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Nasal venting and the early mastery of Greek voiced stops.

ICGL 2009 (OCT 29-31: 10:30 -10:55 a.m. 31th ). Nasal venting and the early mastery of Greek voiced stops. Eun Jong Kong*, Mary E. Beckman † and Jan Edwards* * University of Wisconsin-Madison, † Ohio State University. 1. Introduction.

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Nasal venting and the early mastery of Greek voiced stops.

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  1. ICGL 2009 (OCT 29-31: 10:30 -10:55 a.m. 31th) Nasal venting and the early mastery of Greek voiced stops. Eun Jong Kong*, Mary E. Beckman† and Jan Edwards* * University of Wisconsin-Madison, † Ohio State University

  2. 1. Introduction • Stop voicing/aspiration categories and Voice Onset Time (VOT) as an acoustic measure: Word-initial stops with a voicing/aspiration contrast (e.g., /d/ vs. /t/ vs. /th/) are differentiated by VOT (Lisker andAbramson, 1964). VOT = Burst –Voicing Onset Long lag VOT Lead VOT Short lag VOT Burst Burst Burst Voicing Onset Voicing Onset Voicing Onset donut [do'mata] tomato toast [tixos] wall

  3. Laryngeal categories and VOT Short lag Lead Long lag

  4. Short lag Lead Long lag • Phonological development and VOT • Universal order of mastery: • [t] [th] [d] • Kewley-Port & Preston (1974): • the relative difficulty of producing the different VOT. • Late mastery of voiced stops: maintaining the supra-glottal air pressure lower than the sub-glottal pressure. • : Spanish (spirantization error) • French (nasal venting)

  5. Greek adult VOT patterns predicts: Lead Short lag : voiced vs. voiceless • [t] then, [d] • A puzzle in the mastery of Greek stops & adult like lead VOT at 4 or 5. • HOWEVER… • The studies found adult-like lead VOTs in 2 year-olds’ stops. (Okalidou, Petinou,Theodorou & Karasimou et al 2002, Kong& Beckman, 2006)

  6. Possible explanation of this puzzle can be … the fact that Greek voiced stops are not always ‘truly voiced’ butcan be prenasalized: they are historically developed from a nasal + voiceless stop cluster (Arvaniti & Joseph 1999). -- the nasal venting facilitates voicing. • VOT cannot capture this prenasality in Greek voiced stops. In Burton, Blumstein and Stevens (1992), time-course of amplitude change of the first resonance peak was a successful measure but not a duration in differentiating voiced stops, prenasalized stops and nasals in Moru. Figure. The schematized version of phonetic analysis of prenasalized stops in from Burton et al. (1992).

  7. Hypothesis: • If prenasalized variants are accepted in children’s productions, this could explain the earlier acquisition of the voicing contrast by Greek-speaking children relative to French- or Thai-speaking children. Goals of the study • This study provides acoustic evidence that Greek voiced stops are at least partially prenasalized in adults’ and children’s productions. • a. direct comparison between voiced stops and nasals in word-initial position • b. examination of their spectral quality because a duration measure of VOT is not sufficient.

  8. 2. Method • Materials word-initial voiced stops (/b/,/d/) and nasals (/m/, /n/). : cross-sectional data from the Paidologos project http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~edwards • Task picture naming task for children e.g., ['bala] ball, [mixa'ni] motorbike, [du'lapa] wardrobe, [ne'ro] water word-reading task for adults. e.g., [bu'kali] bottle, [mu’ɡos] mute, [do'mata] tomato, [no'mizo] I think • Subjects 93 children (2;0 – 5;11) and 6 adults (18;0 – 30;0) monolingual Greek speakers. Recordings were made in Thessaloniki, Greece.

  9. Two acoustic measures a. Duration of voicing lead (i.e., VOT) in the voiced stops and nasal murmur in nasal consonants. b. Amplitude changes during the voicing lead and nasal murmur: - the first peak amplitude in the FFT spectrum made from a 6 ms Hamming window centered at each glottal pulse starting at the burst. - normalized by the amplitude of the following vowel. glottal pulse Burst 6ms 25ms [berðevo] peak amplitude Amplitude (dB) Frequency (Hz)

  10. number of tokens VOT in seconds 3. Results (duration) • VOT distribution of voiced stops and nasals by children. • The percentage of prevoiced stops: girls : 84.7% (72/85) boys: 82.2% (74/90) 2 yos ~ 5 yos: 85.7%, 79.1%, 87.5% and 81.8% Lead

  11. 3. Results (amplitude) vd. stops nasals voiced stop (gtm08) begins with lower energy than his nasals and maintains this same amplitude difference. voiced stop (gtf07) begins with energy as high as her nasals followed by an energydecrease over time toward the burst. nasal: gradual increase over time Smoothing spline ANOVA (Gu 2002, Davidson 2006) voicing onset burst 2. Amplitude trajectories: 6 Adults

  12. 2. Amplitude trajectories: 6 Greek adults Figure) The schematized version of phonetic analysis of prenasalized stops in Moru (pp. 137) from Burton et al. (1992).

  13. 3. Results (amplitude) vd. stops nasals nasal: gradual energy increase over time voiced stop: begins with an amplitude as high as the nasal murmur amplitude followed by a gradual separation toward the burst. Amplitude trajectories: by children’s age groups. Df

  14. 2. Amplitude trajectories: Greek children Figure) The schematized version of phonetic analysis of prenasalized stops in Moru (pp. 137) from Burton et al. (1992). adults

  15. 3. Results: summary • Duration: Young Greek-speaking children could produce adult-like prevoicing lead (unlike Spanish, French and Thai). • Amplitude trajectories: • The amplitude trajectory of the prevoicing lead was a successful acoustic measure to capture the prenasalized quality in Greek voiced stops. • Prenasalization in Greek adults’ voiced stops; -- an amplitude as high as in the nasals followed by an amplitude drop. -- speaker variability • Prenasalization in Greek children’s voiced stops -- a high degree of nasality that was extended over the entire duration of the prevoicing lead.

  16. 4. Discussion and conclusion • Greek voiced stops … • are in contrast with voiceless stops • have lead VOT values • can be prenasalized. • Mastery of Greek voiced stops • adult-like lead VOT in children’s voiced stops • acoustic evidence of prenasalization in Greek voiced stops • : children were taking advantage of nasal venting to lower the supraglottal pressure in order to maintain vocal fold vibration.

  17. 4. Discussion and conclusion Acoustic properties of stop voicing categories: There exist various language-specific differences in the acoustic realization of stop voicing categories VOT is not always sufficient to describe stop voicing categories, given language-specific acoustic properties. Children’s mastery of stop voicing categories … Cannot be fully understood based on transcription… Or even based on VOT measurements (at least for Greek) Understanding the language-specific fine phonetic details allows us to explain seemingly exceptional patterns. Ultimately, this will allow us to capture the universal patterns in the mastery of stop voicing categories.

  18. Acknowledgement • This study was supported by NIDCD Grant 02932. • The children who participated in the study and the parents who gave their consent. • We thank Asimina Syrika who recorded the children and adults for this study. Thank you!!!

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