Privative [voice] in American English: Prevoicing in the Southern Dialect. Leigh Hunnicutt and Paul Morris University of Iowa

Transcription

1 Privative [voice] in American English: Prevoicing in the Southern Dialect Leigh Hunnicutt and Paul Morris University of Iowa

2 Introduction Lisker and Abramson (1964) were some of the first researchers to conduct systematic studies of Voice Onset Time (hereafter, VOT) cross-linguistically. They discussed two types of languages with two-way voicing contrasts: 1) True voice languages contrast voicing lead with short voicing lag in utterance initial position (prevoiced vs. short-lag). 2) Aspirating languages contrast short voicing lag with long voicing lag in utterance initial position (short-lag vs. long-lag).

3 Introduction Laryngeal contrast between both true voice and aspirating languages is the feature [voice] (Keating 1984). The feature of contrast in aspirating languages is [spread glottis] ([s.g.]) and the feature of contrast in true voice languages is [voice] (Iverson and Salmons 1995; Beckman et al. 2013). While English has been reported to be an aspirating language with a shortlag/long-lag contrast, a study by Jacewicz, Fox, and Lyle (2009) found variation in the voicing of lenis stops in the English of two different American regions.

4 Introduction The purpose of this study was to determine: 1) Does Southern American English spoken in the Mississippi and Alabama region have a different voicing pattern than other regional Englishes? 2) If there is a difference in the regional English of Mississippi/Alabama, how would that fit into phonological analyses of the phonetic realization of English stops?

5 Prevoiced vs. Short-lag Languages Languages that have true prevoicing generally realize fortis stops with short-lag VOT and lenis stops with voicing lead. Spanish Spanish has been reported to contrast lead and short-lag VOTs in word-initial position by Lisker & Abramson (1964), Zampini & Green (2001), and Magloire & Green (1999). Lisker & Abramson (1964) report the following mean values for Spanish VOT: Table 1. Mean VOT for Spanish stops. /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ 4ms -138ms 9ms -110ms 29ms -108ms

6 Prevoicing and Short-lag Languages Russian has also been reported to contrast lead and short-lag VOTs in utteranceinitial position by Ringen & Kulikov (2012). Table 2. Mean VOT for initial stops in Russian (Ringen & Kulikov 2012, p. 278). Additionally, they report that 97.4% of lenis stops are prevoiced.

7 Short and Long-lag Languages In languages without a voicing contrast, lenis stops are realized phonetically with short-lag VOT, while fortis stops are realized with long-lag VOT. Cantonese has been reported to contrast short-lag and long-lag VOTs (Lisker & Abramson 1964). Table 3. Mean VOT for utterance initial Cantonese stops (Lisker & Abramson 1964). /p/ /p h / /t/ /t h / /k/ /k h / 11 ms 58 ms 15 ms 62 ms 34 ms 68 ms

8 Short and Long-lag Languages German has also been reported to contrast short-lag and long-lag VOTs in utterance-initial position (Jessen and Ringen 2002; Jessen 1998; Angelowa and Pompino-Marschall 1985). Table 4. Mean VOT for initial stops in German (Angelowa & Pompino-Marschall 1985). /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ 36 ms 6 ms 39 ms 11 ms 47 ms 16 ms

9 Inconsistent Prevoicing: Dutch Van Alphen and Smits (2004) classify Dutch as a true voice language. Although they report robust prevoicing duration in initial lenis tokens, they found that only 75% of lenis tokens were prevoiced. Table 5. Percentage and duration (VOT) of prevoiced tokens in Dutch (Van Alphen and Smits 2004). % Prevoiced tokens Duration of prevoicing Labial ms Alveolar ms This contrasts with data from other true voice languages; in Russian, for example, greater than 97% of initial lenis tokens were prevoiced (Ringen and Kulikov 2012).

10 Percentage of Closure that Is Voiced The percentage of the closure that is voiced in intervocalic stops is also used to differentiate between true voice languages and aspirating languages (Beckman, Jessen, and Ringen 2013). True voice: Russian 97% of intervocalic lenis stops are voiced throughout the entire closure (Ringen and Kulikov 2012). Aspirating: German 62.5% of intervocalic lenis stops are voiced throughout 90% of the closure (Beckman et al. 2013).

