Christian DiCanio

The phonetics of register in Takhian Thong Chong

The language Chong uses a combination of different acoustic correlates to distinguish among its four contrastive phonation types (registers). Electroglottographic and acoustic data were examined from original fieldwork on the Takhian Thong dialect. EGG data shows high open quotient (OQ) values for the breathy-modal register, low OQ values for the modal-tense register, intermediate OQ values for the modal register, and rapidly changing high to low OQ values for the breathy-tense register. Acoustic correlates indicate that H1-A3 and H1-A2 best distinguish between breathy and non-breathy phonation types, but measures like H1-H2 and pitch are necessary to discriminate between tense and non-tense phonation types. A comparison of spectral tilt and OQ measures shows the greatest correlation between OQ and H1-H2, suggesting that changes in the relative amplitude of formants are not directly related to changes in the open period of the glottal cycle. OQ is best correlated with changes in the degree of glottal tension.

Coarticulation between tone and glottal consonants in Itunyoso Trique

Abstract This paper investigates the realization of contrastive tone in three non-modal phonation contexts (creaky phonation, glottal closure, and breathy phonation) in Itunyoso Trique, an Oto-Manguean language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico. The study examines how coarticulatory glottalization (creaky phonation, glottal closure) coincides with coarticulatory pitch perturbations and spectral tilt changes on neighboring vowels. The onset of laryngeally induced F 0 perturbation effects and the timing of changes in spectral tilt were examined using acoustic data from six speakers of the language. The results show that in contexts where substantial non-modal phonation spreads onto the adjacent vowel, greater pitch effects are observed. In contexts where abrupt glottal closure occurs, less coarticulatory changes in spectral tilt and pitch are observed on adjacent vowels. In addition, strong tonal effects are observed for certain spectral measures. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature on tonogenesis and coarticulatory pitch effects.

The Phonetics of Fortis and Lenis Consonants in Itunyoso Trique

This paper discusses the phonetic properties of the fortis–lenis distinction in San Martín Itunyoso Trique (Oto-Manguean). Discussions of the fortis–lenis contrast in related languages argue that it may instead be considered a geminate–singleton contrast. However, lenis obstruents are frequently realized with voicing and spirantization. These phenomena have led other researchers to argue against reanalyzing “fortis–lenis” contrasts as consonant length contrasts. In the first of two experiments, I show that the primary phonetic correlate of the fortis–lenis contrast in Itunyoso Trique is duration. Fortis obstruents are additionally realized with a glottal spreading gesture, which is absent in lenis obstruents. In the second experiment, I show that durational changes, due to speech rate, account for variable patterns of spirantization and partial voicing. Abstract features of articulatory effort are not necessary to account for the phonetic variation in lenis obstruents in Trique. This analysis argues in favor of considering the consonantal contrast in Trique as one based on consonant length and glottal features. The findings are discussed in relation to gestural models of speech production and to patterns within other Oto-Manguean languages.

Cross-linguistic perception of Itunyoso Trique tone

Abstract Recent findings have argued in favor of the categorical perception of tonal contrasts in Taiwanese Mandarin and Standard Mandarin ( Halle et al., 2004 , Xu et al., 2006 ), and most recently in Mandarin and Cantonese ( Peng et al., 2010 ). Findings in favor of the categorical perception of tone emerge most clearly from cross-linguistic work on speech perception. The current study continues this line of research by investigating the categorical perception of Itunyoso Trique tone among Trique and French listeners. Tonal stimuli were presented to listeners in an AXB discrimination task (2AFC) and an AXB identification task (2AFC), closely following methods used in Halle et al. (2004) . Evidence for a listener sensitivity to tonal categories was found for Trique listeners in their discrimination performance, but this pattern did not correspond to the identification performance. Overall, French speakers performed better overall at tone discrimination than Trique listeners, who largely ignored within-category phonetic differences. Both Trique and French listeners were found to be sensitive to psychoacoustic differences between stimuli, though French speakers relied more heavily on such differences. The findings here argue for the importance of both phonetic and auditory memory for the perception of Trique lexical tone.

