Phil Howson

Czech trills revisited: An ultrasound EGG and acoustic study

The Czech language has two trills produced with the anterior tongue, represented in the Czech orthography as / r / and /ř/. The phonetic characterization of the latter trill, currently transcribed in the IPA as [ ], has been especially controversial. The present study uses ultrasound, electroglottography (EGG) and acoustic evidence to examine these trills, with the particular aim of achieving a more phonetically grounded representation of /ř/. In the first part of the paper, ultrasound imaging is used to compare tongue positions between / r / and /ř/, ruling out tongue height as the key factor distinguishing the two sounds. The second part uses EGG and acoustic evidence to examine phonatory aspects of production. Results implicate vocal fold abduction as the more robust factor distinguishing / r / from /ř/. Consequently, we posit [ ] as a more appropriate phonetic characterization of /ř/.

Examination of the grooving patterns of the Czech trill-fricative

Abstract The Czech trill-fricative, /r/, is typologically rare among the worlds languages. The present study used electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to examine the cross-sectional morphology during the production of the trill-fricative /r/ compared to the plain trill /r/ and sibilant fricatives /ʃ, ʒ, s, z/. Data collected from 5 native speakers of Czech show that the coronal shape of the tongue for the trill-fricative is flat, similar to that of the plain apical trill and the post-alveolar fricatives, but different from the highly grooved alveolar fricatives. However, toward the tip of the tongue, the trill-fricative is somewhat more grooved than the posterior region. This may help facilitate frication during trilling. The results also indirectly suggest that lateral tongue bracing is important for the articulation of trills. Furthermore, contrary to some previous descriptions in the literature, /r/ is more similar to post-alveolars than alveolars, and exhibits /ʒ/-like articulatory characteristics.

Ultrasound analysis of the Czech phoneme /ř/.

Previous studies comparing the articulation of the contrasting Czech trills /ř/ and /r/ have described /ř/ as being produced with the laminal portion of the tongue at a more anterior location with a narrower channel [Ladefoged and Maddieson, The Sounds of the World’s Languages Blackwell, Oxford (1996)] and using a tighter constriction than /r/ [Dankovicova, JIPA 27, 77–80 (1999)]. These observations correspond to the IPA symbol [r] with a raising diacritic, which replaced the former symbol corresponding to a voiced strident apico‐alveolar trill. The current project uses B‐mode and M‐mode ultrasound imaging and acoustics to test these descriptions of /ř/. Preliminary results based on a single participant revealed nearly identical constriction locations for the two trills, with the /ř/ constriction vibrating a larger tongue surface area. Overall, the tongue surface is lower and more forward in the mouth for /ř/ than for /r/, making [r] with a lowering diacritic a more appropriate choice for representing thi...

A preliminary ultrasound examination of Upper Sorbian rhotics

Upper Sorbian has been influenced tremendously by German, causing it to adopting the uvular rhotic. The current study examines the uvular rhotic and its palatalized counterpart in three vocalic environments (word initial, intervocalic, and word final) with the vowels /a, e, o, i/ using ultrasound. The preliminary results indicate a striking difference between the two phonemes. The plain uvular rhotic was characterized by a retracted and raised tongue dorsum, accompanied by a slightly retroflexed tongue tip. The retroflexed tongue tip is surprising for a uvular rhotic. It could be related to requirements for rhotic production or a remnant of the alveolar rhotic Upper Sorbian had historically. The environments with /i/ were especially striking: the uvular rhotic was palatalized intervocalically; the tongue body was raised near the palatal region, while the dorsum retracted strongly. In other word positions, the rhotic caused a lowering and retraction of /i/. The palatalized rhotic had a raised tongue body, ...

