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Using visual spectrographic examination of vowel nasalization to diagnose the syllabic affiliation of phonologically ambisyllabic nasal consonants (e.g., gamma), Durvasula and Huang [(2017). Lang. Sci. 62, 17–36] argued that anticipatory vowel nasalization in these words patterns with word-medial codas. Using nasometry, the current study finds that anticipatory nasalization before monomorphemic and multimorphemic (scammer) ambisyllabic nasals differ from word-medial coda (gamble) and word-final nasals (scam), but not from other intervocalic nasals. Additionally, vowel nasalization is sensitive to the manner of the preceding phoneme. These findings demonstrate that quantifying anticipatory nasalization using nasometry differs from visual spectrographic criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The focus of this article is the origins of (1) reduced vowels in languages of the Balkan Sprachbund, (2) lenition of soft stops, (3) its (pre)nasalization, (4) the change of ‑n‑ into ‑r‑ in the Tosk dialect of Albanian and a similar process in Old Romanian as well as the Istro‑Romanian, Maramuresh and Oltenian dialects of this language, a parallel change of Latin ‑l‑ into ‑r‑ in common Romanian and certain Italian dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into nasal voice quality can be seen to split itself quite neatly into two streams. In one, we find sociolinguistic studies of nasality, based on impressionistic analyses and the perceptions and opinions of naïve listeners. These studies form the basis of what we know about the social attitudes and motivations behind nasal voice, but often do not clearly define the empirical boundaries of what is and is not nasal. On the other side lies the phonetic study of nasalization. This stream of research has focused on the articulatory and aerodynamic realities of nasalization, developing methods to directly measure airflow through the mouth and nose during speech, and later turning to finding acoustic correlates to accurately represent this ratio of airflow using less intrusive means. Many of these methods are quite robust but have seldom been used to observe non-laboratory speech. Crossover between the aforementioned streams of nasality research is rare but could be extremely beneficial. In this article, established approaches to studying nasal voice in sociolinguistics and phonetics are outlined and evaluated. Existing examples of research combining the two approaches are discussed and suggestions made for future study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tsonga is a cross-border language spoken in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Eswatini. This article focuses on variations of Tsonga spoken in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The aim of this article is to discuss the phonological and semantic differences between Tsonga spoken in South Africa and Zimbabwe using a comparative approach. Interviews were conducted among 20 Tsonga first language speakers from Zimbabwe and South Africa. Document analysis was also used. Labov's (1972) variation theory, which points out that there is variation in any given language, was employed. The article discusses differences in places of articulation of consonants found in certain lexical items, highlighting phonological processes such as labialisation versus palatalisation, velarisation versus labialisation, nasalisation versus non- nasalisation, and aspiration versus non-aspiration. Semantic variations are also discussed. It was found that there are phonological and semantic similarities and differences between Tsonga spoken in Zimbabwe and South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mandarin speakers tend to adapt intervocalic nasals as either an onset of the following syllable (e.g. Bruno → bù.lŭ .n uò), as a nasal geminate (e.g. Daniel → dā n.n í.ěr), or as one of the above forms (e.g. Tiffany → dì.fú. n í or dì.fē n.n í). Huang and Lin (2013, 2016) identified two factors that may induce the nasal gemination repair: (1) when stress falls on the pre-nasal vowel and (2) when the pre-nasal vowel is a non-high lax vowel. They hypothesized that Mandarin Chinese speakers insert a nasal coda to perceptually approximate the stronger nasalization and longer syllable duration associated with the stressed syllables, and the shorter vowel duration of a lax vowel because the vowels in closed syllables are shorter in Mandarin. The results from two forced-choice identification experiments and an open-ended transcription task showed that although Mandarin speakers' choices of different repairs were indeed biased by the different phonetic manipulations, suggesting an effect of perceptual similarity, their decisions were mainly guided by native phonotactics. The overall findings suggest that phonotactic, phonetic, as well as non-linguistic (i.e. frequency) factors interact with each other, resulting in the variable adaptation pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the influence of orthographic input on the recognition of second language (L2) spoken words with phonological variants, when first language (L1) and L2 have different orthographic structures. Lexical encoding for intermediate-to-advanced level Mandarin learners of Korean was assessed using masked cross-modal and within-modal priming tasks. Given that Korean has obstruent nasalization in the syllable coda, prime target pairs were created with and without such phonological variants, but spellings that were provided in the cross-modal task reflected their unaltered, nonnasalized forms. The results indicate that when L2 learners are exposed to transparent alphabetic orthography, they do not show a particular cost for spoken word recognition of L2 phonological variants as long as the variation is regular and rule-governed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Haitian Creole (Kreyòl) spoken by bilingual speakers is a prestigious form of speech generally referred to as Kreyòl swa (KS), where Frenchified features (e.g. front rounded vowels) are often used. In contrast, monolingual speakers use Kreyòl rèk (KR), a