Production and perception of sibilant fricatives: Shona data

Abstract

This research began out of two overlapping motives. First, we have been observing what have impressionistically been termed ‘whistling’ fricatives in Shona (and also, though not reported here, in another language, Jibbali); we felt that there was room for a fuller analysis of some aspects of their production characteristics. Second, sibilance in general offers plenty of scope for what Delattre called the ‘quest of the Holy Grail’ in phonetics: the search for features of relevance to perception. More background to both the production and the perception issues will be given as we proceed.

A cross-linguistic acoustic study of voiceless fricatives

“…This difference between /s/ and /S/ parallels results from other studies, e.g. Hughes and Halle (1956), Behrens and Blumstein (1988a), Tomiak (1990), Jongman et al (2000) on English, Halle (1959) on Russian, Jassem (1962), Lindblad (1980) on Swedish, Lacerda (1982) on Portuguese, Norlin (1983) on Cairene Arabic, Bladon et al (1987) on Shona, Strevens (1960), Jassem (1968), Shadle et al (1991) on fricatives uttered by phoneticians. In Toda, which distinguishes dental /s1 / from alveolar /s/, noise for the dental is concentrated at higher frequencies than for the alveolar.…”

Variation in the perception of an L2 contrast: A combined phonetic and phonological account

“…. Bladon et al 1987; see also Nowak 2006 who illustrates the interaction of both cues in the perception of the Polish sibilants). 11.…”

The ‘Whistled' Fricative in Xitsonga: Its Articulation and Acoustics

“…358-360] describe Shona's whistled fricatives as involving extreme lip rounding, Maddieson [2003, p. 27] stresses a vertical narrowing of the lips without particular lip protrusion for Shona and Kalanga. Bladon et al [1987] report that the whistled fricative in Shona lacks lip rounding or protrusion, but rather the lower lip raises toward the upper teeth, completely covering the lower teeth. They therefore labeled this labialization as 'labiodental', as opposed to 'labiolabial' as in ordinary lip rounding.…”

“…Changana, a dialect of Xitsonga spoken in Mozambique, was studied by Shosted [2011], and Shona, spoken in an area geographically close to Zimbabwe, was studied by Bladon et al [1987]. As mentioned earlier, the labial gestures of the two languages appear to be different: substantial lip rounding and protrusion are found for Changana whistled fricatives, whereas the labial gesture is mainly manifested as a closure between the upper teeth and the lower lip in Shona.…”

“…Given its very short front cavity, these two parameter values of the dental /s/ are predicted to be much higher than other sibilants. In the acoustic study of Shona by Bladon et al [1987], for example, /s/ has a much higher spectral peak (about 19 Bark) than /ʂ/ and /ʃ/ (about 16 Bark for both). The same pattern is attested in languages where there is a similar three-way place contrast among sibilants.…”