Acoustic classification of coronal stops of Eastern Punjabi.

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language which contrasts a rich set of coronal stops at dental and retroflex places of articulation across three laryngeal configurations. Moreover, all these stops occur contrastively in various positions (word-initially, -medially, and -finally). The goal of this study is to investigate how various coronal place and laryngeal contrasts are distinguished acoustically both within and across word positions. A number of temporal and spectral correlates were examined in data from 13 speakers of Eastern Punjabi: Voice Onset Time, release and closure durations, fundamental frequency, F1-F3 formants, spectral center of gravity and standard deviation, H1*-H2*, and cepstral peak prominence. The findings indicated that higher formants and spectral measures were most important for the classification of place contrasts across word positions, whereas laryngeal contrasts were reliably distinguished by durational and voice quality measures. Word-medially and -finally, F2 and F3 of the preceding vowels played a key role in distinguishing the dental and retroflex stops, while spectral noise measures were more important word-initially. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of factors involved in the maintenance of typologically rare and phonetically complex sets of place and laryngeal contrasts in the coronal stops of Indo-Aryan languages.

An acoustic and articulatory study of laryngeal and place contrasts of Kalasha (Indo-Aryan, Dardic).

The Northwestern group of Indo-Aryan (Dardic) languages is generally known to have undergone consonantal shift, which resulted in the loss of voiced aspirated (VDA) stops and affricates of Sanskrit. Kalasha, an endangered Dardic language spoken in Chitral (Northern Pakistan), still preserves the Old Indo-Aryan four-way laryngeal system. The current study examines acoustic and articulatory correlates of Kalasha's four-way laryngeal contrast across places and manners of articulation, using lingual ultrasound-imaging and several acoustic measures. The analysis included the standard acoustic [voice onset time (VOT), after prevoicing interval (API), fundamental frequency onset, first four spectral moments] and articulatory (smoothing spline analysis of variance) measures, which capture laryngeal, place, and manner differences in consonants. The results showed that VOT reliably differentiated the four-way laryngeal contrast of Kalasha. VDA stops and affricates are characterized by shorter voicing lead VOT, higher API, and lower fundamental frequency onset than their voiced unaspirated (VDUA) counterparts. However, the first four spectral moments did not distinguish the two VDUA and VDA stop series. The tongue root retraction distinguishes the voiceless stops and affricates from the voiced ones.

Partial devoicing of voiced geminate stops in Tokyo Japanese.

Tokyo Japanese has a constraint against voiced geminate stops in its native lexicon. The present study investigates whether recently introduced word-medial voiced geminate stops [C1V1C(C)2V2] are differentiated from voiceless geminates and voiced singletons in terms of duration, voicing during closure, and spectral moments of stop release bursts. The findings suggest that the voiceless and voiced singleton stops were clearly differentiated by C2 duration. In contrast, C2 duration of the voiceless and voiced geminate stops was not significantly different. The devoicing of the word-medial stops was not only observed in voiced geminates, but voiced singletons also showed devoicing. The duration of the preceding vowel (V1) distinguished the voicing contrast in both singleton and geminate stops. The first four spectral moments of C2 stop release bursts did not distinguish the length and voicing contrasts in stops. These results indicate that, although word-medial voiced geminate stops are fully or partially devoiced, the Tokyo Japanese speakers lengthen the preceding vowels (V1) to maintain a voicing contrast. Production patterns of the voiced geminates are considered in relation to marginal or intermediate phonological contrast.

Acoustic characteristics of Punjabi retroflex and dental stops.

The phonological category "retroflex" is found in many Indo-Aryan languages; however, it has not been clearly established which acoustic characteristics reliably differentiate retroflexes from other coronals. This study investigates the acoustic phonetic properties of Punjabi retroflex /ʈ/ and dental /ʈ̪/ in word-medial and word-initial contexts across /i e a o u/, and in word-final context across /i a u/. Formant transitions, closure and release durations, and spectral moments of release bursts are compared in 2280 stop tokens produced by 30 speakers. Although burst spectral measures and formant transitions do not consistently differentiate retroflexes from dentals in some vowel contexts, stop release duration, and total stop duration reliably differentiate Punjabi retroflex and dental stops across all word contexts and vocalic environments. These results suggest that Punjabi coronal place contrasts are signaled by the complex interaction of temporal and spectral cues.

Temporal characteristics of Punjabi word-medial singletons and geminates.

Many studies have investigated the temporal characteristics of the word-medial singletons and geminates in Indo-Aryan languages. However, little is known about the acoustic cues distinguishing between the word-medial singletons and geminates of Punjabi. The present study examines the temporal characteristics of Punjabi word-medial singleton and geminate stops in a C1V1C2V2 template. The results from five Punjabi speakers showed that, unlike previous studies of Indo-Aryan languages, the durations of C2 and V2 are the most important acoustic correlates of singleton and geminate stops in Punjabi. These findings therefore point towards the cross-linguistic differences in the acoustic correlates of singletons and geminates.