variety in which Frenchified features do not generally occur (Fattier-Thomas 1984; Valdman 2015). In this article, I establish the nasalization of the definite determiner /la/ in non-nasal environments (LÃ), e.g. chat lan for chat la 'the cat', as a feature of KS. I show that while bilingual speakers do use both Frenchification and LÃ, monolingual speakers overuse nasalization as compared to bilingual speakers, but use Frenchification less than the bilingual group because it is harder to produce. Based in these findings, I suggest that the sociolinguistic situation of Haiti is more complex, i.e. it is extended beyond the relationship between French and Kreyòl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Velum movement signals generated from real-time magnetic resonance imaging videos of thirty-five German speakers were used to investigate the physiological conditions that might promote sound change involving the development of contrastive vowel nasality. The results suggest that, in comparison to when a nasal consonant precedes a voiced obstruent, the velum gesture associated with a nasal consonant preceding a voiceless obstruent undergoes gestural rescaling and temporal rephasing. This further suggests that the diachronic development of contrastive vowel nasality comprises two stages: the first stage involves gestural shortening and realignment, while the second stage involves a trading relationship between source and effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The velopharyngeal valve regulates the opening between the nasal and oral cavities. The lack of complete closure is especially problematic in speech because inappropriate leakage of airflow and/or sound into the nasal cavity causes abnormal sound production and increased nasality. The purpose of this study is to use the large eddy simulation approach to examine changes in sound source mechanisms as the size of the opening changes during the production of a sibilant sound. The baseline geometry of the model is based on the pharyngeal airway of a subject having a small velopharyngeal opening while sustaining a sibilant sound. Modifications to the model are done by systematically widening or narrowing the opening (all else being equal). Results show that acoustic energy in the nasal cavity is directly related to the size of the velopharyngeal opening and that there is a critical size where the magnitude of Lighthill's acoustics source in the nasal cavity is maximized. The far-field acoustic energy and its correlation with the sound source mechanisms are also dependent on the size of the velopharyngeal opening. Patient-specific geometry with a velopharyngeal opening during a normal sibilant /s/ sound is shown to the left. Lighthill's acoustic source term is displayed on the right and varies depending on the size of the velopharyngeal opening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grassmann's Law (=GL) is generally regarded as a quintessential example of regular sound change, though dissimilation processes are generally said to be quite rare and sporadic. In the present paper, evidence is presented aiming to show "the phonetic prehistory" of Grassmann's Law in Greek, namely a diachronic stage during which GL acts in all but regular fashion. In particular, especially in some dialectal areas, some forms retain the original diaspirate stem up until Classical epoque (V–IV c. BC). Moreover, the presence of an opposite process, that is the assimilation (generally regressive) between aspirated segments, is also documented. Both of these aspects seem to show a lexically constrained spread of such a change. Its relatively late regularity can be explained as a process implemented by phonological constraints, which intervene at some point in the linguistic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Navarro Tomás (1918) it is well known in Spanish phonetics that vowels between nasals become nasalized and that vowels followed by a nasal in syllable coda position might undergo a certain degree of nasalization, even if Spanish does not have nasal vowels from the phonological point of view. This study aims to explore this phenomenon through the use of a Nasometer by examining several nasal-vowel contexts (NV, VN, and NVN sequences, and with post-vocalic nasals in tautosyllabic or heterosyllabic sequences with reference to the preceding vowel), the distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables containing the target vowel, and three speaking rate conditions (slow, normal, and fast). The utterances produced by three speakers of standard peninsular Spanish are analyzed. Results of the percentage of nasality and nasalance indicate that the variables under examination are statistically significant in the process of vowel nasalization, though to a varying extent. A closer look at the different syllable positions in the nasal-vowel relationship addresses the issue of anticipatory vs. carryover coarticulation effects on vowel nasalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a detailed analysis of nasality in Dagbani, a Gur language of Ghana, and the role it plays in Dagbani prosody. It demonstrates that the nasal is at the centre of defining the range of what is possible in Dagbani prosodic patterns. Nasals provide the basis for determining the full range of syllable types and the tone bearing unit of Dagbani; nasals are the only coda consonants that licence vowel lengthening; and nasals provide the only cases of phonological non-vocalic geminates. The overall effects of the influence of nasality is the emergence of complex prosodic structures. Contrary to the crosslinguistically acclaimed marked position of the coda, the CVN syllable is the default, unmarked syllable in Dagbani. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: There are various methods to treat velopharyngeal dysfunction including　surgery and rehabilitation therapy. Even if a rehabilitation program is effective, the evaluation of its efficacy remains subjective. In this paper, we propose a new method of rehabilitation training for velopharyngeal dysfunction focusing on the objective peak inspiratory flow (PIF) rate.Methods: Four patients, who were diagnosed with velopharyngeal dysfunction without cleft palate at ENT clinic of the National Hospital Organization, Tokyo Medical Center, participated in this study. All patients underwent our original rehabilitation program for velopharyngeal dysfunction, a method using the In-Check Dial, Turbohaler model. As a self-training rehabilitation program, we asked them to inhale forcefully 10 times daily at home using the In-Check Dial to increase the value of PIF rate for 3 months. We measured the patients' PIF rates with the In-Check Dial at the ENT clinic at the initial visit and after the 3-month training.Results: The PIF rates of the four patients without nasal clips were higher than the rates with nasal clips at the initial visit. After the training, PIF rate without a nasal clip of all patients increased than the rate at the initial visit, which represented significant difference (P < 0.05). Also, after 3 months, PIF rate without a nasal clip was higher or equal than the rates with a nasal clip at the initial visit except one case. Naso-pharyngo-laryngeal fiberscopy did not detect salivary pooling around larynx and mirror fogging test did not show nasal escape in the three of four patients after 3 months of training. All reported improvement in dysphagia and dysarthria.Conclusion: This new method can be used not only to evaluate velopharyngeal function but also as an effective self-training treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the relation between speech production and perception is foundational to phonetic theory, and is similarly central to theories of the phonetics of sound change. For sound changes that are arguably perceptually motivated, it is particularly important to establish that an individual listener's selective attention--for example, to the redundant information afforded by coarticulation--is reflected in that individual's own productions. This study reports the results of a pair of experiments designed to test the hypothesis that individuals who produce more consistent and extensive coarticulation will attend to that information especially closely in perception. The production experiment used nasal airflow to measure the time course of participants' coarticulatory vowel nasalization; the perception experiment used an eye-tracking paradigm to measure the time course of those same participants' attention to coarticulated nasality. Results showed that a speaker's coarticulatory patterns predicted, to some degree, that individual's perception, thereby supporting the hypothesis: participants who produced earlier onset of coarticulatory nasalization were, as listeners, more efficient users of nasality as that information unfolded over time. Thus, an individual's perception of coarticulated speech is made public through their productions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A categorical variability constraint-based analysis (Boersma & Hayes 2001) accounts for oral and nasal stop acquisition in three different positions by English and Japanese learners of Thai. Homorganic nasals take place at the intermediate level where two or more surface forms are selected as optimal candidates. Both aspirated and voiced stops also occur, avoiding an unaspirated onset in almost equal frequencies. To account for variation of Thai stops, GLA, a stochastic OT approach is adopted for constraint reassessment rather than standard OT. In the initial state of the grammar, markedness constraints outrank faithfulness constraints for beginners. Markedness and faithfulness constraints overlap for intermediate learners exhibiting variation. At the advanced stage, faithfulness constraints were higher ranked because both English and Japanese learners are able to master Thai oral and nasal stops. The analysis proposed in the paper yields more accurate results than a categorical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there exists a set of prescriptive rules concerning the realization of Polish nasal vowels, it can be observed that their pronunciation differs across dialects, especially in word-final position. While there is ample research on vowel nasality in Polish, sociolinguistic studies investigating the realization of nasal vowels seem to be scant and this is why we aim to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between the realization of word-final nasal vowels and different sociolinguistic factors including age, gender, education, place of residence, and style (read vs. conversational speech). Moreover, we focus on a potential change in prestige associated with the variation. Fifty native speakers of Polish living in Greater Poland were asked to read aloud a text and describe a picture. Having analysed the words containing nasal vowels word-finally, we found, inter alia, statistically significant associations between age and the variation in the realization of nasal vowels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of comprehensive vowel studies diphthongs are analyzed in dyadic conversations of three groups of congenital SNHL with different hearing devices. They had competed long term speech language therapy. Only two native diphthongs exist in Kannada. Cochlear implanted, and the programmable digital hearing device and adult high frequency hearing loss using analogue hearing devices had no diphthong misarticulations. On the other hand, in analogue hearing device users [ai] were acquired by all participants. [au] was absent in some participants. Further, substitutions, overall durational variation and nasalization are some noted diphthong articulation defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Low/mid-low vowels spontaneously nasalize after glottal consonants in Thai. • Low/mid-low vowels after /h/ are produced with large velopharyngeal opening (VPO). • Vowels after /h/ exhibit larger VPO than vowels after /ʔ/. Spontaneous nasalization is the emergence of distinctive nasalization in contexts lacking an historical etymological nasal. In Thai, low and mid-low vowels nasalize after /h/ and to a lesser degree after /ʔ/. It has been reasoned that nasalization after /h/ may occur because breathiness and