This research investigates the tone system of an understudied language, Du’an Zhuang and its interaction with duration. Cross-linguistically, tones tend to be less complex in shorter duration contexts. In Du’an Zhuang, syllable type provides these contexts: There are six contrastive tones among unchecked syllables with longer rhyme duration, but this is reduced to four tones in shorter duration checked syllables. Acoustic analyses of f0 and duration from six native speakers were performed to check whether tonal complexity is reduced in the shorter duration checked syllables. The results showed this was true with some exceptions. The two tones in CVVO syllables corresponded to the two least complex tones; however, one of the two CVO tones included a more complex rising tone. This rising tone exhibited a reduced f0 excursion though. Finally, there is a two-way phonological vowel length contrast in Du’an Zhuang, which necessarily interacts with syllable type via its effect on rhyme duration. However, based on our vowel duration measurements, this vowel length contrast only exists in unchecked syllables with sonorant codas, the only syllable type where rhyme duration and vowel duration could possibly differ. In this context, a sonorant coda contributes to the syllable’s rhyme duration, but not to vowel duration, allowing syllable type and vowel length to contrast independently, only in this phonological context.

Uzbek (ISO 639-1: uz) is a Turkic language spoken mainly in Uzbekistan, where the language is accorded the ‘state language’ status (Figure 1). Outside Uzbekistan, ethnic Uzbek populations are scattered across and beyond Central Asia in such countries as Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, and Saudi Arabia (Balcı, 2004; Yakup, 2020:411). Many Uzbeks in the diaspora speak one or more languages in addition to Uzbek for interethnic communication (Naby, 1984:11). Some ethnic Uzbek communities are reportedly being linguistically assimilated to ethnic groups that are dominant in their countries or regions (Shalinsky, 1979:12–13; Fevzi, 2013:256; Yıldırım, 2019:64). It is therefore unclear exactly what proportion of ethnic Uzbeks retain Uzbek as their first language today. In the case of ethnic Uzbeks in Xinjiang in China, gauging the extent of linguistic assimilation can be difficult because of the limited range of contrasting features that exist between their variety of Uzbek and Uyghur, the interethnic language of Xinjiang, with which it is generally mutually intelligible (Cheng & Abudureheman, 1987:1–2). The varieties of Uzbek spoken in Afghanistan and China have developed autonomously from those spoken within the borders of the former Soviet Union, and hence differ from the present-day standard Uzbek of Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, most notably in lexica but also in phonology, morphology, and syntax (Jarring, 1938; Abdullaev, 1979: Reichl, 1983; Cheng & Abudureheman, 1987; Hayitov et al., 1992:36; Gültekin, 2010).

Zhongjiang Chinese (中江话) is a variety of Mandarin Chinese, one of the ten language families in China (Mandarin, Cantonese, Xiang, Min, Gan, etc.,). Sometimes the term “Mandarin” is also used to refer to the national lingua franca “Putonghua”. We refer to the national lingua franca as “Standard Mandarin” and reserve the term Mandarin (官话) to refer to the language family, as distinct from other families, e.g., Cantonese, Xiang, Min, Gan, etc. Within Mandarin, Zhongjiang is a member of the Southwestern dialects (西南官话) (Language Atlas of China 1988). It is spoken in the urban areas of Zhongjiang county (中江县) in Sichuan province (四川省 ) of China. Zhongjiang county belongs to the Deyang (德阳) region, which is located in the middle of Sichuan province, about 100 kilometers northeast from the provincial capital of Chengdu (成都). Zhongjiang is just beyond the Chengdu Plain (成都平原), so the terrain is mostly hilly, with little flat land. It has a population of 1.37 million residents and an area of 2,200km2 (data from Zhongjiang official website, updated July 7, 2021).

This Illustration focuses on Kua’nsi (kʰwa33n̩21si33, ISO639: ykn), a Central Ngwi (or Yi) language of the Sino-Tibetan family (Bradley 1997; Fan et al., 2017). It is spoken by approximately 5000 people in Liuhe Township (六合乡, Liùhé Xiāng), Heqing County (鹤庆县, Hèqìng Xiàn), Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China (see the map in Figure 1). Kua’nsi people refer to themselves as Kua’eshi (夸萼氏 Kuà’èshì) in Chinese and other ethnic groups, Bai (白 Bái) and Han (汉 Hàn) people living in the county, call them as Baiyi people (白依人 Báiyīrén) in Chinese because of their white traditional clothes.

This study investigated lateral asymmetry in the linguopalatal speech sounds of British English by means of electropalatography. This instrumental technique visualizes tongue–palate contact during speech production and allows for the quantification of contact patterns. The first and main objective of the study was to establish a method of measuring asymmetry that would be more sensitive than the approach used previously and would facilitate statistical analysis. The method employed a modified index of asymmetry and controlled for the overall amount of tongue–palate contact. The secondary objective was to use the proposed method to quantify asymmetry in the production of the linguopalatal consonants of British English, focusing on asymmetry observed in the region of the palate corresponding to the place of articulation. Regression analysis of 22,004 speech sounds, produced by four native speakers, indicated that the approximant /l/ is the most asymmetrical speech sound, followed by the central approximants /j, r/. Although fricatives had been hypothesized to be highly asymmetrical, they were not consistently more asymmetrical than plosives. In terms of the place of articulation of speech sounds, velar sounds were less asymmetrical than alveolars. It was possible to account for some of these findings by referring to the unilateral productions of approximants.