Articulatory similarity in rhotic sounds: A cross-linguistic comparison

Abstract

The question of what phonetic quality defines rhotics as a natural class has been debated. Clinical reports indicate that in many languages, rhotics are developmentally late to emerge and subject to errors that are resistant to remediation, suggesting that rhotics may be distinguished by “complexity in articulation.” In American English, the complexity of articulation may derive from its doubly articulated nature; simultaneous palatal and pharyngeal tongue constrictions are consistent features across variants. For other languages with a rhotic liquid, however, it is unclear if this pharyngeal constriction gesture is also an articulatory feature. Using ultrasound, this study compares rhotics from different language families to describe the presence or absence of pharyngeal constriction. Results indicate that pharyngeal constriction is observed across languages in rhotic allophones that have been described as difficult for children to acquire.

Analysis on Application Field of Ultrasonic Imaging Technique in Linguistic Study

“…It is not clear whether this pharyngeal contraction posture is also a kind of pronunciation function for languages with rhotic accent or rolling tongues through the analysis of language phenomena by using ultrasonic imaging technique. Boyce et al [32] have the comparative study of rhotic accent or rolling tongues phenomena and describe the pharyngeal contraction. Bouavichith et al [33] have a comparative study on the nasal sound produced by velar and palatal in Malayalam language.…”