Palatalization in Central Bùlì

Palatalization is a process through which non-palatal consonants acquire palatality, either through a shift in place of articulation from a non-palatal region to the hard palate or through the superimposition of palatal qualities on a non-palatal consonant. In both cases, there is a front, non-low vowel or a palatal glide that triggers the process. In this paper, I examine the palatalization phenomena in Bùlì using Feature Geometry within the non-linear generative phonological framework. I argue that both full and secondary palatalization occur in Buli. The paper further explains that, the long high front vowel /i:/, triggers the formation of a palato-alveolar affricate which is realized in the Central dialect of Bùlì, where the Northern and Central dialects retain the derived palatal stop.

Keele asend eesti palatalisatsioonis

Artiklis uuritakse palatalisatsiooni mõju konsonandi ja talle eelneva vokaali häälduskohale ja kestusele. Katse viidi läbi elektromagnetartikulograafi abil, mis mõõdab katseisiku artikulaatoritele liimitud sensorite liikumist kolmemõõtmelises ruumis. Tulemused näitasid, et palataliseerimisega kaasnes konsonandi ja talle eelneva vokaali hääldamisel keele kõrgem ja eespoolsem asend. Keele eesosa kõrgus oli vähesel määral palatalisatsioonist mõjutatud, kuid kõrguse muutumine ei olnud süsteemne. Tulemused ei näidanud palatalisatsiooni süstemaatilist efekti ka konsonandi ja talle eelneva vokaali kestusele. Ainult üksikutel juhtudel pikenes hääliku kestus palataliseeritud kontekstis olulisel määral. Abstract. Anton Malmi and Pärtel Lippus: The position of the tongue in Estonian palatalization. This article analyses the effect of secondary palatalization of alveolar consonants on the place of articulation and the segmental duration in Estonian CVC words. The study was carried out with 21 test subjects using a Carstens AG501 electromagnetic articulograph. The results show that the place of articulation of palatalized consonants was always higher and more anterior than that of non-palatalized consonants. The back of the tongue was raised towards the hard palate, but the height of the apical part of the tongue was not systematically affected by palatalization. With few exceptions, the duration of the vowels and consonants were not affected by palatalization. Keywords: articulatory phonetics, experimental phonetics, articulation, palatalization, Estonian, duration, Carstens AG501

An ultrasound study of Connemara Irish palatalization and velarization

We present the first ultrasound analysis of the secondary palatalization contrast in Irish, analyzing data from five speakers from the Connemara dialect group. Word-initial /pʲ(bʲ)pˠ(bˠ)tʲtˠkʲkˠfʲfˠsʲsˠxʲxˠ/ are analyzed in the context of /iːuː/. We find, first, that tongue body position robustly distinguishes palatalized from velarized consonants, across place of articulation, manner, and vowel place contexts, with palatalized consonants having fronter and/or higher tongue body realizations than their velarized counterparts. This conclusion holds equally for labial consonants, contrary to some previous descriptive claims. Second, the nature and degree of palatalization and velarization depend in systematic ways on consonant place and manner. In coronal consonants, for example, velarization is weaker or absent. Third, the Irish consonants examined resist coarticulation in backness with a following vowel. In all of these respects Irish palatalization is remarkably similar to that of Russian. Our results also support an independent role for pharyngeal cavity expansion/retraction in the production of the palatalization contrast. Finally, we discuss preliminary findings on the dynamics of the secondary articulation gestures. Our use of principal component analysis (PCA) in reaching these findings is also of interest, since PCA has not been employed a great deal in analyses of tongue body movement.

Palatal click allophony in Mangetti Dune !Xung: Implications for sound change

Click consonants are well known for lacking allophonic variation. This lack of variation has been attributed to the existence of articulatory constraints on the coronal constrictions that are imposed by the existence of a second dorsal constriction. The current study investigates temporal acoustic differences among the four contrastive coronal click types in the /i/ and /u/ contexts in Mangetti Dune !Xung. Clicks have been described as being either non-affricated or affricated. However, when vowel context is taken into consideration, the typology is more complex. The alveolar click is non-affricated in both vowel contexts. The dental and lateral clicks are fricated in both contexts. The palatal click in the /i/ context has two clear anterior and posterior transients, followed by palatal frication, while in the /u/ context it is non-affricated. Results are consistent with an analysis of the palatal click in the /i/ context as involving allophonic secondary palatalization. There are trading relations between the duration of the click burst, frication noise and aspiration noise phases. Results have implications for understanding the synchronic and diachronic phonology of click consonants.

Retroflexion and retraction revised

Arguing against Bhat’s (1974) claim that retroflexion cannot be correlated with retraction, the present article illustrates that retroflexes are always retracted, though retraction is not claimed to be a sufficient criterion for retroflexion. The cooccurrence of retraction with retroflexion is shown to make two further implications; first, that non-velarized retroflexes do not exist, and second, that secondary palatalization of retroflexes is phonetically impossible. The process of palatalization is shown to trigger a change in the primary place of articulation to non-retroflex. Phonologically, retraction has to be represented by the feature specification [+back] for all retroflex segments.