11 Percentage of Closure that Is Voiced: Two Regional Varieties of English Jacewicz, Fox, and Lyle (2009) found considerable differences in the percentage of closure that is voiced between 2 regional varieties of American English (Wisconsin and North Carolina). They found that for bilabial lenis stops in utterance-medial, word-initial environments, 24% of the tokens produced by speakers from Wisconsin were fully voiced throughout the closure. However, 73% of the bilabial lenis tokens produced by speakers from North Carolina were fully voiced throughout the closure.

12 Percentage of Closure that Is Voiced: Two Regional Varieties of English The percentage of closure that is voiced was also smaller for Wisconsin speakers, with 67% of the closure voiced, compared to 92% of the closure voiced for the North Carolina speakers. In order to determine if similar results would be found in word-internal environments, this study examined the percentage of the closure that was voiced in stops in word-medial position in addition to the voicing of utterance-initial stops.

13 English English is typically described as a short-lag/long-lag language (Lisker and Abramson 1964; Flege 1982; Smith 1978; Westbury 1979). Lisker and Abramson (1964) show that English lenis stops are realized with either short-lag or prevoicing. However, 95% of the prevoiced tokens came from 1 speaker. Table 6. Mean VOT for stops in isolated words in English (Lisker and Abramson 1964). /b/ /p/ /d/ /t/ /g/ /k/ 1/-101 ms 58 ms 5/-102 ms 70 ms 21/-88 ms 80 ms

14 Voicing in English Other studies conducted on English lenis VOT values, such as Suomi (1980), Zue (1976), Kewley-Port (1982), Klatt (1975), reported exclusively short-lag data for lenis stops, with no tokens produced as prevoiced. Some researchers have reported English lenis VOTs similar to Lisker and Abramson (1964), with the majority of lenis stops being realized as short-lag. Others have reported greater variation in the realization of English lenis stops.

15 Voicing in English Westbury (1979) reported that across all places of articulation, 57% of initial lenis stops were prevoiced. Table 7. Duration (VOT) and percentage of prevoiced tokens in English (Westbury 1979, as cited in Docherty 1992). Prevoiced Short-lag Mean VOT in (ms) % b d g b d g

16 Voicing in English Flege (1982) also reported a high percentage of prevoiced lenis tokens, though his experiment was only conducted with bilabial lenis stops. Table 8. Duration (VOT) and percentage of prevoiced tokens in English (Flege 1982, as cited in Docherty 1992). Prevoiced Short-lag Mean VOT in (ms) % b b Further, Flege (1982) found that in the majority of prevoiced lenis stops (114 out of 117 tokens), the phonation of the stop was uninterrupted until the onset of the following vowel.

17 Voicing in English Lorge (1967, as cited in Docherty 1992) reports that less than half of alveolar stops in initial position were produced with voicing lead. None of the bilabial lenis stops examined for that study were produced with prevoicing. Table 9. Duration (VOT) and percentage of prevoiced tokens in English (Lorge 1967, as cited in Docheerty 1992). Prevoiced Short-lag Mean VOT in (ms) % b - - d b 12 - d 15 59

18 Methods - Participants 7 subjects: 4 male and 3 female. 3 of the participants were born and raised in Alabama (1 male, 2 female). 4 of the participants were born and raised in Mississippi (3 male, 1 female). Ages ranged from 22 and 39.

19 Methods - Stimuli Subjects were recorded reading a word list twice. 156 words and 36 fillers, presented in randomized order. 10 tokens for each place of articulation for both initial and word-medial (morpheme-initial). VOT measurements were taken from a waveform with a spectrogram for reference.

