The acoustics of Lewis Gaelic stop consonants

The acoustics of Lewis Gaelic stop consonants

Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith

[email protected]

[email protected]

University of Glasgow

Overview

• Gaelic: a sociophonetician’s perspective• Stop consonants in Gaelic• Acoustics of stops in Gaelic• Research questions• Methods• Results• Ongoing work• Discussion

Gaelic: a sociophonetician’s perspective

• Bilingualism• Language contact (Thomason 2007)• Obsolescence and revitalisation (Dorian 1981,

Jones 1998)

• Acoustic phonetic study of linguistic variation

Stop consonants in Gaelic

• Stops• Word initial

/ph th kh/ and /p t k/• Word medial and word final

/hp ht hk/ and /p t k/ (Ladefoged et al. 1998)• (Also palatalised vs. velarised distinction)

Initial stops

bog ‘soft’

pòg ‘a kiss’

VOTVOT Vowel voicingVowel voicing ClosureClosure

Vowel voicingVowel voicing ClosureClosure

Pre-aspiration

• ‘Delay in the offset of normal voicing’ (Laver 1994:150)

• Vocal fold vibration and airflow independent

Pre-aspiration

smoc ‘smoke’

snog ‘nice’

Vowel voicingVowel voicing CloseClosePre-aspPre-asp

Vowel voicingVowel voicing ClosureClosure

Pre-aspiration zoom in

smoc ‘smoke’

Vowel voicingVowel voicing CloseClose

Pre-aspPre-asp

Pre-aspiration zoom in

smoc ‘smoke’

CloseClose

Pre-aspPre-aspBreathy VoiceBreathy Voice NoiseNoise

Research Questions

• What are the phonetic correlates of the contrast /ph th kh/ and /p t k/ in modern Gaelic?

• Is this system changing?

Methods

• Native speakers of Lewis Gaelic• 3 older generation, 3 younger• Recording conditions• Word list data• 2257 tokens analysed• Non-parametric statistical tests

Durational measures• Segmenting on the waveform in Praat

Modal voiceModal voiceVowelVowel

Pre-aspirationPre-aspirationBVBV NoiseNoise

a c a

• VOT: Cho and Ladefoged (1999)

Results – word initial

Results – word medial and final

• Pre-aspiration makes the contrast

Differences - initial

Differences – medial and final

• Calculated proportionally as well as raw numbers

• Breathy voice, closure, vot ns.• Detail of pre-aspiration

Can you hear the difference?

Older speaker: boc ‘male goat’ Younger speaker: boc ‘male goat’

Younger speaker: smoc ‘smoke’

Older speaker: smoc ‘smoke’

Summary

• Younger speakers:• Longer VOT word initial position• Shorter pre-aspiration word medial and final• Pre-aspiration different: less voiceless

Ongoing work

• Adapted Zero Crossing Rate (Gordeeva and Scobbie 2010)

• In collaboration with Olga Gordeeva• Quantifies pre- and post- aspiration• Counts zero crossings in a band pass filtered

sound file

Some preliminary results:Initial /kh/, /k/

Word medial /hk/, /k/

Conclusion

• Apparent time differences• Comparison to Ladefoged et al. (1998): Real

time change?

Conclusion

• Apparent time differences• Comparison to Ladefoged et al. (1998): Real

time change?

Conclusions

• Gradient phonetic shift (Babel 2009, Bybee 2010)

• Obsolescence / contact / ‘normal’ change?• Lexical attrition

References• Babel, M., 2009. The phonetic and phonological effects of obsolescence in Northern Paiute. In J.

Stanford and D. Preston, eds., Variation in indigenous minority languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

• Bybee, J., 2010. Language usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press• Cho, T., and Ladefoged, P., 1999. Variation and universals in VOT: evidence from 18 endangered

languages. Journal of phonetics, 27, pp. 207-229• Dorian, N., 1981. Language death: the life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University

of Pennsylvania Press • Gordeeva, O., and Scobbie, J., 2010. Preaspiration as a correlate of word-final voice in Scottish

English fricatives. In S. Fuchs, M. Toda, M. Zygis, eds., Turbulent sounds: an interdisciplinary guide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter

• Jones, Mari, 1998. Obsolescence and revitalization: linguistic change in two sociolinguistically contrasting Welsh communities. Oxford: Blackwell

• Ladefoged, P., and Ladefoged, J., Turk, A., Hind, K., Skilton, St. J., 1998. Phonetic structures of Scottish Gaelic. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 28, pp. 1-41

• Laver, J., 1994. Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press• MacKinnon, K., 2010. Scottish Gaelic today: social history and contemporary status. In M. Ball and

N. Müller, eds., The Celtic languages. 2nd. ed. London: Routledge • Silverman, D., 2003. On the rarity of pre-aspirated stops. Journal of linguistics, 39:3. pp. 575-598• Thomason, S., 2007. Language contact: an introduction. 4th ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

Press

Mòran Taing• Collaborator: Olga Gordeeva, Acapela Group

[email protected]• My informants: Christeen Combe, Aonghas

MacCoinnich and all those who wished to remain anonymous

• Research funded by a Kelvin-Smith Scholarship, University of Glasgow

The acoustics of Lewis Gaelic stop consonants

Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith

[email protected]

[email protected]

University of Glasgow