Phonation type contrasts and tone in Chichimec

Abstract

Chichimec (Otomanguean) has two tones, high and low, and a phonological three-way phonation contrast: modal /V/, breathy /V¨/, and creaky /Ṽ/. Tone and phonation type contrasts are used independently. This paper investigates the acoustic realization of modal, breathy, and creaky vowels; the timing of phonation in non-modal vowels; and the production of tone in combination with different phonation types. The results of cepstral peak prominence and three spectral tilt measures showed that phonation type contrasts are not distinguished by the same acoustic measures for women and men. In line with expectations for laryngeally complex languages, phonetic modal and non-modal phonation are sequenced in phonological breathy and creaky vowels. With respect to the timing pattern, however, the results show that non-modal phonation is not, as previously reported, mainly located in the middle of the vowel. Non-modal phonation is, instead, predominantly realized in the second half of phonological breathy and creaky vowels. Tone is distinguished in all three phonation types, and non-modal vowels do not exhibit distinct F0 ranges except for creaky vowels produced by women in which F0 declines in the creaky portion. The results of the acoustic analysis provide additional insights to phonological accounts of laryngeal complexity in Chichimec.

The Phonetics of Tone and Voice Quality Interactions in Sylheti

“…Furthermore, phonation contrasts may also function either as prosodic indications (stress and focus in German (Mooshammer 2010)) or as added cues to identify tonal contrasts Green Mong (Andruski and Ratliff 2000) and Chichimec (Kelterer and Schuppler 2020), or the correlation between creaky voice and low dipping tone in Mandarin (Belotel-Grenié and Grenié 1994). Studies on tonal contrasts primarily focus on pitch level and movement, and define tone based on pitch contrasts (Yip 2002;Hyman 2010).…”

A cross-language acoustic space for vocalic phonation distinctions

“…Languages with nonmodal phonation on vowels come from a wide variety of families, but languages from certain families-Otomanguean, Nilotic, Kx'a, and Tuuregularly exhibit vowel phonation contrasts. Of these, Otomanguean languages (especially those in the Zapotec and Mixtec branches) tend to contrast creaky vs. modal vowels, though some Valley Zapotec languages have a three-way creaky vs. modal vs. breathy distinction in vowels (Munro & Lopez 1999, Esposito 2010b, Ariza García 2018, Kelterer & Schluppler 2020. Nilotic languages tend to contrast breathy vs. modal vowels, though some languages in the family have breathy and harsh vowels (Edmondson & Esling 2006).…”