Articulatory Uniformity Through Articulatory Reuse: insights from an Ultrasound Study of Sūzhōu Chinese

Faytak, Matthew

doi:10.5070/p7141042486

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In terms of articulatory gestures, some studies showed virtually identical gestures of an apical vowel and its preceding consonant, e.g. the apical [®] in Suzhou Chinese (Faytak 2018). Other studies observed that an apical vowel may have different gestures relative to its preceding consonant, e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, it is observed in only two of the 88 Chinese dialects in the survey of Lee & Zee (2017), although its counterparts exist in a number of Wu dialects (Zhu 2004). For example, Suzhou Chinese has contrastive unrounded and rounded apical vowels, phonetically realized as syllabic fricatives [z] and [z W ], with a loose degree of constriction (Faytak 2018). 5 • Second, the alveolar apical [®] in Hefei Mandarin appears after homorganic consonants (e.g.…”

Section: Apical Vowels In Hefei Mandarinmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The articulatory properties of apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin

Hui-fang¹,

Wu²,

Li³

et al. 2023

Journal of the International Phonetic Association

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Apical vowels are widely observed across Chinese dialects, such as the rime of [sɹ̩55] ‘think’ in Mandarin Chinese, which is a syllabic approximant homorganic to its preceding sibilant. The apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin differ from those in Mandarin Chinese and most other languages in three aspects: (i) there are three phonetic apical vowels [ɹ̩], [ɹ̩ʷ], and [ɻ̩] while others usually have one or two, (ii) the alveolar apical [ɹ̩] appears after both homorganic and non-homorganic consonants, e.g. [sɹ̩] vs. [pɹ̩], and (iii) there is a phonological contrast between an unrounded apical [ɹ̩] and a rounded apical [ɹ̩ʷ], e.g. [sɹ̩] vs. [sɹ̩ʷ]. The articulatory properties of the three apical vowels were examined in this study using ultrasound techniques and the results revealed that: (i) the commonalities of tongue gestures for the apical vowels include a retracted tongue root, a lowered tongue dorsum or blade, or both, together with a coronal constriction implemented with the blade and/or the tip; (ii) lip gestures are involved in distinguishing the three apical segments; (iii) the three segments each have its distinct articulatory gestures within a speaker that cannot be simply attributed to the influence from their preceding consonants, with [ɹ̩] and [ɹ̩ʷ] involving a grooving in the front part of the tongue and [ɻ̩] involving a retraction of tongue body in the back region of the vocal tract; (iv) the articulatory gesture of [ɹ̩] after a homorganic consonant, e.g. in [sɹ̩], is similar to that after a non-homorganic consonant, e.g. in [pɹ̩], suggesting an independent articulatory target for this segment.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Apical Vowels In Hefei Mandarinmentioning

confidence: 99%

The articulatory properties of apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin

Hui-fang¹,

Wu²,

Li³

et al. 2023

Journal of the International Phonetic Association

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such tradeoffs between articulatory and acoustic uniformity have also been observed for oral and nasal vowels (Shosted et al 2012, Carignan 2013) and stop voicing (Keating 2003); in some cases, the phonetic target is more clearly articulatory rather than auditory-acoustic (e.g. , Faytak 2018. Further research is necessary to determine the nature of phonetic targets that uniformity may restrict, and the additional phonetic constraints (e.g.…”

Section: The Nature Of Phonetic Targetsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Uniformity in phonetic realization: Evidence from sibilant place of articulation in American English

Chodroff¹,

Wilson²

2022

Language

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Phonetic realization is highly variable and highly structured within and across talkers. We examine three constraints that could structure the phonetic space of related speech sounds: target, contrast, and pattern uniformity. Target uniformity requires a uniform mapping from distinctive features to their corresponding phonetic targets within a talker, contrast uniformity requires a consistent difference in the phonetic targets that realize featural contrasts across talkers, and pattern uniformity requires a uniform template of phonetic targets across talkers. Focusing on American English sibilant fricatives, we measure and compare each constraint's influence on the phonetic targets corresponding to place of articulation. We find that target uniformity is the strongest constraint: each talker realizes a given distinctive feature value in highly similar ways across related sounds. Together with similar findings for other sound classes, this result reveals fine-grained systematicity in the mapping from phonology to phonetics and has implications for theories of speech production and speech perception.*

show abstract

“…The terminology 'apical vowels' and the non-IPA symbols [ɿ ʅ] used to transcribe them date back to Karlgren (1915)'s study of Standard Chinese (SC), and have been widely used since then among researchers working on the phonetics and phonology of Chinese (R. Cheng 1966, Trubetzkoy 1969, C. Cheng 1973, Howie 1976, Svantesson 1984, Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, Zee & Lee 2007, Faytak & Lin 2015, Shi, Peng & Liu 2015, Faytak 2018. Although these symbols are widely used in the transcription of Chinese (e.g.…”

Section: Apical Vowels In Standard Chinesementioning

confidence: 99%

On the nature of apical vowel in Jixi-Hui Chinese: Acoustic and articulatory data

Shao¹,

Ridouane²

2023

Journal of the International Phonetic Association

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Chinese languages have a set of segments known as apical vowels, which have been analysed in previous studies as either genuine vowels, fricative vowels, fricative consonants, or approximants. This study is concerned with the apical vowel attested in Jixi-Hui Chinese. We examine this segment from acoustic and articulatory perspectives and argue that it is best defined as a fricative /z/. Phonologically, Jixi-Hui Chinese /z/ is a distinct phoneme that is exclusively attested in syllable nucleus position where it constitutes a tone-bearing unit and which can undergo tonal sandhi processes. It can appear not only after coronal sibilants /s ts tsʰ/, but also after bilabials /p pʰ/ and nasals /m n/. Acoustically, we show that this segment contains frication noise in its initial phase in the majority of cases, with a formant structure towards its end. The analysis of the zero-crossing rate confirms this significant presence of noise, clearly distinguishing this segment from genuine vowels. Furthermore, articulatory analyses of ultrasound data show that /z/ has a near-identical tongue shape to fricative /s/ on both mid-sagittal and coronal planes, in both sibilant and non-sibilant contexts. These findings are viewed in light of the variability in the way /z/ is phonetically implemented in Jixi-Hui Chinese.

show abstract

Articulatory Uniformity Through Articulatory Reuse: insights from an Ultrasound Study of Sūzhōu Chinese

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

The articulatory properties of apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin

The articulatory properties of apical vowels in Hefei Mandarin

Uniformity in phonetic realization: Evidence from sibilant place of articulation in American English

On the nature of apical vowel in Jixi-Hui Chinese: Acoustic and articulatory data

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About