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Dept. for Speech, Music and Hearing
Quarterly Progress and
Status Report
Coarticulation in apical
consonants: acoustic and
articulatory analyses of
Hindi, Swedish and Tamil
Krull, D. and Lindblom, B.
journal: TMH-QPSR
volume: 37
number: 2
year: 1996
pages: 073-076
http://www.speech.kth.se/qpsr
TMH-QPSR 2/1996
Coarticulation in apical consonants: acoustic
and articulatory analyses of Hindi, Swedish and
Tamil
Diana Krull and Bjorn Lindblom
Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, S-10691 Stockholm
Abstract
In Hindi, Swedish and Tamil, the place of articulation of retrojlexes is more poste-
rior at the beginning of the closure than at the release. RetroJIex place of contact
is also vowel-dependent whereas that of dentals is constant. F2 locus parameters
fail to support the idea that the degree of vowel-consonant coarticulation varies
with place and/or language. The main dzflerence between dental and retrojlex is
provided by F3, and to a lesser degree F4. The contrast is larger at the VC than at
the CV boundary.
from all of them.
Issues acoustic records were obtained
The Hindi and Tamil speakers were asked to
1. Phonologically, Hindi and Tamil use dental produce isolated words of either [alCV:] or
and retroflex stops contrastively, whereas in rV:Ca] structure with V = /i/, /el, /a/, 101 or /u/.
Swedish they are combinatorial variants arising The Swedish utterances, prosodically similar to
in sequances of an /r/ or a retroflex followed by gul hatt, had symmetrical ['V:'CV:] structure,
to
a dental. Given that fact we looked for where V = /i/, /el, /&I, /a/, 101 or 11.11. The test
language-dependent effects in the time-course words were read five or six times.
of retrojlex production. Formant estimates were made from spectro-
2. Locus equation parameters have been said to grams and short-term spectra using the MIX
provide a context-independent way of specify- software written by R Carlson (KTH). Formant
(1) in the first vowel
ing place of articulation (Sussman, McCaffrey frequencies were measured
80 ms before closure;
and Matthews, 1991). The present results will (2) at the last glottal pulse
be discussed in the light of that claim. before closure (= VC boundary); (3) at the first
glottal pulse of the second vowel (= CV bound-
3. If two languages differ in the degree of retro- ary); and (4) in the second vowel 80 ms after the
flection, how is tongue body coarticulation CV boundary. The EPG data were collected
affected? On the basis of articulatory synergy using the Reading system (Engstrand 1989).
(Lindblom, Pauli and Sundberg, 1975) it might
be assumed that a more posterior retroflection Results
requires a tongue body which is also more
posterior. Is such an expectation borne out by Figure 1 compares several aspects of the data.
our data? Average values are shown for three Swedish
4. Hindi and Swedish retroflexes are speakers, two Hindi speakers, and two Tamil
apicalllaminal. Tamil is reported to use speakers. The place of contact obtained from the
sublaminal articulations (Ladefoged and Bhas- EPG data is presented in mm from the incisors.
kararao 19831, that is, contact patterns involving For dentals, the place does not vary with vowel
the tongue underside. context, nor is there a change from the VC to
the CV condition. However, for retroflex. the
Those issues will here be examined with the data differ in that the e~act.~lace does indeed
aid of acoustic data and synchronized EPG depend on the vowel, front vowels having a
records. more anterior variants of retroflection. There are
also marked differences between the VC and
Experimental procedures CV samples: during the closure the place of
The present data come from two speakers of contact slides forward so that the contrast
between dental and retroflex is larger at the VC
Hindi, three speakers of Swedish and two than at the CV boundary. These results confirm
speakers of Tamil. Electropalatographic and earlier findings on Hindi (Dixit 1990).
Fonetik 96, Swedish Phonetics Conference, Nasslingen, 29-31 May, 1996
Dental stops
Swedish Hindi Tamil Swedish ~indi Tamil
P 0
9
Y I
El.
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
F2 of Vl (kHz) F2 of V2 (kHz)
Retroflex stops
Swedish Hindi Tamil Swedish Hindi Tamil
F2 of Vl (kJ3z) F2 of V2 (kHz)
Figure I. The top half of the $gure pertains to dental, the lower half to retrojlex observations. The
columns to the lefr show measurements made at the VC boundary, to the right CV observations. The
smaller panels (EPG) indicate place of stop closure (in mm from the incisors) and are paired with the
plot of F2, F3 and F4 of/rset (VC) or onset (CV). The calibration of the x-axis is F2 of the$rst or second
vowel. The data points represent the respective means for three Swedish, two Hindi and two Tamil
speakers.
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