Marzena Żygis

A Perceptual Study of Polish Fricatives, and its Implications for Historical Sound Change

Abstract The present study probes perception of place of articulation distinctions among Polish sibilants using an AX discrimination task, and compares results from 13 Polish-speaking and 10 English-speaking subjects. Besides providing information on the relative discriminability of the sibilants, the perceptual study is designed to investigate the claim that a particular kind of diachronic change which has taken place in Polish and other languages, as well as related facts about sibilant inventories, could be perceptually motivated. The results lend support to this claim and to the general view that a principle of dispersion plays a role in explaining sound change tendencies, and therefore in shaping phonological tendencies, for consonants, not only vowels.

(Non-)retroflex Slavic affricates and their motivation: Evidence from Czech and Polish

The Slavic affricate represented by /c/ is tacitly or explicitly assumed to be / / for all Slavic languages. In this paper we revise the affricate inventories of Polish and Czech, showing that the symbol /c/ stands for two different sounds: the palatoalveolar / / in Czech and the retroflex / / in Polish. This conclusion is supported by acoustic results for Polish and Czech data. The fact that COG (centre of gravity) values of frication are not significantly different for Polish and Czech /c/ appears a bit surprising especially in light of the fact that COG is generally seen as a parameter contributing to the distinction of fricatives (including sibilants, see e.g. Gordon, Barthmaier & Sands 2002). Our results show that other parameters such as duration of the frication phase, F1 and F2 of the following vowel as well as spectral slopes are more reliable cues for distinguishing the small differences between affricates examined here.

Segmental cues to intonation of statements and polar questions in whispered, semi-whispered and normal speech modes

Abstract This paper examines how acoustic characteristics of vowels and consonants reflect intonational differences between polar questions and statements in Polish whispered, semi-whispered and normal speech modes, with particular focus on the spectral characteristics of voiceless consonants as a function of intonation, and across speech modes. The results reveal significant differences in spectral properties of both utterance-final vowels and consonants across statements and polar questions. Questions have higher vowel intensities and show differences in formant frequencies that vary with speech mode. Regarding the consonants, both fricatives and affricates are produced with higher intensity, spectral peaks at higher frequencies, and higher Centre of Gravity and Spectral Standard Deviation values in questions than in statements. Conversely, skewness and kurtosis are lower in questions than in statements. Some spectral features of sibilants, including spectral slopes, show greater question-statement differences in the whispered speech mode than in other speech modes. The finding that some cues are more pronounced in whispered speech suggests that they may compensate for the absence of fundamental frequency in this mode. Most generally, the study shows that speakers produce intended intonation patterns by varying the type and magnitude of cues depending on speech mode.

Acoustic Evidence of New Sibilants in the Pronunciation of Young Polish Women

Abstract We present the results of an acoustic study showing that the Polish sibilant system is undergoing changes in the speech of young university-educated women. The results based on the acoustic analysis of 16 speakers’ pronunciation, reveal that the new variants of alveolo-palatals are characterised by spectral peaks at higher frequencies and higher centre of gravity values than their Standard Polish counterparts. In addition, spectral moments, spectral slopes and the formants of preceding vowels differentiate the new variants from Standard Polish alveolo-palatals. We provide the rationale for the development of the new variants by referring to (i) a functional approach involving contrast optimisation in the sibilant system, (ii) a sociolinguistic approach that makes use of a sound-symbolic association between energy concentration in higher frequency regions and smallness and (iii) a speech disorder.

The Phonetics and Phonology of the Polish Calling Melodies

Two calling melodies of Polish were investigated, the routine call, used to call someone for an everyday reason, and the urgent call, which conveys disapproval of the addressees actions. A Discourse Completion Task was used to elicit the two melodies from Polish speakers using twelve names from one to four syllables long; there were three names per syllable count, and speakers produced three tokens of each name with each melody. The results, based on eleven speakers, show that the routine calling melody consists of a low F0 stretch followed by a rise-fall-rise; the urgent calling melody, on the other hand, is a simple rise-fall. Systematic differences were found in the scaling and alignment of tonal targets: the routine call showed late alignment of the accentual pitch peak, and in most instances lower scaling of targets. The accented vowel was also affected, being overall louder in the urgent call. Based on the data and comparisons with other Polish melodies, we analyze the routine call as LH* !H-H% and the urgent call as H* L-L%. We discuss the results and our analysis in light of recent findings on calling melodies in other languages, and explore their repercussions for intonational phonology and the modeling of intonation.

Proceedings of the Conference on Phonetics & Phonology in German-speaking countries (P&P 13)