nasalization are acoustically similar; both introduce higher energy at low frequencies and increase spectral tilt. Glottal consonants may generally facilitate nasalization because aerodynamically they do not require velopharyngeal closure. We investigated velopharyngeal opening (VPO) during vowels after /h/ and/ ʔ/ and measured spectral tilt (H1–H2). We measured VPO by processing oblique ultra-fast magnetic resonance images of the velopharyngeal port. Four Thai speakers exhibited a complex system of VPO that varied based on vowel height and preceding consonant. Low vowels after /h/ manifested more physiological nasalization than low vowels after /ʔ/, while the former were often produced with higher spectral tilt, which may be indicative of either increased breathiness or nasalization. While VPO is likely responsible for impressions of greater nasalization after /h/, our findings suggest that breathiness and VPO may interact in the spontaneously nasalized vowels of Thai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies reported that pitch and articulation may vary according to a person's sexual orientation. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether homosexual males also demonstrate differences in nasal resonance compared to heterosexual males. Speech samples of 30 self-identified homosexual males, 35 heterosexual males, and 34 heterosexual females were compared both instrumentally and perceptually. Nasalance scores were calculated for the sounds /a/, /i/, /u/, and /m/ and for an oronasal, oral, and nasal text. In addition, the Nasality Severity Index was determined. Spontaneous speech samples were used for a perceptual evaluation of nasal resonance. Neither the nasalance scores nor the Nasality Severity Index were significantly different between the homosexual and heterosexual males. Heterosexual females, on the other hand, showed significantly higher nasalance values for the oronasal and oral text and a significantly lower Nasality Severity Index than both the homosexual and the heterosexual males. The perceptual judgment revealed no significant differences between the three groups. The results of this study suggest that, in contrast to pitch and articulation, nasality does not tend to vary with sexual orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on two types of voiceless nasal sounds in Xumi, a Tibeto-Burman language: (i) the voiceless aspirated nasals / / [ ] and / / [ ], and (ii) the voiceless nasal glottal fricative [ ]. We provide a synchronic description of these two types of sounds, and explore their similarities and differences. Xumi voiceless nasal consonants are described with reference to the voiceless nasal consonants / / and / / in Burmese and Kham Tibetan because Burmese voiceless nasals are the best described type of voiceless nasals, and are therefore used as a reference point for comparison; voiceless nasals in Kham Tibetan, which is in close contact with Xumi, represent a characteristic regional feature. The synchronic description is based on acoustic and aerodynamic measurements (the total duration of the target phonemes, the duration of the voiced period during the target phonemes, mean nasal and oral flow). Our study (i) contributes to a better understanding of voiceless nasals as a type of sound, (ii) provides a first-ever instrumental description (acoustic and aerodynamic) of the voiceless nasal glottal fricative [ ], as attested in a number of Tibeto-Burman languages of Southwest China, and (iii) suggests a possible phonetic basis for the observed dialectal and diachronic variation between voiceless nasals and [ ] in some Tibeto-Burman languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Nasalization, tongue height, & breathiness contribute independently to F1 variation. • Network modeling allows bottom-up grouping of articulatory-to-acoustic strategies. • Group separation for nasal-oral vowel distinctions based primarily on tongue height. • Group separation is not based on language background, but speaker-dependent patterns. • A "nasal" vowel is not just velum lowering: it is articulatorily multi-dimensional. Graphical abstract Abstract This study represents an exploratory analysis of a novel method of investigating variation among individual speakers with respect to the articulatory strategies used to modify acoustic characteristics of their speech. Articulatory data (nasalization, tongue height, breathiness) and acoustic data (F1 frequency) related to the distinction of three nasal-oral vowel contrasts in French were co-registered. Data were collected first from four Southern French (FR) speakers and, subsequently, from nine naïve Australian English listeners who imitated the FR productions. Articulatory measurements were mapped to F1 measurements using relative importance analysis (RIA), and the RIA coefficients were used to create similarity scores among all of the speakers. The similarity scores were then used to build network models for each nasal-oral vowel pair, using the spinglass algorithm to identify communities of shared articulatory-to-acoustic strategies within each network. The results show that network grouping is rarely based on language-dependent articulatory-to-acoustic strategies, but evidence of inter- and intra-speaker consistency is observed: Individual speakers tend to group together in their articulatory-to-acoustic strategies across vowel pairs, and most speakers have consistent articulatory-to-acoustic mappings across vowel pairs. Evidence is also observed which highlights the multi-dimensional nature of vowel nasality, rather than the uni-dimensional assumption of "nasal" vowels as merely oral vowels produced with a lowered velum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welsh is described as having two series of nasals, a voiced series [m, n, ŋ], and a voiceless series, transcribed as [...] or [mh, nh, ŋh]. In this paper, I give a synchronic analysis of the nasals and argue that the second series are phonologically sequences of a nasal followed by [h], i.e. [mh, nh, ŋh]. Moreover, I show that the properties and distribution of these consonants all follow from this assumption. The argument for the