Karin Michelson

Articulation without acoustics: “Soundless” vowels in Oneida and Blackfoot

Abstract Speech is largely driven by a feed-forward production mechanism, allowing articulators to reach their targets even in the absence of auditory feedback. However, it is not known whether natural languages can systematically encode such movements without acoustic consequences. Perception and production studies were conducted of two endangered languages purported to exhibit this property in utterance-final sequences. Ultrasound, video, acoustic, and perception data were collected from native speakers of Oneida (Iroquoian) and Blackfoot (Algonquian) in field settings. Results show distinct articulator positions for different utterance-final vowels despite these vowels being completely inaudible, both in terms of acoustic and perceptual measures. Speech production models must include a sufficiently robust feed-forward articulatory component to allow articulations to be realized even when acoustic information is systematically absent.

ARGUMENT STRUCTURE OF ONEIDA KINSHIP TERMS

Oneida (Iroquoian) kinship terms have both nominal and verbal properties, and the verbal nature of kinship terms explains why both arguments of the relation are morphologically expressed. However, the linking of the arguments of some kinship terms to pronominal prefixes is qualitatively different from the linking of the arguments of verbs to pronominal prefixes in that the linking does not follow from the meaning of the kinship term but from the age of the actual persons who are related. Moreover, although kinship terms share properties with both verbs and nouns, they also have a more typical “nominal” function in that they semantically identify a member of the kinship relation as referent rather than denote the relation itself. This lexical specification of a relation member as the word’s index argues against an internally headed relative clause analysis of the kinship terms.

Articulation without acoustics: A case study of Oneida utterance‐final forms

Whether the targets of speech production are primarily articulatory or acoustic has been controversial [Guenther et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 105(5), 2854–2865 (1999)]. While it has been observed that tongue movements occur even in contexts where they may be acoustically obscured [Browman and Goldstein, LabPhonI: 341–376 (1990); Tiede et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110(5), 2, 2657 (2001)], the question of whether natural languages can systematically encode articulations in the absence of acoustic consequences has remained open. A study was conducted to investigate a purported phonological process in the endangered Oneida (Iroquois) language whereby utterance‐final forms exhibit fixed sequences having this property. Ultrasound, video, and acoustic data were collected from two native speakers of Oneida in a field setting. Preliminary results indicate that speakers’ tongue positions are significantly different during different utterance‐final vowel articulations despite these vowels being completely inaudible. R...