabah. Two historical accounts of the Cocos can be found in Nanis (2011) and Subiah, Rabika & Kabul (1981).

The Jakobsonian system of binary distinctive features is based on the premise that, as far as vowels are concerned, their articulation, and the resulting acoustic effects, are not distributed randomly over the available articulatory or acoustic space, but are organized into systems of binary contrasts, so that for example (in articulatory terms) a set of front vowels will be matched by a corresponding set of back vowels, a set of high vowels by a set of mid or low vowels, and so on. There will thus be a certain symmetry in the distribution of such vowels, either in their positions on a vowel quadrilateral, or in a similar schematic shape such as the five-vowel triangle.

This study is concerned with the Bavarian German dialect feature of complementary length in vowel plus consonant sequences according to which tense (long) vowels always precede lenis stops (short closure) and lax (short) vowels always precede fortis stops (long closure). The study investigates whether a vowel length contrast is developing before fortis stops due to dialect leveling. We measured vowel and consonant duration in trochaic words differing only in vowel length which were read by 40 older and younger Bavarian and Saxon (control group) German speakers. Older Bavarians distinguished tense and lax vowels by means of vowel to vowel plus consonant ratios that indicate an inverse timing pattern. Saxons and younger Bavarians signal the tense–lax distinction independently of the following stop length. A perception test showed that this sound change in progress also affects perception. We argue for a contact-induced change which is triggered by external as opposed to internal factors.

Temne belongs to the South Atlantic Group of Niger-Congo (formerly the Southern Branch of the Atlantic Group of Niger-Congo; Blench 2006, Childs 2010) spoken in the northern part of Sierra Leone. According to Ethnologue (ISO 639–3: tem, Lewis 2009), Temne has a population of about 1.2 million native speakers. Like other South Atlantic languages, Temne is a tonal language with a noun class system, prefixed noun class markers and agreeing prefixes on dependent elements. Features determining class membership include number and animacy. Temne also features extension suffixes which alter the valency or the semantic structure of simple verb stems. The basic word order is Subject–Verb–Object.

This paper examines the phonetic typology of pharyngeal sounds and presents external articulatory evidence for the phonological shift from uvular ejectives to pharyngeals in the Nootka dialects of Nuuchahnulth, based on the theory of the function of the aryepiglottic laryngeal sphincter mechanism. The phonetic structure of postvelar sounds is evaluated laryngoscopically in Wakashan and in Salish (cross-linguistically) to explain the historical phonological change through articulatory data. The physiological evidence suggests that uvulars may acquire phonetic characteristics of pharyngeals by adding an extra gesture to an existing sound. We conclude that postvelars can increase in complexity incrementally and that the complex pharyngeals of Wakashan and Salish can be explained through an articulatory phonetic hierarchy. The evolution of epiglottal components in each of the two phonologies is accounted for by the adaptation of existing glottal and pharyngeal elements. Implications for phonology are that features such as [RTR] and nodes such as pharyngeal can be attributed to the action of the laryngeal sphincter mechanism.

The low frequency (LF) spectral analysis or ‘rhythm spectrum’ approach to the quantitative analysis and comparison of speech rhythms is extended beyond syllable or word rhythms to ‘rhetorical rhythms’ in read-aloud narratives, in a selection of exploratory scenarios, with the aim of developing a unified theory of speech rhythms. Current methodologies in the field are first discussed, then the choice of data is motivated and the modulation-theoretic rhythm spectrum and rhythm spectrogram approach is applied to the amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM) of speech. New concepts of rhythm formant, rhythm spectrogram and rhythm formant trajectory are introduced in the Rhythm Formant Theory (RFT) framework with its associated methodology Rhythm Formant Analysis (RFA) in order to capture second order regularities in the temporal variation of rhythms. The interaction of AM and FM rhythm factors is explored, contrasting English with Mandarin Chinese. The LF rhythm spectrogram is introduced in order to recover temporal information about long-term rhythms, and to investigate the configurative function of rhythm. The trajectory of highest magnitude frequencies through the component spectra of the LF spectrogram is extracted and applied in classifying readings in different languages and individual speaking styles using distance-based hierarchical clustering, and the existence of long-term second order ‘rhythms of rhythm’ in long narratives is shown. In the conclusion, pointers are given to the extension of this exploratory RFT rhythm approach for future quantitative confirmatory investigations.

Kumzari is an endangered language spoken by about 4000 people in Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. Speakers of the main dialect are found on the Musandam Peninsula of Oman and in small groups in cities along the Gulf coast of the United Arab Emirates. Laraki, a closely related dialect of the language, is spoken across the Strait of Hormuz by a single community on Larak Island in Iran (Lewis 2011, Anonby & Yousefian in press).

Variation in voicing is common among sounds of the world’s languages: sounds that are analyzed as voiceless can undergo voicing, and those analyzed as voiced can devoice. Among voiceless glottal sounds in particular, voicing is widespread: linguists often expect the voiceless glottal stop [ʔ] and fricative [h] to be fully voiced, especially between vowels. In this study, we use audio recordings from Illustrations of the International Phonetic Alphabet published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association to explore the extent to which glottal consonants and non-modal (breathy and creaky) vowels differ in terms of percentage voicing and voicing intensity in three phrasal positions. We find that voiceless [h] is only slightly less voiced than voiced [ɦ] in initial position. Between two vowels, both [h] and [ɦ] are as voiced as breathy vowels. Glottal stops and creaky vowels are both characterized by high percentages of voicing, but they differ in voicing intensity: in all phrasal positions, glottal stops generally have periods of strong and weak voicing, whereas creaky vowels are strongly voiced. In contrast, vowels described as ‘rearticulated’, ‘checked’, or ‘glottalized’ show similar drops in voicing intensity to glottal stops. We interpret these results through an articulatory lens: glottal consonants and non-modal vowels are both modulations in phonation resulting from laryngeal constriction and vocal fold spreading. We argue further that, because voicing during [ʔ] and [h] is largely predictable from respiratory and prosodic constraints, many cases of [ʔ] and [h] can be considered phonetically underspecified for voicing.