Hyperarticulation in short intonational phrases in three Australian languages

Abstract

In Lindblom's Hyper-and Hypo-articulation (H & H) theory, speech varies between clear and less clear depending on the communicative context. Hyperarticulation is known to reflect prosodic boundary information and prosodic prominence or focus. The realisation of hyperarticulation appears to differ between languages. In this study of three Australian languages, it is asked whether, in pre-boundary position in short prosodic phrases, vowel lengthening tends to co-occur with acoustic evidence of hyperarticulation. Further, it is asked whether hyperarticulation is stronger in the pre-boundary syllable than in the post-boundary one. It is demonstrated that pre-boundary lengthening in short intonational phrases in Australian languages tends to co-occur with an increase in vowel peripherality.

Prosodically Conditioned Consonant Duration in Djambarrpuyŋu

“…Jepson and Stoakes (2015) also showed that consonants after phonemically short vowels have longer duration than consonants after phonemically long vowels. As is the case throughout the Australian Indigenous languages (see e.g., Butcher, 2006), the vowel space is compressed and centralised relative to the cardinal vowels in Djambarrpuyŋu, as is also observed in Gupapuyŋu (e.g., Graetzer et al, 2016).…”

“…By contrast, in Australian languages, vowels associated with an accentually prominent or lexically stressed syllable do not consistently lengthen compared to unaccented vowels. Evidence of stressed or accentual vowel lengthening has been found in Arrernte, a Pama-Nyungan language of Central Australia (Tabain, 2016); Pitjantjatjara, a Pama-Nyungan language of Central Australia (Tabain, Fletcher, & Butcher, 2014); and in varieties of Bininj Kunwok and Dalabon, two non-Pama-Nyungan languages spoken in Northern Australia (Fletcher & Evans, 2002), but not in Mawng, a non-Pama-Nyungan language of Northern Australia (Fletcher et al, 2015); Warlpiri a Pama-Nyungan language of Central Australia (Pentland, 2004); nor in preliminary studies of Djambarrpuyŋu (Jepson, Fletcher, & Stoakes, 2016), the language under investigation in this paper, or in Gupapuyŋu, a closely related language variety (Graetzer, Fletcher, & Hajek, 2016). There is also contrastive vowel length in some of these languages (Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Djambarrpuyŋu, and Gupapuyŋu).…”

“…The grammatical structure of Djambarrpuyŋu has been documented by Wilkinson (1991, 2012). However, there is little phonetic research into the Djambarrpuyŋu language to date, though there has been extensive phonetic analysis of Gupapuyŋu, a closely related variety which is also spoken throughout northeast Arnhem Land (see e.g., Graetzer, 2012; Graetzer et al, 2016; Graetzer, Hajek, & Fletcher, 2012).…”