analysis comes from: phonetics, the distribution of the mutation system, syllabification, the distribution of [h], poetry, and dialect data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to introduce an acoustic camera method to analyze nasality in speech. The input information is generated using an acoustic camera device composed of a 16-channel audio recorder with a microphone array, a high-speed video camera, and Carstens articulograph (model AG500). The linearly constrained minimum variance algorithm is used to provide illustrations of the spatial acoustic field distribution. Acoustic pressure distribution is determined as related to the location of oral, nasal, and oronasal resonances, as well as the root mean square value of the pressure. Durations of particular types of resonances activated in the course of speech sound production are also specified. An example application of the method is discussed for Polish nasalized vowels. The internal structure of the vowels is heterogeneous and involves alternate or simultaneous activation of oral and nasal resonances. The order of appearance of these resonances and their percentage share in the realization of the vowels is determined based on the spatial distribution of the acoustic field. The vowels' structure is demonstrated to be even more complex than suggested in former studies. Furthermore, the proportion of nasality is found to vary significantly between the vowels [ɛ w ̃ ] and [ɔ w ̃ ]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We studied productions of nasal, nasalized and oral vowels in Brazilian Portuguese. • Nasal and oral vowel congeners manifested distinct oropharyngeal articulations. • Systematic differences in F1 were observed for nasal and oral vowel congeners. • Nasalized vowels were not produced in the same manner as nasal vowels. • Nasal vowels are argued to be underlyingly nasal in Brazilian Portuguese. Abstract The phonological feature [± nasal ] does not distinguish systematic oropharyngeal differences between oral, nasal, and phonetically nasalized vowels. A variety of studies now show that oropharyngeal shape may systematically enhance or compensate for the acoustic effects of nasal coupling. Additionally, the phonetic implementation of [− nasal ] vowels in oral and nasal contexts is a matter of some controversy. While the velopharyngeal opening of these vowels has been inferred from aerodynamics, we know of no attempt to directly study the oropharyngeal articulation of underlyingly oral vowels in nasal and oral contexts in a language that may also have phonemically [+ nasal ] vowels. In this study, real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rt-MRI) is used to study vocal tract configuration in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), a language that arguably has [+ nasal ] (phonemically nasal) vowels and two classes of [− nasal ] vowels (oral and phonetically nasalized). Results show oropharyngeal differences between nasal and oral vowel congeners /a∼ã/, /i∼ĩ/ and /u∼ũ/, which arguably enhance well-known acoustic effects of nasal coupling on vowel height. In addition, nasal coda consonants emerge following nasal vowels. Phonetically nasalized vowels, on the other hand, show no sign of nasal enhancement, including nasal coda emergence, implying they are underlyingly oral vowels, despite the environment in which they occur. We argue that nasal vowels in BP are underlyingly / V ̃ / , rather than /VN/ sequences, the latter distinction being reserved for nasalized vowels. Articulatory divergence of [+ nasal ] and [− nasal ] vowels has implications in perception, sound change, and the phonetic implementation of nasality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coordinating compounds, i.e. complex word forms in which the constituent lexemes are in a coordination relation, may be divided into two classes: hyperonymic, in which the referent of the whole compound is the "sum" of the meanings of the constituent lexemes (Korowai yumdefól '(her) husband-wife, couple'; van Enk, Gerrit J., & Lourens de Vries. 1997. The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their language in its cultural context. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 66), and hyponymic, where the compound designates a single referent having features of all the constituents (English actor-director). It has been proposed that languages choose either type as the one with the "tightest" marking pattern; whereas the crosslinguistic tendency is to have tighter hyperonymic compounds, most languages of Europe rather have tighter hyponymic compounds (Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco, Nicola Grandi, & Bernhard Wälchli 2010. Coordination in compounding. In Sergio Scalise & Irene Vogel (eds.), Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding, 177–198. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins). In this paper, we will test this assumption on noun-noun compounds in a sample of 20 Standard Average European languages and in a balanced sample of 60 non-SAE languages, arguing that the preference for hyperonymic compounds is best explained by the default referential function of nouns; in hyponymic compounds, on the other hand, nouns are used to indicate properties. We will then compare nominal and adjectival coordinating compounds, showing that for the latter the hyponymic compounding pattern is the dominant one, as adjectives are prototypical property-denoting words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern eastern Basque dialects have several conservative features, including the maintenance of historical /h/, which is lost in other dialects. Zuberoan, the easternmost dialect of Basque still spoken today, shows both this /h/ as well as a phonetically nasalized segment [h̃] which is a reflex of intervocalic *n. In this paper I argue that these two segments contrast in Zuberoan. Evidence for the contrast comes from both a newly described process of assimilation of /h/ to /h̃/ in nasal environments which then serves as a basis of the analogical extension of the nasalized aspirate in a context where it cannot be phonologically derived, and from neighboring Mixean Low Navarrese where the nasalized [h̃] has no other obvious source. Since a contrast between oral and nasalized aspirates is rare crosslinguistically, the Zuberoan and Mixean sound patterns discussed here should be of interest to typologists and phonologists alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of increased exposure and phonetic context on the recognition of words that are produced with nasal flaps in American English (e.g., the word center produced as cenner). Previous work has shown that despite their high frequency of occurrence, words produced with nasal flaps are recognized more slowly and less accurately compared with canonical pronunciation variants produced with /nt/, which occur less frequently. We conducted two experiments in order to investigate how exposure and phonetic context influence this reported processing disadvantage for flapped variants. