Voice quality and coda /r/ in Glasgow English in the early 20th century

Abstract

We present acoustic and auditory analyses of changes to coda /r/ and voice quality in Glasgow English in the early twentieth century. Our initial acoustic analysis suggests that /r/ was weakening across the board based on an increase in F3. However, an auditory analysis of the same data finds no significant changes. An acoustic analysis of the same speakers’ vowels reveals that the shift in F3 is not unique to /r/. It reflects a change in voice quality, which we link to velarization using Vocal Profile Analysis. We then reanalyze the acoustic /r/ data, controlling for voice quality, and find only moderate changes that are restricted to females. These findings provide new evidence for diachronic changes in voice quality, contribute to our understanding of the development of /r/ in Glasgow English, and highlight the importance of investigating speech sounds in their broader context using multiple methodologies.

Sociophonetic Investigation of the Spanish Alveolar Trill /r/ in Two Canonical-Trill Varieties

“…The English approximant /ɹ/ serves as a common focal point for this work due to the multiple articulatory configurations that speakers use to achieve nearly identical acoustic outcomes (Boyce & Espy-Wilson, 1997;Mielke et al, 2016;Zhou et al, 2008). A second, although not unrelated, line of inquiry explores whether critical links between articulatory configurations, acoustic outcomes, and perceptual similarities lead to the initiation of sound change and the transmission of innovative phonetic variants within and across speech communities (Sebregts, 2014;Sóskuthy & Stuart-Smith, 2020). The cumulative findings of this research underscore the idea that the similar diachronic developments observed across numerous language families ultimately bring together the class of rhotic sounds (Chabot, 2019;Wiese, 2011).…”