RelativecueweightingoftheregistercontrastinSouthernYi

JianjingKuangAletheiaCuiYanLu

AboutSouthernYi• Tibeto-Burman• SpokeninYunnan,China• Sevenvowels

² i,ɛ,a,ɿ,ə,o,u• Threetones

² Low(21),mid(33),high(55)• Phonation-basedregisters(tensevs.lax)

² Onlyco-occurswiththelow(21)andmid(33)tones² Tensevowelsareindicatedbyanunderline(e.g.,be21vs be21)

TheRegisterContrast

T21 L21 T33 L33 55

be

bu

Phonationastheprimarycuefortheregistercontrast

Thetensevs.laxcontrastisdistinctinphonation• Tensephonationhasagreaterdegreeofglottalconstriction:² Acoustically,tensephonationhaslessprominentH1– smallervaluesforH1*,H1*-H2*,H1*-A1*,H1*-A2*,H1*-A3*

² Articulatory,tensephonationhasgreaterContactQuotient(EGG)

Ladefoged andMaddieson,1985;ShiandZhou,2005;Kuang,2011;Kuang&Keating,2014

CoarticulatedCuesfortheRegisterContrast

• Constrictioninthelarynxandpharynxleadstoretractedtongueroot² LaryngoscopestudiesofNorthernYishowthatthetensevowelsshowaretractionofthetongueroot(Esling etal.,2001;EdmondsonandEsling,2006)

² F1forthetensevowelstendtobehigher(Kuang,2011)inonedialect

• Stiffnessinthevocalfoldsleadstoahigherf0(Kuang,2011)

• Therearedialectdifferences.

SoundChange?• Kuang(2011)noticedthatsomeyoungerspeakersdonot

producephonationcontrastsforthelowvowels,e.g./be/• Maybeasoundchangeisunderway?• OtherYidialects

² Onehaslostphonationdistinctionsentirelyforlowvowels

Tense Lax

Dialect withnophonationcontrastDialectinthisstudy

HistoricalChangesthroughCueShifting

• Tonogenesis² Consonantvoicingcontrast>tonalcontrast² Vowelpitchishigherafteravoicelessconsonant(e.g.,Ohala,1973;Hombert etal.,1979;Maddieson,1984)• Increasedvocalcordtensiontomaintainvoicelessness,resultinginF0perturbationsonthefollowingvowel(Löfqvistetal,1989)

• Vowelnasalization:² Vowelsprecedingnasalstopsundergocoarticulatorynasalization

² Resultsinhistoricalchange:VN>Ṽ

SoundChangefromtheShiftingofthePrimaryCue

• Heightofbar=importanceofcue• Horizontalline=thresholdforsignificance

cue_1 cue_2 cue_3

Before a Sound Change

Cues

Significance

02

46

8

cue_1 cue_2 cue_3

After a Sound Change

Cues

Significance

02

46

8

Questions

Phoneticvariationprovidestheopportunityforsoundchange.• Howdoesthishappen?• Theroleofproductionandperception?

Threepossibilities:

• Cueshiftingstartsinproduction,andthenlistenersbecomeattunedtothechangesintheimportanceofcues

• Listenersshifttheirattentiontoanewcue,andtheninturnrelyonthiscuetomarkaphonologicalcontrastinproduction

• Productionandperceptionatthesametime

ThisStudy• IsSouthernYiundergoingsoundchange?

--Lowvowelsarelosingphonationcontrasts?

• Ifso,howisthesoundchangereflectedinproductionandperception?

à Relativeimportanceofthecoarticulatedcuesinproductionandperceptionwiththesamegroupofpeople

ProductionandPerceptioninSoundChange

• Otherstudieswithbothproductionandperceptionofthesamespeakers² Vowel-to-vowelcoarticulation(Grosvald andCorina,2012)

² Kammu voweltonogenesis (Svantesson andHouse,2006)

² StandardSouthBritish/u/-fronting(Harringtonetal.,2008)

Participants

• 41nativespeakers² 17femalespeakers(agerange[26:70],mean47)² 24malespeakers(agerange[30:71],mean45).