Formant trajectories in the realization of 3 Malayalam rhotics

Malayalam has a typologically rare set of three rhotic consonants—an alveolar trill, an alveolar tap, and a retroflex/postalveolar approximant. The first one is described as velarized, while the other two are somewhat palatalized. Previous acoustic work by Punnoose et al. [Phonetica 70, 274-297 (2013)] has established that the contrast can be differentiated by formant values around the constriction, as well as at the midpoint of adjacent vowels. Less clear, however, is the temporal extent of these formant differences and their overall dynamics. In this study, we analyze three rhotics produced by 10 male Malayalam speakers. Measurements of F1-F4 were taken at 10 points throughout the VCV interval and subjected to a series of Smoothing Spline ANOVAs. The results revealed differences in F2 (tap, approximant > trill) and F3 (tap, trill > approximant) among the rhotics extended through most of the preceding and following vowel duration, while differences in F1 (trill > tap, approximant) were less extensive. Wh...

An acoustic examination of laterals in Lower Sorbian

This study is an acoustic examination of laterals in Lower Sorbian, an endangered language spoken in eastern Germany. Acoustic data for two dialects of Lower Sorbian (one with the dark lateral and one which underwent the sound change to /w/; both have a clear lateral, /l/) was collected and analyzed using a SSANOVA to examine temporal characteristics of these sounds. The findings suggest that there is a difference in the gestural timing between the clear and dark lateral in word initial and final positions. The dark lateral has earlier achievement F2-F1 target, suggesting an earlier achievement of the tongue dorsum retraction; F2-F1 remains low throughout the following vowel, suggesting a backing effect. The clear lateral has intensifying F2-F1 suggesting tongue dorsum retraction over the duration, until the onset of the following vowel. The data also suggests that lenition of the tongue tip in the word final position could have been a trigger for the sound change. In word final position, there is also a ...

An airflow examination of the Czech trills

Previous studies have suggested that there is a difference between the Czech trills /r / and /r/ with respect to the airflow required to produce each trill. This study examines this question using an airflow meter. Five speakers of Czech produced /r / and /r/ in the real words řad “order,” pařat “talon,” tvař “face,” rad “like,” parada “great,” and tvar “shape.” Airflow data were recorded using Macquirer. The data indicate a higher airflow during the production of /r / compared to /r/. /r / was produced with approximately 3 l/s more than /r/. The increased airflow is necessary to cross the boundary of laminar flow into turbulent flow and supports previous findings that /r / is produced with breathy voice, which facilities trilling during frication. The data also suggests that one of the factors that makes the plain trill /r/ difficult to produce is that the airflow required to produce a sonorous trill is tightly constrained. The boundaries between trill production and the production of frication...

Electropalatography examination of groove width in Russian

Previous studies have indicated a difference between voiced and voiceless pairs of consonants with respect pre-constriction vocal tract volume. This article utilizes electropalatography (EPG) to examine the anterior and posterior groove width of palatalized and non-palatalized fricative pairs in Russians in order to observe different degrees of pre-constriction vocal tract volume. Measurements were taken at the point of maximum constriction using Articulate Assistant software. Higher degrees of contact with the palate were taken to indicate smaller pre-constriction vocal tract volume. The results (based on a single speaker), indicate a significant difference in the degree of contact with the palate between the voiced and voiceless pairs of non-palatalized fricatives. However, the palatalized consonants indicated no significant difference in the degree of contact with the palate. The findings suggest that the smaller vocal cavity created by the secondary articulatory gesture for palatalization is sufficien...

An electromagnetic articulography investigation of the Czech trill-fricative

Previous studies have found that the degree of tongue grooving during production of fricatives correlates with their place of articulation. Czech has a cross-linguistically rare alveolar trill-fricative , which would be expected to pattern in terms of the tongue groove with the alveolar fricatives. The current study employs electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to investigate differences in tongue grooving between the trill-fricative and alveolar/post-alveolar fricatives. Czech native speakers produced words with target consonants in word-initial, intervocalic, and word-final positions, with sensors being attached to both the midline and the sides of the tongue. An angle between these sensors was calculated, and taken as a measure of the degree of grooving. The results (currently based on the data obtained from one speaker) showed that, contrary to the prediction, the degree of grooving for the trill-fricative was closer to the post-alveolar fricatives than to the alveolar fricatives, yet unique in its ...