Amanda Ritchart

Breathy voice during nasality: A cross-linguistic study

Abstract In some languages, there is a diachronic correspondence between nasal and breathy sounds, whose origin is often attributed to the acoustic similarities between nasal and breathy vowels. In this study, we test whether nasal consonants and vowels are also produced with breathier voice quality than their oral counterparts in three Yi (Loloish) languages: Bo, Luchun Hani, and Southern Yi. We analyzed oral vs. nasal vowels and consonants using electroglottographic and acoustic measures of phonation. Results indicate that nasal consonants are often breathier than laterals, as are vowels following nasals when compared to vowels following oral consonants. These findings support the assumption that at least some of these nasal-breathy sound changes involve a stage in which the two articulations co-occur. We claim that the production of breathy voice quality during nasals can arise through listener misperception or phonetic enhancement. These findings also contribute to the understanding of nasality as an abstract feature that involves multiple articulations.

The use of high rise terminals in Southern Californian English

This study examines the phonetics, phonology and pragmatic function of uptalk, utterance-final rising pitch movements, as used in Southern Californian English. Twelve female and eleven male speakers were recorded in a variety of tasks. Instances of uptalk were coded for discourse function (statement, question, confirmation request, floor holding) based on context. The excursion of the pitch rise and the distance of the rise start from the onset of the utterances last stressed vowel were also measured. Confirmation requests and floor holding showed variable realization. Questions, on the other hand, showed a rise that typically started within the stressed vowel and had a large pitch excursion, while uptalk used with statements exhibited both a smaller pitch excursion and a later rise that often started after vowel offset. This pattern suggests that statements have a L* L-H% melody while questions have L* H-H%. Gender differences were also found: female speakers used uptalk more often than males, and showe...

Moro vowel harmony: implications for transparency and representations *

This paper describes and analyses the vowel-harmony system of the Kordofanian language Moro. Moro has a cross-height dominant-recessive raising harmony system in which high vowels and a central mid vowel trigger harmony, while peripheral mid vowels and a central low vowel are harmony targets. Schwas can co-occur with any of the vowels, appearing inert to harmony. Yet when schwas occur alone in a morpheme, some trigger harmony and some do not. We suggest that an original ATR-harmony system shifted to a height system via merger and centralisation, producing two distinct central vowels, rather than a single schwa. One vowel patterns with the higher vowels in triggering harmony, and the other patterns with the lower vowels. We also propose that a particle-based representation offers the best characterisation of the groupings of target and trigger vowels in the language.

The Role of Pitch in Punjabi Word Identification.

Previous work has argued that one class of consonants in Punjabi—those thought to be historically voiced aspirated— have now lost aspiration in all contexts and voicing in certain contexts. Word initially, these consonants are realized as voiceless unaspirated and are differentiated from other voiceless unaspirated consonants by a falling pitch on the following vowel. In this study, we investigate, using a two-alternative forced choice task, whether listeners make use of a falling pitch word-initially to distinguish between these two types of consonants that are otherwise phonetically identical. Our results show that, regardless of talker or listener, differences in falling pitch on the vowel following an unaspirated voiceless consonant are indeed sufficient for listeners to distinguish between words beginning with these consonants. These results provide further evidence that, in word-initial contexts, pitch may be in the process of phonologization in at least some dialects of Punjabi.

Ixpantepec Nieves mixtec question intonation

Ixpantepec Nieves Mixtec (INM) is posited to have a three-way lexical tone system and lexical stress. However, no known work has investigated whether INM makes use of F0 intonationally. Our study addresses this gap and seeks to contribute to the typology of tone-intonation interactions. We recorded both polar and wh-questions. For polar questions, we analyzed the F0 from one female speaker. The speaker produced question-answer (QA both high and low lexical tones have higher F0 in the interrogative compared to the declarative. For wh-questions, a qualitative analysis was done using interview data from a male and female speakers. A quantitative analysis is also underway. The QA thus, no wh-question intonation or tone-intonation interaction was found. Implications for intonational typology in languages with lexical tones will be discussed.