A comparative study of Estonian Swedish voiceless laterals: Are voiceless approximants fricatives?
نویسندگان
چکیده
Are voiceless approximants categorically distinct from voiceless fricatives? We address this question by means of acoustic analysis of voiceless laterals in Icelandic, Welsh, and the endangered variety Estonian Swedish. All three have a voiceless lateral functioning in contrast to a voiced lateral approximant. The analysis focused on duration – including any period of voicing (‘pre-voicing’) just before the release of the lateral – and the intensity of the voiceless lateral relative to the following vowel. Welsh showed no pre-voicing in the lateral, whilst Icelandic and Estonian Swedish did, though the latter less consistently. The Welsh voiceless lateral was also greater in relative intensity. This could be taken as a difference of phonetic category between a fricative [ɬ] in Welsh as against a voiceless approximant [l̥] in the other two languages, but we argue that the complexity of the data from Estonian Swedish excludes a categorical interpretation.
منابع مشابه
The phonetic value of the devocalized vowel in Japanese - in case of velar plosive
This study investigates how the native speakers of Japanese tell the differences of the words containing the devocalized vowels. The close vowels [K? and =/? devocalize in Japanese when they are situated between voiceless consonants and between pause and voiceless consonant. In this paper, we verify the hypothesis that the devocalized vowels are the voiceless fricatives. =M KÀVVQ? =M /ÀVVQ? =M ...
متن کاملPharyngeal articulation in the production of voiced and voiceless fricatives.
A structural magnetic resonance imaging study has revealed that pharyngeal articulation varies considerably with voicing during the production of English fricatives. In a study of four speakers of American English, pharyngeal volume was generally found to be greater during the production of sustained voiced fricatives, compared to voiceless equivalents. Though pharyngeal expansion is expected f...
متن کاملLanguage specificity in the perception of voiceless sibilant fricatives in Japanese and English: implications for cross-language differences in speech-sound development.
Both English and Japanese have two voiceless sibilant fricatives, an anterior fricative /s/ contrasting with a more posterior fricative /∫/. When children acquire sibilant fricatives, English children typically substitute [s] for /∫/, whereas Japanese children typically substitute [∫] for /s/. This study examined English- and Japanese-speaking adults' perception of children's productions of voi...
متن کاملRunning Head: Language-Specific Perception Language specificity in the perception of voiceless sibilant fricatives in Japanese and English: Implications for cross-language differences in speech-sound development
Both English and Japanese have two voiceless sibilant fricatives, an anterior fricative /s/ contrasting with a more posterior fricative /S/. When children acquire sibilant fricatives, English children typically substitute [s] for /S/, whereas Japanese children typically substitute [S] for /s/. This study examined Englishand Japanese-speaking adults’ perception of children's productions of voice...
متن کاملTemporal characteristics of Greek fricatives
The present study examines the temporal characteristics of Greek fricatives as distinctive cues for their place of articulation. The effects of voicing (voiced, voiceless), speaker‟s gender (fe-male, male) and post-fricative vowel ([a], [e], [i], [o], [u]) on fricative duration are also inve-stigated. The results show that fricative duration does not distinguish fricatives in terms of pla-ce of...
متن کامل