Posterior lingual gestures and tongue shape in Mangetti Dune !Xung clicks

Abstract

Clicks differ from pulmonic stops in that, in addition to containing lingual gestures that shape the filtering mechanism of the vocal tract, they also contain lingual "rarefaction gestures" that form the source of the lingual ingressive airstream. The current study uses mid-sagittal lingual ultrasound imaging to investigate 1) overall tongue shape, 2) tongue dorsum and root positions, and 3) dynamic rarefaction gestures involving the tongue dorsum and root, in the four coronal click types recognized by the IPA. The study provides quantitative evidence that the four click types differ in overall tongue shape. Additionally, results show that the palatal click has a farther back dorsal constriction than the three pre-palatal clicks, and the tongue root is raised and bunched in the upper pharynx in one variant of the palatal click, but involves retraction of the tongue root proper in the lower pharynx in the alveolar click. A second variant of the palatal click involves posterior gestures more similar to those found in the alveolar click. Results provide evidence that the kinematics of the posterior part of the tongue are important in describing click production, and shed light on synchronic and diachronic sound patterns involving the palatal click in Kx'a languages. Keywords Click consonants, ultrasound imaging, tongue shape, tongue dorsum, tongue root, rarefaction gestures H1 will be referred to throughout the paper as the "flat vs. concave tongue shape" hypothesis. Research Question 2 (Q2) addresses goal 2, by investigating differences in the constriction locations of the tongue dorsum and tongue root just before the anterior release. Q2. Do the farthest back posterior lingual tongue dorsum and root positions in the consonants that cooccur with [i] {[|], [ ǂ]) differ from those found in the consonants that co-occur with [əi] {[ǃ], [ǁ]}, and those that co-occur with [ɑ] {[k̠ ]}? H2a. The tongue dorsum and root constriction locations are farthest back in the consonants that co-occur with [ɑ], followed by the clicks that co-occur with [əi], and the clicks that co-occur with [i]. H2b. The palatal click has farther back tongue dorsum and root constrictions then the pre-palatal clicks. (they are too fast to view at full speed, and get anything out of them). Quick Time Video is one such freely available software that allows viewing videos frame by frame across operating systems.

An ultrasound study of Connemara Irish palatalization and velarization

“…To control for this incidental variation the PC values for each speaker were re-centered using a z -score transformation (using the scale () function in R) over the full data set for that speaker, that is, for every consonant and repetition, at onset, midpoint, and offset, pooled together. (See Harrington et al 2011, Harrington, Hoole & Reubold 2012, and Shaw et al 2014 for other examples of z -score normalization as a technique for pooling dorsal position measurements across speakers, and see Miller 2016 for another approach to normalization of ultrasound data.) All subsequent plotting and statistical analysis is based on these speaker-normalized z -scores.…”

Palatal click allophony in Mangetti Dune !Xung: Implications for sound change

“…This second burst is referred to as the posterior (or dorsal) pulmonic burst. The dorsal constrictions in clicks have been shown with quantitative evidence to be back velar or uvular in the dental, alveolar and lateral click types, but uvulo-pharyngeal in the palatal click type in Mangetti Dune !Xung (Miller 2016), and in the Khoe language Khoekhoe (Miller, Namaseb & Iskarous 2007). The back velar vs. uvulo-pharyngeal contrast has also been shown to exist qualitatively in the alveolar vs. palatal clicks in the Tuu language N|uu (Miller, Brugman et al 2009, Miller 2010).…”

“…These acoustic recordings are time-aligned with lingual ultrasound recordings, as the articulatory and acoustic data were collected simultaneously using the CHAUSA (Corrected High Frame Rate Anchored Ultrasound with Software Alignment) method (Miller & Finch 2011). Analysis of the ultrasound recordings are provided elsewhere (Miller 2016). The acoustic recordings for the /u/ data were made with a Shure SM10A head-mounted microphone connected to a Shure FP23 preamp, which was connected to a Dell 8600 laptop computer through the microphone input.…”

“…It is much shorter than the 80-100 ms aspiration noise phase seen in the contrastively aspirated clicks found in the related language Ju|'hoansi (see Miller 2007). Similar to Ju|'hoansi, Mangetti Dune !Xung has a four-way Voice Onset Time contrast (Miller 2016).…”

“…The superscripted voiced glottal fricative indicates breathy voicing on the preceding vowel, as described inMiller (2016). This transcription is also used for partially breathy vowels in Ju|'hoansi inMiller (2007).…”