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the time to recognize flapped variants presented in isolation decreased over the course of the experiment, while accuracy increased. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and showed further that flapped variants that were presented in a casually produced sentence context were recognized faster compared with flapped variants presented in a carefully produced sentence context. Interestingly, the effect of context emerged only in late responses and was present only for flapped but not for canonical variants. Our results thus show that increased exposure and phonetic context help listeners recognize allophonic variants. This finding provides further support for the notion that listeners are flexible and adapt to phonetic variation in speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates focus and boundary effects on Korean nasal consonants and vowel nasalization. Under focus, nasal consonants lengthen in CVN# but shorten in #NVC, enhancing [nasal] vs [oral]. Vowels resist nasalization under focus, enhancing [oral]. Domain-initial nasal consonants denasalize, exercising no coarticulatory influence. Domain-final nasal consonants shorten counter to expectation, although vowel nasalization increases. Comparison with English data reveals similarities (focus-induced coarticulatory resistance) despite cross-linguistic differences in marking prominence, but it also suggests that prosodic-structural conditioning of non-contrastive vowel nasalization, albeit based on phonetic underpinnings of coarticulatory process, is fine-tuned in language-specific ways, resulting in cross-linguistic variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Latin sequences ‑ngul‑ in words such as cingulum, ungulam or singulos have evolved into two possible outcomes in Spanish: a palatal sonorant ([ɲ] or [ʎ]), or [nd]. The purpose of this paper is to provide a phonetically-based explanation to account for the sound changes that led to these outcomes in Old Spanish, as well as in other Ibero-Romance languages. In this regard, it will be shown that palatalization and nasalization were competing processes in the development of the sequences ‑ngul‑, as well as in the other structurally comparable sequences ‑ndul‑ and ‑mbul‑. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide an explanation of manner assimilation as a whole in terms of the interaction of well-defined OT constraints. It turns out that previous OT treatments of lateralization in Korean assumes the crucial role of a language-specific constraint to the effect that a sequence of ln or nl is prohibited in the output. I attempt to get rid of the language-specificity by offering to replace the constraint in question with a licensing one requiring a doubly-linked structure of [lateral], LICENSE([lateral]). With the introduction of LICENSE([lateral]) on the constraint ranking, the otherwise puzzling phenomenon of word-initial [l]-avoidance can be nicely explained. Also, by combining this strategy with syllable contact law and output-output correspondence, it will be shown that we can account for the whole range of relevant data. Clearly, the best aspect of this analysis is that it does not add any new stipulation to the theory but makes use of independently motivated constraints of universal nature, not to mention alleviating some burden on grammar thereby. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experimental method described in this manuscript offers a possible means to address a well known issue in research on the independent effects of nasalization on vowel acoustics: given that the separate transfer functions associated with the oral and nasal cavities are merged in the acoustic signal, the task of teasing apart the respective effects of the two cavities seems to be an intractable problem. The proposed method uses ultrasound and nasalance to predict the effect of lingual configuration on formant frequencies of nasalized vowels, thus accounting for acoustic variation due to changing lingual posture and excluding its contribution to the acoustic signal. The results reveal that the independent effect of nasalization on the acoustic vowel quadrilateral resembles a counter-clockwise chain shift of nasal compared to non-nasal vowels. The results from the productions of 11 vowels by six speakers of different language backgrounds are compared to predictions presented in previous modeling studies, as well as discussed in the light of sound change of nasal vowel systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The vocalizations of young infants often sound nasalized, suggesting that the velopharynx is open during the 1st few months of life. Whereas acoustic and perceptual studies seemed to support the idea that the velopharynx closes for vocalization by about 4 months of age, an aeromechanical study contradicted this (Thom, Hoit, Hixon, & Smith, 2006). Thus, the current large-scale investigation was undertaken to determine when the velopharynx closes for speech production by following infants during their first 2 years of life. Method: This longitudinal study used nasal ram pressure to determine the status of the velopharynx (open or closed) during spontaneous speech production in 92 participants (46 male, 46 female) studied monthly from age 4 to 24 months. Results: The velopharynx was closed during at least 90% of the utterances by 19 months, though there was substantial variability across participants. When considered by sound category, the velopharynx was closed from most to least often during production of oral obstruents, approximants, vowels (only), and glottal obstruents. No sex effects were observed. Conclusion: Velopharyngeal closure for spontaneous speech production can be considered complete by 19 months, but closure occurs earlier for speech sounds with higher oral pressure demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether native English, Korean, and Chinese listeners show language-specific compensation mechanisms for phonological assimilation processes. To this end, two different assimilation rules, obstruent nasalization and coronal place assimilation, were tested. Fourteen Korean listeners, eleven English listeners, and fourteen Chinese listeners listened to 540 items of Korean stimuli and 540 items of English stimuli prompted by the PsychoPy software. For each item, a target token was presented with one of three contexts (i.e. no change, unviable change, and viable change). The participants indicated whether a target token was the same as the first syllable or the first word in a compound word (e.g. "main", "mai[m] body"). The results of detection rates showed that Korean listeners compensated for nasalization in a highly context-sensitive way, and their sensitivity to context was also revealed in place assimilation. The other two listener groups did not show sensitivity to context for either nasalization or place assimilation. Overall, the results of this study were supported by language-specific compensation mechanisms. Basic processing was controlled by language experience with assimilation rules. However, language-independent mechanism such as perceptual salience of segments was also at play. In addition, it seems that the status of a phonological rule in a native language and realization of segments in native speech also played an important role in compensation for assimilation. Lexical status of words did not seem to affect compensation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kakataibo (a Panoan language spoken in Peru) encodes emotional meanings by means of various morphological and prosodic devices. Some of them may be related to pragmatic implications (like the expression of affection by the diminutive), but others constitute dedicated emotional markers (as is the case of the illocutionary suffixes, augmentative nominalizers and nasalized imperatives). The fact that almost all the emotional markers carry nasalization is interpreted here as a possible case of language-internal sound-symbolism between nasalization and (negative) emotional meanings. This paper also shows that in Kakataibo we find a systematic pattern according to which dedicated emotional markers express negative emotions and never positive ones. Both the phonological and the semantic systems described in this paper may reveal patterns relevant for the cross-linguistic research on the grammar of emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palatal defect is a common maxillofacial defect after maxillectomy that can be repaired by obturator prostheses, which can effectively improve patients' speech. However, comprehensive evaluation methods for speech recovery are still controversial and remain undefined. A prospective cohort study on 34 patients with palatal defect and 34 healthy controls was performed. Patients received obturator prostheses and their speech was recorded without and then with obturators. Participants pronounced six Chinese vowels and 100 syllables for recording. This paper evaluated the recovery of speech function of patients through the combination of subjective and objective assessment methods. Recruited listeners evaluated the speech intelligibility (SI) of 100 syllables. Vowel formant frequency and quantified vowel nasalization were measured using analysis software. The SI of patients improved significantly after wearing obturators. F2 values of six vowels in patients with obturators were higher than patients without obturators and close to the corresponding values in normal controls. The differences in F2 of /i/ and /u/, (A1-P1) of /i/ and /u/ for patients without and with obturator use were significant. Patients' ability to control the pronunciation of /i/ and /u/ improved greatly with obturators. These provide clinical evidence of the treatment outcomes in patients with palatal defect who received obturators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

West-Central Thailand Pwo Karen (Karenic, Tibeto-Burman) is one of several mutually unintelligible varieties of Pwo Karen found in Myanmar and Thailand. This paper represents an updated version of a phonological description (Phillips 2000). The study includes a comparison of the phonologies of Burmese Eastern Pwo Karen (Hpa-an and Tavoy) and the Thailand Pwo Karen varieties, West-Central Thailand Pwo Karen and Northern Pwo Karen. While the consonant inventories are similar, the vowel inventories exhibit diphthongization of some nasalized vowels. Also, some former nasalized vowels have lost their nasalization. This denasalization is most pronounced in the Burmese Eastern Pwo Karen varieties. Moreover, these varieties have either lost the two glottalized tones, or are in the process of losing them, while this process has only begun in West-Central Thailand Pwo Karen. In contrast, all six tones are present in Northern Pwo Karen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thurneysen (1905) surveyed all instances of initial nasalization or lack thereof after inflected words in the following Old Irish texts: the Würzburg, St. Gall and Milan Glosses (up to f. 74d in the case of the latter). Forms from other texts, such as the Cambrai Homily, were occasionally compared. All instances in the Turin Glosses were in fact listed.2 This paper attempts to reassess some principles for the presence or absence of nasalization, and relies on complete and newly gathered data from the