The Czech language has two trills produced with the anterior tongue, represented in the Czech orthography as /r/ and /ř/. The phonetic characterization of the latter trill, currently transcribed in the IPA as [ ], has been especially controversial. The present study uses ultrasound, electroglottography (EGG) and acoustic evidence to examine these trills, with the particular aim of achieving a more phonetically grounded representation of /ř/. In the first part of the paper, ultrasound imaging is used to compare tongue positions between /r/ and /ř/, ruling out tongue height as the key factor distinguishing the two sounds. The second part uses EGG and acoustic evidence to examine phonatory aspects of production. Results implicate vocal fold abduction as the more robust factor distinguishing /r/ from /ř/. Consequently, we posit [ ] as a more appropriate phonetic characterization of /ř/.

One of the unresolved issues in the field of intonational phonology is whether pitch accent range differences are used by languages to express discrete linguistic distinctions. In Catalan, as in some other Romance languages, a rising-falling nuclear pitch contour – i.e. a rising pitch accent associated with the utterance-final stressed syllable followed by a Low boundary tone – can be used to convey three different pragmatic meanings depending on its pitch range properties: information focus statements (IFSs), corrective focus statements (CFSs), and counter-expectational questions (CEQs). In order to investigate how these pragmatic meanings are distributed across the pitch range continuum and whether Catalan listeners use these tonal scaling distinctions to identify such meanings, we performed an identification task and a congruity test. The results show that CEQs differ from both IFSs and CFSs in a discrete way, yet the perceived difference between IFSs and CFSs cannot be exclusively explained by scaling differences. These findings provide further evidence that pitch range differences can be used to make intonational distinctions in some languages, and strengthen the argument that pitch range features need to be represented descriptively at the phonological level.

Languages can make use of phonetic duration to signal two kinds of meanings. The first is a lexical, phonological contrast. For example, in Japanese [kata] with a short [t] means ‘frame’ and [katta] with a long [tt] means ‘bought’. This sort of contrast is usually limited to a binary distinction, and its phonetic properties have been well studied for many diverse languages. The other use of phonetic duration is to express pragmatic emphasis. Speakers of some languages can use lengthening to express emphasis, as in the English example Thank you sooooooo much. This lengthening can employ multiple degrees of duration, beyond the more standard binary contrast. This second use of duration has been understudied, and this paper attempts to fill that gap. To that end, this paper reports the first experimental documentation of the consonant lengthening pattern in Japanese, which expresses pragmatic emphasis. The results show that at least some speakers show six levels of durational distinctions, while other speakers show less clear-cut distinctions among different levels of emphatically lengthened consonants. Nevertheless, all but one speaker showed a linear correlation between duration and level of emphasis.

Cochabamba Quechua disallows pairs of ejectives within roots (*[k’it’ɑ]), but this structure may arise across word boundaries, e.g. [misk’it’ɑntɑ] ‘good bread’. This paper presents an acoustic study of these phonotactically legal, trans-vocalic ejective pairs that occur at word boundaries. It is found that Cochabamba Quechua speakers de-ejectivize one of the two ejectives in such phrases a significant portion of the time, and that, in correct productions with two ejectives, the period between the two ejectives is lengthened by increasing the duration of the vowel and the closure duration of the second ejective.

The present study investigates the articulatory and acoustic properties of the unique apical segments in Mandarin Chinese that occur after dental and retroflex sibilants instead of the high front vowel [i]. An ultrasound study showed that the segments are homorganic with the preceding dental and retroflex sibilants. However, an acoustic study showed that they have a periodic waveform and clear formant structures with no inherent frication noise, indicating that they are not ‘voiced fricatives’. The results also suggest that the observed F2 pattern can only be explained with an acoustic model of a sonorant consonant, wherein F2 is attributed to the cavity behind the apical constriction. Based on this, it is argued that the segments can be best seen as ‘dental approximant [ ]’ and ‘retroflex approximant [ɻ]’. A phonological implication of the pattern is also discussed: the co-occurrence restriction with the high front vowel eliminates a potential chance of palatalization of the dental and retroflex sibilants that may lead to neutralization of the place contrast. The tongue front gesture in the following approximants seems to provide an additional cue to the place of the preceding consonants; the low F3 of [ɻ], for example, enhances cues to the place of the preceding retroflex sibilant.

In this work, Mandarin tone production is examined using simultaneous laryngoscopy and laryngeal ultrasound (SLLUS). Laryngoscopy is used to obtain information about laryngeal state, and laryngeal ultrasound is used to quantify changes in larynx height. With this methodology, several observations are made concerning the production of Mandarin tone in citation form. Two production strategies are attested for low tone production: (i) larynx lowering and (ii) larynx raising with laryngeal constriction. Another finding is that the larynx rises continually during level tone production, which is interpreted as a means to compensate for declining subglottal pressure. In general, we argue that larynx height plays a supportive role in facilitating f0 change under circumstances where intrinsic mechanisms for f0 control are insufficient to reach tonal targets due to vocal fold inertia. Activation of the laryngeal constrictor can be used to achieve low tone targets through mechanical adjustment to vocal fold dynamics. We conclude that extra-glottal laryngeal mechanisms play important roles in facilitating the production of tone targets and should be integrated into the contemporary articulatory model of tone production.

