An acoustic phonetic analysis of Lewis Gaelic stop consonants Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith University of Glasgow

Overview Stops in Gaelic Approaches Research questions Methods Results Conclusions

Stops in Gaelic 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

VOT vs. Pre-aspiration ‘the interval between the release of the stop and the onset of glottal vibration, that is, voicing’ (Lisker and Abramson 1964:389) ‘delay in the offset of normal voicing’ (Laver 1994:150) Aspiration ≠ pre-aspiration (Silverman 2003)

Medial and final stops 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

Approaches Ladefoged et al. (1998) Ní Chasaide (1985) Sociophonetics and consonants (Foulkes and Docherty 1999)

Research questions A more complete analysis than Ladefoged et al. (1998) Is this system undergoing apparent time change?

Methods Native speakers of Lewis Gaelic 3 ‘older’ (45-55), 3 ‘younger’ (20-24) Recording conditions Word list data 2257 tokens analysed Non-parametric statistical tests

Measures: durational Initial: VOT, vowel Medial: vowel, modal voice, pre-aspiration, breathy voice, voiceless pre-aspiration, closure, VOT Final: vowel, modal voice, pre-aspiration, breathy voice, voiceless pre-aspiration, closure

acaaca Measures: durational Segmenting on the waveform in Praat Modal voice Vowel Pre-aspiration BV Noise

Measures: dynamic noise-based Quantification of noisiness Anticipatory and carry-over effects (Gobl and Ní Chasaide 1999) Adapted zero crossing rate (Gordeeva and Scobbie 2010) Collaborating with Olga Measure of noise from the glottis in periodic and aperiodic sections BV measures (HNR, spectral tilt, jitter shimmer) Standard zero crossings (Bombien 2006)

BP filtered at 5000Hz and 1.5 x F0 Effects of filtering (Gordeeva and Scobbie 2010:18) Perceptual superiority of this measure BP ZCR ‘bus’ unfiltered ‘bus’ filtered

Applied to initial stops càl ‘cabbage’

Results: durational VOT in initial stops Effect of place of articulation (cf. Cho and Ladefoged 1999) n = 1285

Results: durational Vowel length – the action is in the aspirated series (cf. Kessinger and Blumstein 1997) n = 642

Results: BP ZCR – Initial system n = 270

Medial system Pre-aspiration longer in aspirated series Some breathy voice in unaspirated VOT ns. n = 54

Medial system Vowel length (cf. Ní Chasaide 1985) % duration of pre-aspiration word medial / h t/ according to vowel length n = 36

Results: BP ZCR – Medial system n = 180

Apparent time change VOT longer in aspirated series for younger speakers (aspirated series again) n = 642

Results: BP ZCR – Initial change n = 90

Speech rate Young people speak faster? Effects on VOT (Allen et al. 2003, Pind 1995) Ratios VOT Vowel Pre-aspiration Vowel Burst Vowel Start Vowel end Closure

Apparent time change Pre-aspiration shorter Pre-aspiration different % modal voice, breathy voice and voiceless pre-asp in word medial stops n = 157

Results: BP ZCR – Medial change n = 36

Summary of results YP longer VOT YP shorter and different pre-aspiration Benefits of a noise-based dynamic measure Results suggest can separate phonemic categories and age groups across the syllable

Conclusions: systems Support for Kessinger and Blumstein (1997): aspirated series show most variation Phonetically aspiration and pre-aspiration are not the same BUT aspiration functions as a system: – Vowel length – Change in younger speakers

Conclusions: apparent time change Pre-aspiration results: – Diachronic instability of pre-aspiration (Silverman 2003) – Influence of English? (Contact, obsolescence…) – Greying of phonemic categories due to lexical attrition VOT results: – Stops functioning as a system so somehow compensating? Implications

References Allen, J., Miller, L., and DeSteno, D., Individual talker differences in voice-onset-time. Journal of Acoustic Society of America, 113:1, pp Bombien, L., Voicing alterations in Icelandic – a photoglottographic and acoustic investigation. In J. Harrington, C. Mooshammer, F Kleber, eds., Arbeitsberichte de sInstituts fürPhonetik der Universität Kiel, 37, pp Kiel: Universität Kiel Cho, T., and Ladefoged, P., Variation and universals in VOT: evidence from 18 endangered languages. Journal of phonetics, 27, pp Foulkes, P., and Docherty, G., Urban Voices. London: Arnold Gobl, C., and Ní Chasaide, A., Voice source variation in the vowel as a function of consonantal context. In W. J. Hardcastle and N. Hewlett, eds., Coarticulation. Cambridge: CUP. pp 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 Ladefoged, P., Ladefoged, J., Turk, A., St. John, S., Phonetic structures of Scottish Gaelic. Journal of the international phonetic association, 28, pp Kessinger, R., and Blumstein, S., Effects of speaking rate on voice-onset-time in Thai, French, and English. Journal of Phonetics, 25:2, pp Laver, J., Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Lisker, L., Closure duration and the intervocalic voiced-voiceless distinction in English. Language, 33:1, pp Lisker, L., and Abramson, A., A cross-language study of voicing in initial stops: Acoustical measurements. Word 20, pp Ní Chasaide, A., Preaspiration in phonological stop contrasts: an instrumental phonetic study. PhD thesis, University of Bangor Pind, J Speaking rate, voice-onset time, and quantity: The search for higher-order invariants for two Icelandic speech cues. Perception and Psychophysics, 57, pp. 291–304 Silverman, D., On the rarity of pre-aspirated stops. Journal of linguistics 39:3, pp

Mòran taing Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith University of Glasgow

A word on breathy voice Ní Chasaide (1985:139) sees BV as purely physiological Some evidence to support this: no place effect Some against: YP have more in velars

Word initial apparent time change Comparison to Ladefoged et al. (1998) Word initial /t h / and /t/

Word medial apparent time change Word medial / h k/, noise and VOT

Closure durations Closure durations (Lisker 1957) Longer in aspirated series We found significantly longer closure durations for coronals and bilabials in the aspirated series