Würzburg, St. Gall, Turin and Milan Glosses [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phoneme or sound inventories of different Francoprovençal varieties are presented and compared. Typical Francoprovençal sounds are identified. This serves as a basis to study contact-induced sound change. Language contact and the influence of French on the phonological systems are examined in more detail. Changes are illustrated by corpus data from the Monts du Lyonnais area and compared with other sources, focusing on consonants. Dialectometric analysis of ALF-data confirms heavy French influence on Francoprovençal phonology, which cannot be recent. In the last hundred years, probably only minor changes in unstressed vowels occurred in the area studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface-level phonetic details are used during word recognition. Yet, questions remain about how these details are encoded in lexical representations and the role of memory and attention during this process. The current study utilizes lexical repetition priming to examine the effect of a delay between hearing a word repeated with either the same or different coarticulatory patterns on lexical recognition. Listeners were faster to recognize repeated words with the same patterns of coarticulatory nasality, confirming that subphonemic information is encoded in the lexicon. Furthermore, when listeners had to adapt to more than one talker, greater coarticulatory specificity in delayed priming was observed suggesting that word-specific encoding of subphonemic details is an active cognitive process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much is known about the linguistic function of vowel nasality, whether contrastive (as in French) or coarticulatory (as in English), and much effort has gone into identifying potential correlates for the phenomenon, this study examines these proposed features to find the optimal acoustic feature(s) for nasality measurement. To this end, a corpus of 4778 oral and nasal vowels in English and French was collected, and data for 22 features were extracted. A series of linear mixed-effects regressions highlighted three promising features with large oral-to-nasal feature differences and strong effects relative to normal oral vowel variability: A1-P0, F1’s bandwidth, and spectral tilt. However, these three features, particularly A1-P0, showed considerable variation in baseline and range across speakers and vowels within each language. Moreover, although the features were consistent in direction across both languages, French speakers’ productions showed markedly stronger effects, and showed evidence of spectral tilt beyond the nasal norm being used to enhance the oralnasal contrast. These findings strongly suggest that the acoustic nature of vowel nasality is both language- and speaker-specific, and that, like vowel formants, nasality measurements require speaker normalization for across-speaker comparison, and that these acoustic properties should not be taken as constant across different languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between prosodic strengthening and linguistic contrasts in English by examining temporal realization of nasals ( N -duration) in CV N # and # N VC, and their coarticulatory influence on vowels (V-nasalization). Results show that different sources of prosodic strengthening bring about different types of linguistic contrasts. Prominence enhances the consonant׳s [nasality] as reflected in an elongation of N -duration, but it enhances the vowel׳s [orality] (rather than [nasality]) showing coarticulatory resistance to the nasal influence even when the nasal is phonologically focused (e.g., m ob - b ob; bo mb - bo b ). Boundary strength induces different types of enhancement patterns as a function of prosodic position (initial vs. final). In the domain-initial position, boundary strength reduces the consonant׳s [nasality] as evident in a shortening of N-duration and a reduction of V-nasalization, thus enhancing CV contrast. The opposite is true with the domain-final nasal in which N -duration is lengthened accompanied by greater V-nasalization, showing coarticulatory vulnerability. The systematic coarticulatory variation as a function of prosodic factors indicates that V-nasalization as a coarticulatory process is indeed under speaker control, fine-tuned in a linguistically significant way. In dynamical terms, these results may be seen as coming from differential intergestural coupling relationships that may underlie the difference in V-nasalization in CVN# vs . #NVC. It is proposed that the timing initially determined by such coupling relationships must be fine-tuned by prosodic strengthening in a way that reflects the relationship between dynamical underpinnings of speech timing and linguistic contrasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study provides a description of suprasegmental features of the language spoken by the Gulgulia community in Dhanbad, India. It briefly deals with the nasalization process, length of the vowel sounds, stress pattern, juncture, and intonation pattern in this language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an extensive literature on the syllabic affiliations of specific consonants that are typically referred to as ambisyllabic consonants. The standard view of such consonants is that they are multiply-linked to both the preceding and the following syllables (Gussenhoven, 1986; Hayes, 2009; Kahn, 1976, inter alia). In this article, we present the results of a production experiment probing the anticipatory nasalization patterns of nasal consonants with different syllabic affiliations in American English; we also present phonological data about obstruent devoicing patterns from Pennsylvania Dutchified English (PDE). Both lines of evidence suggest that when crucial confounds present in previous studies are removed, word-medial ambisyllabic consonants clearly pattern with word-medial codas and there is no evidence of any “intermediate” behavior. Furthermore, this is true of such consonants following both tense and lax vowels in our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]