Weak Lips? A Possible Merger of /i:/ and /y:/ in Gothenburg.

IF 1.1 3区文学 Q3 ACOUSTICS

Phonetica Pub Date : 2020-01-01 Epub Date: 2019-05-02 DOI:10.1159/000499107

Johan Gross, Julia Forsberg

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Background/aims: This study investigates a possible merger in the early stages between /i:/ and /y:/ among young speakers in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Methods: (1) A large-scale online perception experiment testing listeners' abilities to identify the two vowels and (2) acoustic analysis of 705 vowels from 19 speakers.

Results: The perception study shows that listeners classify the horizontally centralized /y:/ as /i:/, both in isolated vowel items and in items containing the full word. This indicates that /y:/ is moving into the perceptual space of /i:/. Listeners also classify the unmerged /y:/ as /i:/ when listening to [y:] in isolation, indicating that lip rounding is a perceptually weak feature, for this centralized vowel, in this variety. The acoustic analysis shows that /i:/ tends to be produced as [ɨ:], and that there is no acoustic difference between /i:/ and /y:/ in measurements correlated with the first two formants, i.e. lip rounding is the most important distinctive feature.

Conclusion: Results point in the direction of an incipient vowel merger, following a merger-by-approximation model. These results indicate a lack of perceptual strength of an articulatory feature in the disappearing phoneme, namely lip rounding, and the consequent perceptual similarities between the horizontally centralized [ɨ:] and /y:/.

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弱的嘴唇吗?哥德堡的/i:/和/y:/可能合并。

背景/目的:本研究调查了瑞典哥德堡年轻说话者在早期阶段/i:/和/y:/可能的合并。方法:(1)通过大规模的在线感知实验测试听者对两个元音的识别能力;(2)对19位说话者的705个元音进行声学分析。结果:感知研究表明，听者将水平集中的/y:/分类为/i:/，无论是在孤立的元音项目中还是在包含完整单词的项目中。这表明/y:/正在进入/i:/的感知空间。听者在单独听[y:]时，也会将未合并的/y:/分类为/i:/，这表明在这种变体中，对于这个集中的元音，唇部的圆润是一种感知上的弱特征。声学分析表明，/i:/倾向于产生为[j]，并且在与前两个共振峰相关的测量中，/i:/和/y:/之间没有声学差异，即唇圆是最重要的显著特征。结论:结果指向一个早期元音合并的方向，遵循合并的近似模型。这些结果表明，在消失的音素中缺乏感知强度的发音特征，即唇部圆润，以及由此产生的水平集中的[j:]和/y:/之间的感知相似性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Phonetica 物理-声学

CiteScore

1.90

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Contemporary research into spoken language employs a wide range of approaches, from instrumental measures to perceptual and neurocognitive measures, to computational models, for investigating the properties and principles of speech in communicative settings across the world’s languages. ''Phonetica'' is an international interdisciplinary forum for phonetic science that covers all aspects of the subject matter, from phonetic and phonological descriptions of segments and prosodies to speech physiology, articulation, acoustics, perception, acquisition, and phonetic variation and change. ''Phonetica'' thus provides a platform for a comprehensive understanding of speaker-hearer interaction across languages and dialects, and of learning contexts throughout the lifespan. Papers published in this journal report expert original work that deals both with theoretical issues and with new empirical data, as well as with innovative methods and applications that will help to advance the field.