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"Fletcher, Janet"
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Cross-Regional Patterns of Obstruent Voicing and Gemination: The Case of Roman and Veneto Italian
Italian has a length contrast in its series of voiced and voiceless obstruents while also presenting phonetic differences across regional varieties. Northern varieties of the language, including Veneto Italian (VI), are described as maintaining the voicing contrast but, in some cases, not the length contrast. In central and southern varieties, the opposite trend may occur. For instance, Roman Italian (RI) is reported to optionally pre-voice intervocalic voiceless singleton obstruents whilst also maintaining the length contrast for this consonant class. This study looks at the acoustic realization of selected obstruents in VI and RI and investigates (a) prevoicing patterns and (b) the effects and interactions of regional variety, gemination, and (phonological and phonetic) voicing on consonant (C) and preceding-vowel (V) durations, as well as the ratio between the two (C/V), with a focus on that particular measure. An acoustic phonetic analysis is conducted on 3703 tokens from six speakers from each variety, producing eight repetitions of 40 real CV́C(C)V and CVC(C)V́CV words embedded in carrier sentences, with /p, pp, t, tt, k, kk, b, bb, d, dd, ɡ, ɡɡ, f, ff, v, vv, t∫, tt∫, dʒ, ddʒ/ as the target intervocalic consonants. The results show that both VI and RI speakers produce geminates, yielding high C/V ratios in both varieties, although there are cross-regional differences in the realization of singletons. On the one hand, RI speakers tend to pre-voice voiceless singletons and produce overall shorter C durations and lower C/V ratios for these consonants. On the other hand, VI speakers produce longer C durations and higher C/V ratios for all voiceless singletons, triggering some overlap between the C length categories, which results in partial degemination through singleton lengthening, although only for voiceless obstruents. The implications of a trading relationship between phonetic voicing and duration of obstruents in Italian gemination are discussed.
Journal Article
Phrase-level and edge marking in Drehu
This study investigates prosodic correlates of phrasing in Drehu, an Oceanic language from New Caledonia. The analysis is concerned with the demarcation of prosodic levels in the language, namely the Accentual Phrase and the Intonation Phrase. First impressionistic descriptions of Drehu state there is fixed word initial stress, however recent experimental evidence does not support this claim. Instead, it has been suggested that Drehu could be an edge-marking language which relies on right boundary marking. To determine whether the patterns recorded in the literature are borne out, the phonological and phonetic realisation of post-lexical word level prosody is investigated. An experiment was conducted to examine the extent to which fundamental frequency (F0) and duration contribute to boundary marking in Drehu. The results show that F0 cues mark the right boundary of two prosodic levels, the AP and IP, and that the strength of the boundary is related to its level in the prosodic hierarchy. Preboundary lengthening also cues IP boundaries but not AP boundaries.
Journal Article
Nasal coarticulation in Bininj Kunwok: An aerodynamic analysis
Bininj Kunwok (BKw), a language spoken in Northern Australia, restricts the degree of anticipatory nasalization, as suggested by previous aerodynamic and acoustic analyses (Butcher 1999). The current study uses aerodynamic measurements of speech to investigate patterns of nasalization and nasal articulation in Bininj Kunwok to compare with Australian languages more generally. The role of nasal coarticulation in ensuring language compre-hensibility a key question in phonetics research today is explored. Nasal aerodynamics is measured in intervocalic, word-medial nasals in the speech of five female speakers of BKw and data are analyzed using Smoothing Spline Analysis of Variance (SSANOVA) and Functional Data Analysis averaging techniques. Results show that in a VNV sequence there is very little anticipatory vowel nasalization with no restriction on carryover nasalization for a following vowel. The maximum peak nasal flow is delayed until the oral release of a nasal for coronal articulations, indicating a delayed velum opening gesture. Patterns of anticipatory nasalization appears similar to nasal airflow in French non-nasalized vowels in oral vowel plus nasal environments (Delvaux et al. 2008). Findings show that Bininj Kunwok speakers use language specific strategies in order to limit anticipatory nasalization, enhancing place of articulation cues at a site of intonational prominence which also is also the location of the majority of place of articulation contrasts within the language. Patterns of airflow suggest enhancement and coarticulatory resistance in prosodically prominent VN and VNC sequences which we interpret as evidence of speakers maintaining a phonological contrast to enhance place of articulation cues.
Journal Article
Specific Language Impairment, Theory of Mind, and Visual Perspective Taking: Evidence for Simulation Theory and the Developmental Role of Language
Recent research has found that the acquisition of theory of mind (ToM) is delayed in children with specific language impairment (SLI). The present study used a battery of ToM and visual perspective taking (VPT) tasks to investigate whether the delayed acquisition of ToM in children with SLI is associated with delayed VPT development. Harris' (1992, 1996) simulation theory predicts that the development of VPT will be delayed. Participants were 20 children with SLI (M = 62.9 months) and 20 typically developing children (M = 61.2 months) who were matched for nonverbal ability, gender, and age. The results supported Harris' theory and a role for language in ToM and VPT development.
Journal Article
A Spotlight on Preschool: The Influence of Family Factors on Children’s Early Literacy Skills
Phonological awareness, letter knowledge, oral language (including sentence recall) and rapid automatised naming are acknowledged within-child predictors of literacy development. Separate research has identified family factors including socio-economic status, parents' level of education and family history. However, both approaches have left unexplained significant amounts of variance in literacy outcomes. This longitudinal study sought to improve prospective classification accuracy for young children at risk of literacy failure by adding two new family measures (parents' phonological awareness and parents' perceived self-efficacy), and then combining the within-child and family factors.
Pre-literacy skills were measured in 102 four year olds (46 girls and 56 boys) at the beginning of Preschool, and then at the beginning and end of Kindergarten, when rapid automatised naming was also measured. Family factors data were collected at the beginning of Preschool, and children's literacy outcomes were measured at the end of Year 1 (age 6-7 years).
Children from high-risk backgrounds showed poorer literacy outcomes than low-risk students, though three family factors (school socio-economic status, parents' phonological awareness, and family history) typically accounted for less Year 1 variance than the within-child factors. Combining these family factors with the end of Kindergarten within-child factors provided the most accurate classification (i.e., sensitivity = .85; specificity = .90; overall correct = .88).
Our approach would identify at-risk children for intervention before they began to fail. Moreover, it would be cost-effective because although few at-risk children would be missed, allocation of unnecessary educational resources would be minimised.
Journal Article
In Memoriam Anne Cutler (1945–2022)
Anne Cutler, a strong supporter and outstanding contributor to the broad church of phonetic science, died in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, on 7 June 2022, after a brief illness.
Journal Article
Prominence marking in an edge-prominent language - the case of Drehu
This study investigates prosodic correlates of phrasing in Drehu, an Oceanic language from New Caledonia. The analysis is concerned with the demarcation of prosodic levels in the language, namely the Accentual Phrase and the Intonation Phrase. First impressionistic descriptions of Drehu state there is fixed word initial stress, however recent experimental evidence does not support this claim. Instead, it has been suggested that Drehu could be an edge-marking language which relies on right boundary marking. To determine whether the patterns recorded in the literature are borne out, the phonological and phonetic realisation of post-lexical word level prosody is investigated. An experiment was conducted to examine the extent to which fundamental frequency (F0) and duration contribute to boundary marking in Drehu. The results show that F0 cues mark the right boundary of two prosodic levels, the AP and IP, and that the strength of the boundary is related to its level in the prosodic hierarchy. Preboundary lengthening also cues IP boundaries but not AP boundaries.
Journal Article