• Dividedinto3agegroups² youngerthan40(10participants),² 40-50(17participants)² olderthan50(14participants)

PERCEPTION1:NATURALSTIMULI

Goals

• Createabaselineforcomparison• Testwhethertheregistercontrastismaintainedbyallagegroups

Methods• Stimuli

² naturallyproducedminimalsetsbe (be21,be21,be33,be33,andbe55),andbu (bu21,bu21,bu33,bu33bu55)fromapreviousproductionexperimentfrom3malesand3females(Kuang 2011)

• Task:forcedchoiceidentificationtask² Eachstimuluswaspresentedinisolation² fivepossiblechoicesforeachstimulus,eachcorrespondingtoawordintheminimalset

² Thelistenerswereaskedtoselectthechoicethatbestcorrespondedtothestimulus

/be/accuracybyage

55 L21 L33 T21 T33

504030

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

/bu/accuracybyage

55 L21 L33 T21 T33

504030

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

Overallaccuracy

30 40 50

/bu0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

30 40 50

/be/

0.00.10.20.30.40.50.6

• Chi-squaretestsshowthatthereisnoagedifferenceinaccuracyrate.

• Linguisticcontrastismaintainedbyallagegroups

• Whetherallagegroupsusethesamecuestomakethecontrast?

• Whetherallagegroupsusethesamecuestomakethecontrast?

cueweightinginbothproductionandperception

PRODUCTION

Methods• Speakerwereaskedtoproduceminimalsetsof/be/(be21,be21,be33,be33,be55)and/bu/(bu21,bu21,bu33,bu33,bu55)² Frame:[ŋo33__e55lʏ33ɣw33]“Isaytheword___.”² Eachutterancewasrepeated3times

• Thevowelportionofeachtargetwordwasextracted² acousticmeasurementsweretakenautomaticallyusingVoiceSauce

² Fourmeasures:F1,F2,F0andH1*-H2*

Methods:DataAnalysis

• Stats:logisticregressionmodelsRegister~F1.z+F2.z+F0.z+H1-H2.z

Plotlog(p-value)toindicaterelativeimportance

/be/

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:>50

02

46

812

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:40~50

05

1015

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:<40

02

46

810

Higherbar=cueismoreimportantHorizontalline=log(0.05)

/bu/

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:>50

02

46

810

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:40-50

05

1020

30

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:<40

05

1015

Higherbar=cueismoreimportantHorizontalline=log(0.05)

PERCEPTION:RESYNTHESIZED STIMULI

Goals

• Findoutagegroupsdifferinthecuestheyrelyonfortheregistercontrast

• Testwhetherthecuesdifferforlowvowelsandhighvowels

Methods• Stimuli

² resynthesizedfromnaturallyproduced/be33,be33/and/bu33,bu33/oftwospeakers(1F,1M)

² F1,F2,andF0weremodifiedinincrementalsteps(5F1× 3F2× 3F0)

² Phonationoftheoriginaltokenswasmaintained

ResynthesizedStimuli

F1 250 325 400 475 550

Tense

Lax

Phonationcontrastissuccessfullymaintained

Paired-testsbetweentenseandlaxforallfourspeakers

Phonationcontrastissuccessfullymaintained

Methods

• Forcedchoiceidentificationtask² Eachstimuluswaspresentedinisolation² thelistenerwasaskedtochoosebetweentwooptionswhetherthetokenistenseorlax

• Participants:dividedintotwogroups² 21participantsheardtheresynthesizedstimuliofthemalespeaker

² 20heardtheresynthesizedstimuliofthefemalespeaker.

• Predictions:² Phonationistheprimarycuefor/bu/,butmaybenotfor/be/

² Olderspeakersrelymoreonphonation,youngerspeakersrelymoreonvowelquality.

Primarilyusephonation

PrimarilyuseF1

Percentageofresponse:/bu/Tense Lax

Old

Middle

Young

Relativecueweights:/bu/

logisticregressionmodelRegister~F1+F2+F0+phonation

Horizontalline=log(0.05)

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

010

2030

40

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

010

2030

4050

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

05

1015

20

Percentageofresponse:/be/Tense Lax

Old

Middle

Young

Relativecueweights:/be/

logisticregressionmodelRegister~F1+F2+F0+phonation

Horizontalline=log(0.05)