Die vorliegende Studie uberpruft die Hypothese, wonach die Ahnlichkeit zwischen Sprachlauten von L2 und L1 sich erschwerend auf den Ausspracheerwerb in einer Fremdsprache auswirkt. Als Beispiel dient dazu die Artikulation der deutschen Plosive /p t k/ und /b d g/ durch italienischsprachige Lernende. Im Rahmen eines didaktischen Experiments in Bellinzona (Schweiz) wurden 20 Schuler im Abstand von einer Woche zweimal beim Lesen von Satzen aufgenommen. Um die Wirksamkeit von explizitem Ausspracheunterricht zu uberprufen, erhielten 10 Schuler ein spezifisches Training bereits vor der zweiten Aufnahme, die anderen 10 Schuler hingegen erst nachher. Die akustische Auswertung der Stimmeinsatzzeit (VOT) liefert Evidenz fur die Schwierigkeit dieser ahnlichen Konsonanten. Tendenziell realisierten die Schuler stimmlose Plosive mit kurzer VOT und stimmhafte Plosive mit negativer VOT. Das explizite Training scheint nur eine geringe Wirkung zu zeitigen: insgesamt trat in beiden Gruppen keine signifikante Veranderung zwischen den beiden Aufnahmen ein. Immerhin wiesen 4 von 10 Schulern aus der Gruppe mit Aussprachetraining in der zweiten Aufnahme langere VOT-Werte auf.Even though there are many studies on the acquisition of intonation, it is not clear yet how the acquisitional path of yes/no-questions (YNQs) develops in children learning languages that distinguish interrogatives and declaratives by means of pitch contours. The present study investigates the intonational realisation of information-seeking YNQs and declarative statements (DCLs) by monolingual German children between 2;8 and 4;0. Child productions were analysed for pitch range and phonological pitch patterns. Our findings suggest that, independent of age, DCLs are predominantly marked by falling f0 with a L-% boundary tone. The youngest children produce YNQs with both falling and rising patterns where L-% is the most common boundary tone. In contrast, 3to 4-year-olds produce YNQs mostly with rising f0 with either L-H% or H^H%. Thus, although the youngest children may be aware of the prosodic difference, they do not use pitch consistently yet to differentiate YNQs and DCLs. As of age 3;0, German children make conscious and consistent use of boundary tones to mark YNQs and DCLs.

Lexical stress in Polish: evidence from focus and phrase-position differentiated production data

We examine acoustic patterns of word stress in Polish in data with carefully separated phrase- and word-level prominences. We aim to verify claims in the literature regarding the phonetic and phono ...

Phonetics and phonology of soft ‘g’ in Turkish

The present study aims to approach soft ‘g’, a highly disputable sound in Turkish phonetics and phonology, from a multidimensional perspective by (i) analysing its historical development, (ii) investigating its distribution in a dictionary of Modern Turkish, and (iii) studying its acoustic realization. In the Ottoman script soft ‘g’ was represented with two letters: , pronounced [ɣ], was used in the context of preceding back vowels V back _(V back , C) ; , pronounced [ j ], was used in the context of preceding front vowels V front _(V front , C). In 1928, due to a reform in orthography, these two vocalic contexts were obscured by replacing both and with . Our investigation of the distribution of /g/ in the native vocabulary of Modern Turkish reveals that /g/ is in complementary distribution with /ɡ/: /g/ appears word-finally and word-medially (i.e. syllable-finally Vg.C and intervocalically V.gV), while /ɡ/ is found word-initially and word-medially (i.e. syllable-initially when following a consonant C.gV). However, in loan words which are well assimilated into Turkish by means of phono-morphological rules the complementary distribution is not attested. Moreover, the behavior of soft ‘g’ in phonological processes strongly suggests that the sound is part of the phonemic inventory of Turkish. Finally, the results of our two acoustic experiments show that /g/ is phonetically manifested in the lengthening of the preceding vowel (/Vg/ → [Vː]) independently of the surrounding vowel environment, word position, and participant age. In addition, the results indicate that speakers of Modern Turkish do not realize acoustic properties of a velar gesture.

Glottale Markierungen vokalinitialer Wörter: Deutsch und Polnisch im Kontrast

Anhand einer Auswahl historischer Reden je dreier prominenter Deutscher und Polen wird eine signalphonetisch gestutzte sprachvergleichende Analyse der glottalen Markierung vokalinitialer Worter durchgefuhrt. Generell erweist sich die glottale Markierung als variabel entlang eines Kontinuums zwischen einem echten glottalen Verschlusslaut (harter Stimmeinsatz) des Initialvokals uber zeitlich nicht exakt koordinierte Glottalisierungen (Knarrstimme) und leichte Reflexe im Grundfrequenzverlauf bis hin zum volligen Fehlen einer Markierung. Insgesamt zeigen sich im Polnischen gegenuber dem Deutschen seltener glottale Markierungen sowie eine sprachubergreifende schwache Abhangigkeit der Markierungshaufigkeit vom Sprechtempo (weniger bei Sprechtempoerhohung). Die Auftretenshaufigkeit glottaler Markierung wird sprachabhangig zudem durch unterschiedliche Faktoren beeinflusst: Fur das Deutsche zeigen sich signifikante Einflusse sowohl des Worttyps (Inhaltsworter mit haufigerer Markierung gegenuber Funktionswortern) als auch der Betonung (betonte Silben mit haufigerer Markierung gegenuber unbetonten), wahrend im Polnischen hier kein Einfluss sichtbar ist. Dafur zeigt das Polnische gegenuber dem Deutschen einen signifikanten Einfluss der Position innerhalb der Phrase (haufigere glottale Markierung in phraseninitialen im Gegensatz zu phrasenmedialen Wortern). Diese sprachspezifischen Unterschiede konnen mit den prosodischen Charakteristika beider Sprachen Zusammenhangen. Im Unterschied zum Deutschen mit einem freien Wortakzent fallt dieser im Polnischen auf die Penultima, ist somit vorhersagbar und bedarf demzufolge keiner zusatzlichen glottalen Markierung im Sprachsignal. Beide Sprachen hingegen zeigen ubereinstimmend einen klar ausgepragten Effekt der Vokalhohe auf das Auftreten der glottalen Markierung (tiefe Vokale > mittlere Vokale > hohe Vokale).