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Poster De Conférence Année : 2017

Non-local temporal adjustments caused by length contrasts: the case of Japanese

Résumé

Non-local effects refer to a phenomenon by which non-adjacent segments within a certain domain (syllable, foot, word, etc.) may be similar with respect to some dimensions. Phonologically speaking, these effects may be also referred to as (vowel or consonant) harmony. While harmony phenomena often involve feature-based contrasts (e.g. the feature [nasal]) that reflect their basic defining articulatory properties, little is known about non-local effects induced by a contrast related to the temporal properties of the sound (see Turco & Braun [1] for a study on Italian). For Italian, Turco and Braun [1] found that the duration adjustment extended further to the word-initial consonant: the [p] in palla was significantly longer (about 9 ms) than that in pala. Sporadic data showing a similar tendency in Japanese has also been found in Han [2] and in Idemaru and Guion [3]. Similarly, this study deals with non-local duration differences caused by length contrast in another language containing a lexical contrast between geminate and singleton consonants: Japanese. Like in many world languages, Japanese has a lexical contrast between two types of consonants: singleton vs. geminate, as in the minimal pair kako “past” vs. kakko “parenthesis”. Phonologically, singleton and geminate consonants are distinguished by their association to one vs. two skeletal positions. Phonetically, the distinction between the two consonants is carried primarily by duration: geminates are systematically longer than their singleton counterparts (see, for instance, Ridouane [4]). The goal of the study is to examine whether defining features associated with geminates are already anticipated on the non-adjacent word-initial consonant (e.g., whether in kakko the properties of the word-medial [kk] geminate are already foreshadowed on the word-initial [k] as compared to the [k] in the word kako). We seek to determine whether there are language- specific differences in the implementation of the onset consonant duration and on vowel- consonant timing coordination. Different from Italian, in Japanese the vowel before the upcoming geminate is longer than the vowel before the singleton consonant. It is hence possible that the vowel intervening between the influencing sound (the word-medial consonant, C2 henceforth) and the onset consonant (C1) may also play a role on the lengthening effect. As a matter of fact, the role of the intervening vowel is highly discussed in phonological accounts of harmony (cf. Odden [4]; Shaw [5]). Five native speakers of Japanese (4 female and 1 male) from Tokyo and the surrounding areas read 20 minimal pairs (40 disyllabic words and nonse words: e.g. kako "past" vs. kakko "parenthesis") three times in a carrier sentence (/sore o __ toiu/) presented in Japanese orthography in a random order. The onset consonant of the target word (C1) was a stop (/p t k/) or a fricative (/s h/), and the word-medial one (C2) was a stop (/p t k b d ɡ/). Only words with non-high vowels /a e o/ were chosen since high vowels /i u/ are prone to undergo devoicing. The speakers were asked not to insert a pause before the target word. The duration of each consonant and vowel of the target word was measured in Praat (by the first author). Preliminary results show that four of the five speakers produced significantly longer C1 when C2 was a geminate than when it was a singleton (respectively; p < .05, at most, in Student's t-test, see Figure 1), and one speaker showed a similar tendency (JP 4 in Figure 1). In line with Turco and Braun [1], we believe that these duration differences may serve to anticipate and enhance the upcoming length contrast. However, other factors influencing the initial lengthening of the onset consonant, like voicing of the word-medial consonant, influence of the type of vowel (V2) and inter-speaker differences will be examined and discussed.

Domaines

Linguistique
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Dates et versions

halshs-01735014 , version 1 (15-03-2018)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-01735014 , version 1

Citer

Takeki Kamiyama, Giuseppina Turco. Non-local temporal adjustments caused by length contrasts: the case of Japanese. Phonetics and Phonology in Europe 2017: PaPE 2017, Jun 2017, Cologne, Germany. ⟨halshs-01735014⟩
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