Central vowels in Central Arrernte: A spectrographic study of a small vowel system

Tabain, Marija; Breen, Gavan

doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2010.11.004

Cited by 24 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Although Arrernte may be described as having a three-vowel system /i a ə/, the high vowel /i/ has low lexical frequency and low functional load-see Henderson (2013) and Tabain and Breen (2011) for discussion of the complexities of the Arrernte vowel system, which more recently may also include /u/. Pitjantjatjara and Warlpiri have a clear threevowel system /i, a, u/.…”

Section: Vowel Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stress thus occurs, on the surface, either on the second vowel, if the word begins with a vowel; or on the first vowel, if the word begins with a consonant. Recent work shows that stress in Arrernte is encoded phonetically by extra duration on the vowel, and on the preceding (i.e., CV) consonant, and also by a pitch peak on the vowel (Tabain, under revision; see also Tabain & Breen, 2011). However, the vowels behave differently under stress, with /a/ being relatively more affected than /ə/ (termed "elastic" versus "non-elastic" vowels).…”

Section: Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The English recordings were used for Tabain, Breen, and Butcher (2004), as was one of the Arrernte recordings. Many of the Arrernte recordings were used for Tabain and Breen (2011).…”

Section: Stimuli and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stress Effects on Stop Bursts in Five Languages

Tabain¹,

Breen

Butcher

et al. 2016

Laboratory Phonology

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This study examines the effects of stress on the stop burst in five languages differing in number of places of articulation, as reflected in burst duration, spectral centre of gravity, and spectral standard deviation. The languages studied are English (three places of articulation /p t k/), the Indonesian language Makasar (four places /p t c k/), and the Central Australian languages Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri (both five places /p t ʈ c k/), and Arrernte (six places /p t̪ t ʈ c k/). We find that languages differ in how they manifest stress on the consonant, with Makasar not showing any effect of stress at all, and Warlpiri showing an effect on burst duration, but not on the spectral measures. For the other languages, the velar /k/ has a "darker" quality (i.e., lower spectral centre of gravity), and/or a less diffuse spectrum (i.e., lower standard deviation) under stress; while the alveolar /t/ has a "lighter" quality under stress. In addition, the dental /t̪ / has a more diffuse spectrum under stress. We suggest that this involves enhancement of the features [grave] and [diffuse] under stress, with velars being [+grave] and [-diffuse], alveolars being [-grave], and dentals being [+diffuse]. We discuss the various possible spectral effects of enhancement of these features. Finally, in the languages with five or six places of articulation, the stop burst is longer only for the palatal /c/ and the velar /k/, which have intrinsically long burst durations, and not for the anterior coronals /t̪ t ʈ/, which have intrinsically short burst durations. We suggest that in these systems, [burst duration] is a feature that separates these two groups of consonants.

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Section: Vowel Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stress Effects on Stop Bursts in Five Languages

Tabain¹,

Breen

Butcher

et al. 2016

Laboratory Phonology

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“…Fletcher and Butcher (2014), and references therein). Fletcher and Butcher (2003) and Fletcher (2005) have shown that in Dalabon (the only Australian language for which /ɨ/ has been analysed acoustically), the central vowel is not equivalent to schwa as seen in languages like Central Arrernte (Tabain & Breen 2011) because it occurs in both accented 1 and unaccented syllables, and has a closer realization than schwa. Dixon (2002: 628-631) argues that these 'additional' vowels, such as /ɨ e o/, in Australian language systems have evolved from assimilation processes with neighbouring consonants, but this is a contested view with both Alpher (2005) and Sutton and Koch (2008) noting that assimilation is based on 'aprioristic grounds' (Sutton & Koch 2008: 480).…”

Section: Vowels In Australian Languages/vowels In Wunambalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Australian languages however, being typologically compact, and having a relatively large amount of overlap, do not accord with the idea of vowels being maximally dispersed. Rather, evidence from vowel systems of Australian languages in particular, and speakers' needs for 'articulatory economy' (Fletcher & Butcher 2003: 905) means that vowels are sufficiently dispersed in the vowel space (Fletcher & Butcher 2002, 2003Fletcher 2005: 204-207;Tabain & Breen 2011).…”

Section: Vowels In Australian Languages/vowels In Wunambalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vowels in Wunambal, a Language of the North West Kimberley Region

Loakes

Carr

Gawne

et al. 2015

Australian Journal of Linguistics

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This paper presents an acoustic-phonetic analysis of vowel data from recordings of Wunambal, a Worrorran language of the Kimberley region in North West Australia. Wunambal has been analysed as a six vowel system with the contrasts /i e a o u ɨ/, with /ɨ/ only found in the Northern variety. Recordings from three senior (60+) male speakers of Northern Wunambal were used for this study. These recordings were originally made for documentation of lexical items. All vowel tokens were drawn from words in short carrier phrases, or words in isolation, and we compare vowels from both accented and unaccented contexts. We demonstrate a remarkably symmetrical vowel space, highlighting where the six vowels lie acoustically in relation to each other for the three speakers overall, and for each speaker individually. While all speakers in our corpus used the /ɨ/ vowel, the allophony observed suggests that it has a somewhat different phonemic status than other vowels. Accented and unaccented vowels are not significantly different for any speaker, and are similarly distributed in acoustic space.

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Jaw movement and coronal stop spectra in Central Arrernte

Tabain

2012

Journal of Phonetics

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Central vowels in Central Arrernte: A spectrographic study of a small vowel system

Cited by 24 publications

References 24 publications

Stress Effects on Stop Bursts in Five Languages

Stress Effects on Stop Bursts in Five Languages

Vowels in Wunambal, a Language of the North West Kimberley Region

Jaw movement and coronal stop spectra in Central Arrernte

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