20 Measurements of Word-Initial Lenis and Fortis Stops Figure 1. Prevoiced token (spkr 1): /big/ (-62.9 ms). Figure 2. Short-lag token (spkr 1): /pig/ (42.3 ms). Stop release Beginning of voicing

21 Measurements of Word-Medial, Syllable-Initial Tokens Figure 3: Fortis token with no voicing during closure (spkr 5): /cocktail/ (closure duration: 54.4 ms; VOT:77.3 ms). Stop release Stop release

22 Measurements of Word-Medial, Syllable-Initial Tokens Figure 4. Fortis token with voicing tail (Spkr 2): /pigpen/ (cl duration: 82.9ms; voicing duration 24.4ms; 29.4% of closure voiced. Beginning of closure End of voicing tail Stop release

23 Measurements of Word-Medial, Syllable-Initial Tokens Figure 5. Lenis token (Spkr 5): /weekday/ (cl duration: 86.7ms; voicing duration 79.7ms; 91.9% of closure voiced. Beginning of closure Beginning of voicing Stop release

24 Results: Word-Initial Stops Overall, our data show that lenis stops in Southern American English are produced with both short-lag and lead voicing, with the majority of lenis stops realized as prevoiced. Table 10: Mean VOT of word-initial lenis tokens. /b/ 11.8/-89.6 ms /d/ 17.9/-87.6 ms /g/ 23.9/-80.6 ms All seven of our speakers produced lenis tokens with prevoicing; additionally, all of our speakers produced prevoiced lenis stops in greater than 50% of word-initial tokens.

25 Results: Word-Initial Stops The duration of voicing lead in word-initial lenis tokens was robust across all places of articulation. Table 11: Percentage and Duration (VOT) of voiced tokens in Southern American English. % Prevoiced Tokens Duration of Prevoicing Bilabial 69.2% ms Alveolar 70.3% ms Velar 78.9% ms The percentage of word-initial lenis tokens that had voicing lead was 71.2% across all places of articulation.

26 Results: Word-Initial Stops For fortis stops, our data was consistent with the mean VOT values that have been found in previous studies of English word-initial stops. Table 12: Mean VOT of word-initial fortis tokens. /p/ 69.1 ms /t/ 78.9 ms /k/ 73.9 ms All speakers produced fortis stops in word-initial position with long-lag VOT.

27 Results: Medial Stop Closure Voicing Our data show that 68.4% of lenis tokens in word-medial, syllableinitial contexts were fully voiced throughout the closure. Table 13: Percentage of lenis tokens voiced through the entire closure. % Fully Voiced Bilabial 88.5% Alveolar 61.2% Velar 51.8% Across all places of articulation, an average of 72.6% of the closure was voiced in word-medial lenis stops.

28 Discussion: Initial Lenis Stops Though other researchers have found that there is some variation in whether English lenis stops are realized as prevoiced or short-lag, the percentages of prevoiced lenis tokens that our data show exceeds the amount of variation that has previously been shown. Table 14: Comparison of the overall reported percentage of prevoiced lenis stops. % Prevoiced Overall Lisker & Abramson (1964) 20% Smith (1978) 48% Westbury (1979) 57% Flege (1982) 59% (bilabial only) Present Study 71.2%

29 Discussion: Initial Lenis Stops The percentage of initial lenis stops that were prevoiced in this study is not as high as that found in prototypical true voice languages such as the 97% that Ringen and Kulikov (2012) found for Russian. However, the 71.2% of prevoiced initial lenis stops found in this study is comparable to Van Alphen and Smits (2004) Dutch data, in which only 75% of initial lenis stops were prevoiced. The researchers nevertheless concluded that Dutch is a true voice language.

30 Discussion: Initial Fortis Stops However, our data also showed that fortis stops were found to have VOT values consistent with those reported in other studies. Table 15: Mean VOT values for fortis stops. Our Average VOT (ms) L&A (1964) Average VOT (ms) Bilabial Alveolar Velar The spread between prevoiced initial lenis tokens and aspirated initial fortis tokens looks similar to the contrast argued to occur in Swedish.

31 Discussion: Swedish Stop Series Helgason and Ringen (2008) found that Swedish has both a prevoiced lenis series of stops and an aspirated fortis series of stops. Table 16: Mean VOT values for Swedish stops (Helgason & Ringen 2008). Stop series bilabial dental velar lenis -96 ms -90 ms -61 ms fortis 49 ms 65 ms 78 ms They conclude from this data that in Swedish, both [voice] and [spread glottis] are active.