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

040

80120

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

050

100

150

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

020

4060

80

• Mappingbetweenproductionandperception

old middle young

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n/be/

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

040

80120

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

050

100

150

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

020

4060

80

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:>50

02

46

812

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:40~500

510

15

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:<40

02

46

810

old middle young

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n/be/

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

040

80120

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

050

100

150

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

020

4060

80

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:>50

02

46

812

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:40~500

510

15

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:<40

02

46

810

Misaligned!

old middle young

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n/be/

Cueshiftinghappensinperceptionfirst

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

040

80120

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

050

100

150

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

020

4060

80

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:>50

02

46

812

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:40~500

510

15

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:<40

02

46

810

old middle young

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n/bu/

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

010

2030

40

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

010

2030

4050

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

05

1015

20

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:>50

02

46

810

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:40-500

510

2030

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:<40

05

1015

old middle young

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n/bu/

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

010

2030

40

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

010

2030

4050

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

05

1015

20

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:>50

02

46

810

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:40-500

510

2030

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:<40

05

1015

Discussion

• Issoundchangeunderway?² Yes.Whiletheregistercontrastismaintained,formantsareovertakingphonationastheprimarycues

• Howdidthishappen?² Lowvowelsbeforehighvowels² innovationfirstenterstheperceptiondomain,andthenproduction

² listenersleadthechange

Listenersleadthechange• Ohala (1981,1993)

² Variationprovidesopportunitiesforchange² Soundchangehappenswhenthelistenermisinterpretsacoarticulatedcueasinherenttoasegment

• Many-to-manymappingbetweenvariableinputandflexibleperception(Beddor,2009;2012)² Somelistenersmayplacemoreweightoncoarticulatedcues,leadingtosoundchange

Listenersleadthechange• Listenerstendcompensateforcontextuallypredictablecoarticulationinperception(e.g,Fowler,2005)² Notalwaysaccurate(Fowler&Brown,2000;Beddor etal.,2001;Beddor etal.,2007)

• Agedifferencesincompensation² /u/-frontingStandardSouthernBritish(Harringtonetal.,2008)• Youngerspeakerscompensatedlessperceptuallyandproducedmorefronted/u/

MisalignmentofProductionandPerception

• Similarcase:StandardSouthernBritish(Harringtonetal.,2008;Harrington,2012)² /u/-fronting:youngerspeakersshiftinbothproductionandperception;inalignment

² /ʊ/-fronting:similarproduction,differentperceptionbetweenagegroups

² /u/-frontingbeganearlierthan/ʊ/-fronting

(Harrington, 2012)

Before change During change After change

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n3StagesofSoundChange

Differentstagesofchange• /be/:

² Youngerspeakers:Changecomplete• perceptionandproductionbothshiftfromphonationtoformants

² Olderspeakers:shiftstartedinperception• /bu/:Earlierstageofchange

² Olderspeakers:• Bothproductionandperceptionstillrelyonphonation

² Youngerspeakers:• Shiftstartedinperception

old middle young

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n/be/

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

040

80120

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

050

100

150

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

020

4060

80

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:>50

02

46

812

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:40~500

510

15

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/be/:<40

02

46

810

Before change During change After change

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n3StagesofSoundChange

OlderYounger

Differentstagesofchange• /be/:

² Youngerspeakers:Changecomplete• perceptionandproductionbothshiftfromphonationtoformants

² Olderspeakers:shiftstartedinperception• /bu/:Earlierstageofchange

² Olderspeakers:• Bothproductionandperceptionstillrelyonphonation

² Youngerspeakers:• Shiftstartedinperception

old middle young

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n/bu/

F1 F2 F0 Phon

>50

010

2030

40

F1 F2 F0 Phon

40~50

010

2030

4050

F1 F2 F0 Phon

<40

05

1015

20

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:>50

02

46

810

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:40-500

510

2030

F1 F2 F0 H1-H2

/bu/:<40

05

1015

Before change During change After change

Percep

tion

Prod

uctio

n3StagesofSoundChange

OlderYounger

Takehomemessage

• Whiletheregistercontrastismaintained,formantsareovertakingphonationastheprimarycues

• Lowvowelsbeforehighvowels• Perceptionbeforeproduction

Thankyou!

Acknowledgments

• ThisstudyissupportedbyaURFawardofUniversityofPennsylvaniatoJianjingKuang

• ThankstoalltheYifriendswhokindlyparticipatedinourstudy!

Theauthorswiththehosts