The acoustics of Lewis Gaelic stop consonants Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith 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 /p h t h k h / and /p t k/ Word medial and word final / h p h t h k/ and /p t k/ (Ladefoged et al. 1998) (Also palatalised vs. velarised distinction)

Initial stops bog ‘soft’ pòg ‘a kiss’ VOT Vowel voicing Closure Vowel voicing Closure

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 voicing Close Pre-asp Vowel voicing Closure

Pre-aspiration zoom in smoc ‘smoke’ Vowel voicing Close Pre-asp

Pre-aspiration zoom in smoc ‘smoke’ Close Pre-asp Breathy Voice Noise

Research Questions What are the phonetic correlates of the contrast /p h t h k h / 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 voice Vowel Pre-aspiration BV Noise acaaca

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 /k h /, /k/

Word medial / h k/, /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., 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., Language usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cho, T., and Ladefoged, P., Variation and universals in VOT: evidence from 18 endangered languages. Journal of phonetics, 27, pp Dorian, N., Language death: the life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Gordeeva, O., and Scobbie, J., 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, 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., Phonetic structures of Scottish Gaelic. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 28, pp Laver, J., Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press MacKinnon, K., Scottish Gaelic today: social history and contemporary status. In M. Ball and N. Müller, eds., The Celtic languages. 2 nd. ed. London: Routledge Silverman, D., On the rarity of pre-aspirated stops. Journal of linguistics, 39:3. pp Thomason, S., Language contact: an introduction. 4 th ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Mòran Taing Collaborator: Olga Gordeeva, Acapela Group 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 University of Glasgow