Volume 76, Issue 1

A variety of studies have shown differences between phonetic features of consonants according to their prosodic and/or syllable (onset vs. coda) positions. However, differences are not always found, and interactions between the various factors involved are complex and not well understood. Our study compares acoustical characteristics of coda consonants in Vietnamese taking into account their position within words. Traditionally described as monosyllabic, Vietnamese is partially polysyllabic at the lexical level. In this language, tautosyllabic consonant sequences are prohibited, and adjacent consonants are only found at syllable boundaries either within polysyllabic words (CVC.CVC) or across monosyllabic words (CVC#CVC). This study is designed to examine whether or not syllable boundary types (interword vs. intraword) have an effect on the acoustic realization of codas. The results show significant acoustic differences in consonant realizations according to syllable boundary type, suggesting different coarticulation patterns between nuclei and codas. In addition, as Vietnamese voiceless stops are generally unreleased in coda position, with no burst to carry consonantal information, our results show that a vowel's second half contains acoustic cues which are available to aid in the discrimination of place of articulation of the vowel's following consonant.

Background/Aims: Vowel metaphony, a type of vowel harmony observed in Asturian, is characterized by the raising and/or centralization of stressed mid or low vowels in the presence of a high vowel in word-final position. Descriptions of Asturian metaphony have been based on data collected using exclusively auditory judgments. This study is the first to document the phenomenon acoustically. Methods: The data were collected using a word elicitation task and sociolinguistic interviews of 40 speakers from the 2 geographic areas in which metaphony has been observed. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of vocalic distributions were performed. Results: The results of the analyses show that: (1) while metaphony still occurs in Asturian, its implementation is highly variable; (2) metaphonized variants remain distinct from other vowels; and (3) the traditional distinction between 2 areas of metaphony cannot be maintained. Conclusion: This study provides the first acoustic characterization of vowel metaphony in Asturian, offering empirical evidence on which to build theoretical approaches to vowel metaphony.

Scholars of Luganda (Bantu, Uganda) have described a contrast between falling and high tone, which is limited to syllables with a long vowel or a coda. The contrast has been represented with H on the first mora of a falling-tone syllable and on both moras in a high-tone syllable. This article explores this contrast through an instrumental study of the timing of f₀ events in Luganda. It was found that the 2-tone classes differed in the timing of both the f₀ rise and the subsequent f₀ fall, supporting a reanalysis of the contrast as one between an early high tone and a late high tone. It was also found that for the speakers in this study, the contrast was limited to syllables with long vowels. The timing of f₀ events was sensitive to the duration of segments in the CVC interval centered on the high-toned syllable, including non-moraic elements and consonants outside the syllable. The association of a tone to a syllable identifies the segments relevant for the timing of the f₀ contour, but that timing is not directly sensitive to the interval of the syllable.