Using automatic alignment to analyze endangered language data: Testing the viability of untrained alignment

While efforts to document endangered languages have steadily increased, the phonetic analysis of endangered language data remains a challenge. The transcription of large documentation corpora is, by itself, a tremendous feat. Yet, the process of segmentation remains a bottleneck for research with data of this kind. This paper examines whether a speech processing tool, forced alignment, can facilitate the segmentation task for small data sets, even when the target language differs from the training language. The authors also examined whether a phone set with contextualization outperforms a more general one. The accuracy of two forced aligners trained on English (hmalign and p2fa) was assessed using corpus data from Yoloxóchitl Mixtec. Overall, agreement performance was relatively good, with accuracy at 70.9% within 30 ms for hmalign and 65.7% within 30 ms for p2fa. Segmental and tonal categories influenced accuracy as well. For instance, additional stop allophones in hmaligns phone set aided alignment accuracy. Agreement differences between aligners also corresponded closely with the types of data on which the aligners were trained. Overall, using existing alignment systems was found to have potential for making phonetic analysis of small corpora more efficient, with more allophonic phone sets providing better agreement than general ones.

Cue weight in the perception of Trique glottal consonants

This paper examines the perceptual weight of cues to the coda glottal consonant contrast in Trique (Oto-Manguean) with native listeners. The language contrasts words with no coda (/Vː/) from words with a coda glottal stop (/VɁ/) or breathy coda (/Vɦ/). The results from a speeded AX (same-different) lexical discrimination task show high accuracy in lexical identification for the /Vː/-/Vɦ/ contrast, but lower accuracy for the other contrasts. The second experiment consists of a labeling task where the three acoustic dimensions that distinguished the glottal consonant codas in production [duration, the amplitude difference between the first two harmonics (H1-H2), and F0] were modified orthogonally using step-wise resynthesis. This task determines the relative weight of each dimension in phonological categorization. The results show that duration was the strongest cue. Listeners were only sensitive to changes in H1-H2 for the /Vː/-/Vɦ/ and /Vː/-/VɁ/ contrasts when duration was ambiguous. Listeners were only sensitive to changes in F0 for the /Vː/-/Vɦ/ contrast when both duration and H1-H2 were ambiguous. The perceptual cue weighting for each contrast closely matches existing production data [DiCanio (2012 a). J. Phon. 40, 162-176] Cue weight differences in speech perception are explained by differences in step-interval size and the notion of adaptive plasticity [Francis et al. (2008). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 124, 1234-1251; Holt and Lotto (2006). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 3059-3071].

Phonetic correlates of phonological register in Takhian Thong Chong

The author’s phonetic fieldwork from the Takhian Thong Chong language demonstrates that the four phonological registers are distinguished phonetically with distinct voice quality (phonation) contours, pitch contours, and durational properties. Both EGG and acoustic data were gathered from seven native speakers. A dynamic open quotient contour extracted from electroglottographic recordings demonstrates register‐specific phonation type correlates. The four distinct registers are characterized by: Modal phonation throughout with a mid‐level pitch, a contour from modal to tense phonation with a high rising and falling pitch contour, a contour from breathy to modal phonation with a mid‐falling pitch contour, and a contour from breathy to tense phonation with a midrising and falling pitch contour. Investigations into the correlation between OQ (open quotient) values and pitch indicate a positive global correlation between the relative length of the glottal cycle and the open period, but a lack of correlation between dynamic OQ and pitch curves. Aside from providing a phonetic description of a typologically rare phonological contrast, these findings suggest that there is not a strong relationship between absolute changes in degree of glottal abduction and changes in pitch, contrary to previous claims (Silverman 1997). [Work supported by UC Berkeley Graduate Division.]

