The status of sibilant harmony in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)

This article presents an acoustic phonetic study of contemporary Diné Bizaad (Navajo) sibilant harmony, with a focus on the realization of /s/ and /ʃ/ in two verbal prefixes and one nominal prefix. Data come from wordlists and connected speech recorded in interviews with 50 Diné Bizaad–English bilinguals, aged 18–75 years. The frequency of harmony in each prefix is calculated for speakers of different ages, then acoustic measurements of spectral center of gravity are measured and statistically compared to those in sibilants occurring in harmony-triggering and non-harmony triggering conditions. Results show no significant intergenerational differences in the phonetic or phonological realization of sibilant harmony; speakers consistently and categorically harmonize the two verbal prefixes analyzed here, but rarely harmonize the nominal prefix. This study contributes new phonetic documentation of a typologically rare phonological process and suggests that, in contrast to findings from other studies on endangered languages, sibilant harmony is not undergoing attrition or contact-induced change.

Distinctive Features of a Threatening Demand and Entreaty at the Fundamental Frequency Level

the article gives the results of an experimental and phonetic study on the prosodic differentiation at the level of the fundamental frequency of two illocutionary acts – a threatening demand and entreaty (on the material of German). It is known that prosody affects a communicative process, and depending on the nature of a prosodic structure, the meaning of a statement changes. The same lexical and grammatical corpus can act as a threat, demand, entreaty, sarcastic statement, etc. The distinctive features of these speech acts are directly influenced by the perceived prosodic features of fundamental frequency, intensity and duration. On the basis of auditory, acoustic, and mathematical and statistical analyzes, the distinctive features of the two illocutionary acts were identified at the level of the fundamental frequency. The study shows that the two illocutionary acts differ at the level of the fundamental frequency, despite the fact that they belong to the same speech act – directive. The results obtained can be used in research in the field of phonology, experimental and applied phonetics. In addition, the obtained material may be of interest to forensic experts when conducting a phonoscopic examination

Sonority and syllable structure: The case of Burmese tone

The relationship between tone and sonority has been a recurrent theme in the literature over recent years, raising questions of how supraseg- mental features like tone interact with segmental or prosodic qualities, such as vowel quality, sonority, and duration (de Lacy 2006; Gordon 2001). In this paper, we present an original phonetic study that investigates the relationship between tone, vowel quality, and sonority in Burmese. These are not simple to disentangle in Burmese, since the language has a unique vowel alternation system where certain vowels can only combine with certain tones or codas. While some researchers have analyzed these alternations as directly stemming from tone itself (Kelly 2012), we argue that the vowel alternations are tone-independent. We propose that the Burmese vowel alternations follow from general preferences on sonority sequencing (cf. Clements 1990), and so there is no need for tone and segmental quality to interact directly. Not only does this explain the complex vowel system of Burmese, but this proposal casts a new view on recurrent issues in Burmese phonology, such as the representation of underlying tonal contrasts and minor syllables.

Extending automatic vowel formant extraction to New Englishes

While different automated procedures for vowel formant prediction have recently been proposed, it is unclear how reliably these methods perform in the phonetic study of vowels in New Englishes and how such approaches could be applied to specific varieties. This paper compares different automatic methods for vowel formant prediction in New Englishes, using manual measurements of Trinidadian English as a baseline. The results show that all methods perform significantly better than default formant parameters often used in speech analysis packages, and that a Bayesian formant tracker calibrated with American (US-FAVE) and Trinidadian English (TRINI-FAVE) generally provides better results than an automatic procedure that optimizes formant ceilings on a vowel- and speaker-specific level. TRINI-FAVE measures vowels characteristic of Trinidadian English most accurately. Phonetic studies of vowels in New Englishes can benefit from these methods.

Intonation of the Altai language (simple one-component imperative utterances)

The paper presents the results of studying the Altai language intonation on the experimental material recorded from six speakers fluent in the Altai language from different regions of the Altai Republic. The recording program consisted of situational single-component imperative utterances. Twenty sentences were pronounced three times each in positive and negative versions, in singular and plural, having different degrees of imperativeness, but without any expressive emotional load. The single-compound motivational statements considered are expressed by imperative or desirable verb forms in the first-, second-, and third-person singular and plural in the affirmative and negative variants. The experimental phonetic study has revealed rising tone to be characteristic for positive and negative imperative one-component sentences, with fundamental tone frequency peaks at the last syllable and there being a possibility for intensity, presumably marking the stressed syllable, to shift within a word-form. The analysis showed the intonation marking of motivational statements to depend on their type: action stimulation, order or demand, are characterized by inclination, a request - by a combined ascending-descending tone, a ban - by a descending tone, advice - both by ascending-descending intonation and declination. In the negative version, in singular and plural, in three or more syllabic sentences on the negative particles -ba / -be, -pa / -pe, etc., there is an even tone or a decrease in the frequency of the fundamental tone. The peak of intensity in such sentences is realized on the last syllable of the verb. In addition, the vowel of the final syllable is usually prolonged.

Dynamic spectral characteristics of defective sounds pronunciation in students with minimal dysarthric disorders

The article is devoted to the analysis of the spectrographic characteristics of defective sounds pronunciation in children with minimal dysarthric disorders (mild dysarthria). These characteristics were obtained in the process of an experimental-phonetic study. It involved the study of the nature of changes that occur during the transition from one sound to another and also during the pronunciation of a single sound. The article presents the results of the experiment carried out on the basis of a qualitative analysis of dynamic spectrograms of syllables; describes the most permanent signs characterizing the defective sounds pronunciation in syllables of various structures (open, closed). The nature of the mutual influences of sounds in various structures of syllables is revealed. Comparative data were obtained for the acoustic (formant) proximity of various variants of defective pronunciation to the sound standard in children with minimal dysarthric disorders. The contextual phonetic influences at the level of syllables are determined, taking into account the acoustic characteristics of sounds and their defective variants.