32 Discussion: Word-Medial Lenis Stops In their study of North Carolina speakers, Jacewicz et al. (2009) found that 73% of lenis tokens in utterance-medial, word-initial position were fully voiced through the stop closure. However, Jacewicz et al. (2009) were only examining bilabial stops and all following a voiced consonant. In the present study, 68.4% of lenis tokens in word-medial, morpheme-initial position were fully voiced throughout the closure. The context of our word-medial lenis stops included both voiced and voiceless consonants immediately preceding the target stop.

33 Discussion: Word-Medial Lenis Stops It has been suggested that variability in voicing in medial contexts can be due to a phonetic process of passive voicing (Keating 1996). Passive voicing occurs when a target stop is in a voiced environment, and voicing the stop does not have to involve any active voicing gestures. Beckman et al. (2013) conclude that in German, the 62.5% of intervocalic stops that were fully voiced throughout the closure to passive voicing. However, many of the target stops in word-medial contexts in our study were preceded by a voiceless consonant, which would not produce an environment favorable to passive voicing.

34 Conclusion: Preliminary Findings Our preliminary findings could be used to support a claim that [voice] is an active feature in Southern American English. There is consistent prevoicing in utterance-initial contexts, where passive voicing is unlikely to occur, in line with what has been presented for a [voice] language like Dutch. There are also consistently high percentages of word-medial stops that are fully voiced throughout the closure, even in contexts that would be unfavorable to passive voicing.

35 Conclusion: Wrapping Up Our study found that lenis stops in Southern American English as spoken in Alabama and Mississippi are produced as both short lag and prevoiced. In utterance initial contexts, lenis stops were produced as prevoiced in 71.2% of the tokens across all places of articulation. All of our speakers prevoiced greater than 50% of their lenis tokens. This suggests that in initial position, lenis stops in Southern American English contrast the feature [voice], as in Dutch.

36 Conclusion: Wrapping Up In word-medial contexts, lenis stops were produced with voicing throughout the entire stop closure in 68.4% of tokens. Even in contexts where the target stop followed a voiceless stop consonant, greater than 50% of lenis tokens were produced as fully voiced throughout the closure. Among lenis stops that were not fully voiced throughout the closure, the average percentage of the closure that was voiced was 72.6%. This is higher than the percentage found by Beckman et al. (2013) for German, an aspirating language, and their tokens were all placed in intervocalic contexts which would be most favorable to passive voicing. This further supports the suggestion that Southern American English has an active feature [voice] in the lenis stop series.

37 Conclusion: Wrapping Up However, in word-initial contexts, our data also showed that fortis stops were realized as long-lag by all speakers, with average VOT values comparable to those found in previous studies of English. In word-medial, morpheme initial contexts, only 4 of the fortis tokens (less than 1%) were produced with more than 30% of the closure voiced. Voicing tail could reasonably be expected to extend into the closure even in fortis stops. This supports the conclusion that Southern American English has an active [spread glottis] feature in addition to an active [voice] feature, similar to what has been found for Swedish by Helgason and Ringen (2008).

38 Selected References Beckman, Jill, Michael Jessen, & Catherine Ringen (2013). Empirical evidence for laryngeal features: Aspirating vs. True voice languages, Journal of Linguistics, 49, Flege, James E (1982). Laryngeal timing and phonation onset in utterance initial English stops. Journal of Phonetics 10, Helgason, Pétur, & Catherine Ringen (2008). Voicing and aspiration in Swedish stops, Journal of Phonetics 36, Jacewicz, Ewa, Robert Fox, & Samantha Lyle (2009). Variation in stop consonant voicing in two regional varieties of American English, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 39(3), 313. Keating, Patricia (1984). Phonetic and phonological representation of stop consonant voicing. Language 60 (2), Lisker, Leigh & Arthur S. Abramson (1964). A cross-language study of voicing in initial stops: Acoustical measurements, Word 20, Ringen, Catherine & Vladimir Kulikov (2012). Voicing in Russian stops: Cross-linguistic implications, Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 20, Smith, Bruce L. (1978). Temporal aspects of English speech production: a developmental perspective. Journal of Phonetics 6, Van Alphen, Petra M. and Roel Smits. (2004). Acoustical and perceptual analysis of the voicing distinction in Dutch initial plosives: The role of prevoicing. Journal of phonetics 32(4): Westbury, John R. (1979). Aspects of the temporal control of voicing in consonant clusters in English. Texas Linguistic Forum 14,