Phonetic documentation in the literature: Coverage rates for topics and languages

With the introduction of automatic methods for examining both the acoustic and articulatory aspects of speech, our knowledge of the phonetic details of well-studied languages has grown substantially. Research on the phonetics of under-documented languages has expanded, but the breadth of coverage remains a challenge. What topics within the sound systems of these languages should be documented? With an ultimate aim of a reasonably complete typological assessment, should researchers focus on particular language families or phenomena and exclude others? Here, a survey of several hundred articles was undertaken, examining three major venues in the phonetics literature: Journal of Phonetics, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, and publications from the UCLA Languages of the World project (which appeared in various venues). 20 features were found to be addressed in many studies, and a rough guide to the coverage for a language can be seen in the total number of features reported in a study. Coverage has increased over time, but most studies still address a small percentage of the phonetic substance of the target language. Coverage across language family and region also increased but is still skewed toward Indo-European languages. Future directions and recommendations will be presented.

On the non-universality of intonation: Evidence from Triqui

Languages with large lexical tone inventories typically involve less freedom for suprasegmental properties to be manipulated for pragmatic meaning or phrasal constituency (Connell 2017). However, such languages may still use F0 to a limited degree for marking information structure or utterance finality (DiCanio et al. 2018, Xu 1999). We present results from three field experiments with 11 speakers where we investigated information structure and prosody in Itunyoso Triqui, an Otomanguean language (Mexico). Itunyoso Triqui possesses nine lexical tones (/4, 3, 2, 1, 43, 32, 31, 13, 45/), fixed final stress, and contrastive phonation type. In experiment 1, we examined tone production in words in broad and narrow focus contexts. Words under narrow focus were lengthened slightly (13-14%) but no general effect of focus on F0 levels or contours was found. In experiment 2, we examined tones in utterance non-final and final contexts. Words were lengthened in utterance-final position relative to non-final position, but no F0 differences were found. In experiment 3, we investigated F0 declination in sentences consisting of only level tones and found no F0 change across utterances. The results from these experiments suggest that Itunyoso Triqui does not use F0 to encode information structure or prosodic boundaries.Languages with large lexical tone inventories typically involve less freedom for suprasegmental properties to be manipulated for pragmatic meaning or phrasal constituency (Connell 2017). However, such languages may still use F0 to a limited degree for marking information structure or utterance finality (DiCanio et al. 2018, Xu 1999). We present results from three field experiments with 11 speakers where we investigated information structure and prosody in Itunyoso Triqui, an Otomanguean language (Mexico). Itunyoso Triqui possesses nine lexical tones (/4, 3, 2, 1, 43, 32, 31, 13, 45/), fixed final stress, and contrastive phonation type. In experiment 1, we examined tone production in words in broad and narrow focus contexts. Words under narrow focus were lengthened slightly (13-14%) but no general effect of focus on F0 levels or contours was found. In experiment 2, we examined tones in utterance non-final and final contexts. Words were lengthened in utterance-final position relative to non-final position, ...

The phonetics of information structure in Yoloxóchitl Mixtec

Abstract Research on speech prosody has shown that higher-level phonological constituents can be examined directly via their influence on low level phonetic processes ( Beckman and Edwards, 1990 , Fougeron and Keating, 1997 ). Despite the strong tradition of research in this area, the existing work has focused mainly on languages which lack lexical tone. This contributes to the view that prosodic structures show little influence on tone, i.e. a language may either have lexical tone or lexical/phrasal stress, the latter of which fits into the prosodic hierarchy. The current paper examines prosodic focus in Yoloxochitl Mixtec, an endangered Otomanguean language spoken in Mexico. Using experimental data from ten speakers in the field, we investigated how sentence position, stress, and focus type influenced the realization of F0 and duration in different tonal melodies. The findings show that the tonal F0 space was expanded and raised on words produced with contrastive focus, less on words produced with narrow focus, and least on words produced under broad, sentential focus. Focus-related lengthening asymmetrically affected stressed syllables in the language more than unstressed syllables. In stressed syllables, this resulted in an increase in tonal hyperarticulation.