This study investigated speaker sex differences in the temporal and spectro-temporal parameters of English monosyllabic words spoken by thirteen women and eleven men. Vowel and utterance duration were investigated. A number of formant frequency parameters were also analysed to assess the spectro-temporal dynamic structures of the monosyllabic words as a function of speaker sex. Absolute frequency changes were measured for the first (F1), second (F2), and third (F3) formant frequencies (ΔF1, ΔF2, and ΔF3, respectively). Rates of these absolute formant frequency changes were also measured and calculated to yield measurements for rF1, rF2, and rF3. Normalised frequency changes (normΔF1, normΔF2, and normΔF3), and normalised rates of change (normrF1, normrF2, and normrF3) were also calculated. F2 locus equations were then derived from the F2 measurements taken at the onset and temporal mid points of the vowels. Results indicated that there were significant sex differences in the spectro-temporal parameters associated with F2: ΔF2, normΔF2, rF2, and F2 locus equation slopes; women displayed significantly higher values for ΔF2, normΔF2 and rF2, and significantly shallower F2 locus equation slopes. Collectively, these results suggested lower levels of coarticulation in the speech samples of the women speakers, and corroborate evidence reported in earlier studies.

Hiatus occurs when the juxtaposition of syllables results in two separate vowels occurring alongside one another. Such vowel adjacency, both within words and across word boundaries, is phonologically undesirable in many languages but can be resolved using a range of strategies including consonant insertion. This paper examines linguistic and extralinguistic factors that best predict the likelihood of inserted linking ‘r’ across word boundaries in Australian English. Corpus data containing a set of 32 phrases produced in a sentence-reading task by 103 speakers were auditorily and acoustically analysed. Results reveal that linguistic variables of accentual context and local speaking rate take precedence over speaker-specific variables of age, gender and sociolect in the management of hiatus. We interpret this to be a reflection of the phonetic manifestation of boundary phenomena. The frequency of the phrase containing the linking ‘r’, the frequency of an individual's use of linking ‘r’, and the accentual status of the flanking vowels all affect the /ɹ/ strength (determined by F3), suggesting that a hybrid approach is warranted in modelling liaison. Age effects are present for certain prosodic contexts indicating change in progress for Australian English.

The autocorrelation function, a measure of regularity in the speech signal, is applied in demarcating the seemingly diffuse intervals of glottalization which accompany or replace voiceless oral stops in elicited recordings from 22 young speakers of Southern British English. It is shown that a local minimum in autocorrelation characterizes almost all instances heard as intervocalic glottal stops; an annotation procedure is developed and used to gather data on glottalization gestures, including duration, f0, energy and autocorrelation. The same measure is used to assess regularity of vocal fold vibration in an interval just prior to the formation of the total closure for instances of syllable-final /t/, and confirms significantly lower autocorrelation in a group auditorily judged ‘pre-glottalized’. Implications are considered both for normal speech perception and for expert phonetic judgments.

The history is outlined of the origins and development, during the earlier twentieth century from the work of H. E. Palmer and A. S. Hornby, of a highly distinctive type of dictionary designed to meet the needs of non-native-speaking students of English. It was distinguished by its inclusion of various phonetic and grammatical matters previously almost entirely neglected. In doing so it made a major contribution to the remedying of deficiencies in our records of the English language in respect of the rhythmical characteristics of lexical items longer than the uncompounded word. Other phonetic aspects of these dictionaries are dealt with, including the arrival of related recorded spoken pronunciations.

Cicipu ([tʃìtʃípù], ISO 639–3 code awc) is spoken by approximately 20,000 people in northwest Nigeria, with the main language area straddling the boundary between Kebbi and Niger states. The language belongs to the Kambari subgroup (not Kamuku as stated by Lewis, Simons & Fennig 2013) of Kainji (Benue-Congo), although it is heavily influenced by the lingua franca Hausa, in which almost all speakers are fluent. There are several identifiable dialects, with native speakers of Cicipu generally listing seven. Of these, Tirisino is the most prestigious and least endangered dialect, and this is the one presented here. Tikumbasi is the most divergent of the dialects, with the /o/ vowel in the other dialects consistently corresponding to /e/ in Tikumbasi (for example /póːpò/ ‘hello’ ~ /péːpè/, /tʃìkóːtò/ ‘drum’ ~ /tʃìkʷéːtè/). The distinction between /o/ and /ɔ/ has been lost in Tikumbasi.

Standard Tajik, or Modern Literary Tajik as it was called during the Soviet era, was established in the nineteen twenties and thirties based largely on the dialects of the Bukhara-Samarkand area, which was at the time the undisputed cultural centre of the Tajik-speaking population. Dushanbe, the current capital of Tajikistan, was then a small village with a population of only a few hundred and had no cultural heritage comparable to that of Bukhara or Samarkand. Bukharan Tajik, whose phonology is described in this paper, is a variety of Tajik that played a particularly influential role in the phonological standardization of Tajik, which took place for the most part in 1930. For instance, the Scientific Conference of Uzbekistan Tajiks of 1930 resolved that the dialect of Bukhara must be the designated basis of the sound and orthography of literary Tajik (вaroji tajjorī вa kanfiransijaji ilmiji istalinoвod 1930: 2). In August the same year, the Linguistic Conference held in the then newly established Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic also adopted a similar resolution that establishes the ‘language of the Tajiks of Samarkand and Bukhara’ as the reference point in establishing the literary (i.e. standard) pronunciation (Halimov 1974: 126). According to Bergne (2007: 82), ‘the same Linguistic Conference of 22 August 1930 in Stalinabad decided that the phonetic base for the language had better be the dialect of Bukhara’. Thus, the Bukharan Tajik of today is the direct descendant of the variety of Tajik which served as a primary basis of standard Tajik phonological norms; and hence differs little from standard Tajik phonologically and phonetically.

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).