Pharyngeal Vowels in N ǀ u

Johanna BrugmanCornell University

UltrafestApril 16, 2005

Pharyngeal Vowels in Nǀu

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Introduction

• Guttural (i.e., post-velar) constrictions are phonologically significant in Khoisan languages. – Back Vowel Constraint (Traill 1985, Miller-Ockhuizen 2003, Miller-

Ockhuizen et al. forthcoming) – Guttural OCP (Miller-Ockhuizen 2003)

• The geographic isolation of Khoisan speakers has made articulatory data particularly difficult to collect, so linguists have relied primarily on acoustics and phonotactics.

• Portable ultrasound technology makes articulatory investigation of Khoisan gutturals feasible.

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Nǀu

• Nǀu (ǂKhomani) is a Southern Khoisan language (like !Xóõ).

• Though once thought extinct, it is spoken by about a dozen people in South Africa and Botswana.

• Data were collected in South Africa in November 2003, May/June 2004 and March 2005.

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The Project

• This research is part of a larger project that aims to document the phonetics, phonology, syntax and lexicon of Nǀu.

• Wordlists for phonetic studies are based on a 1000-word corpus elicited in May/June 2004.

• This presentation represents work in progress. We are planning another field trip in May/June 2005.

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Goals of this Talk

• To demonstrate how ultrasound can be used qualitatively in the field to investigate interesting phonological questions.

• To characterize the articulatory differences between modal and pharyngeal vowels in Nǀu.

• To relate the Nǀu data to relevant issues in Khoisan phonetics and phonology.

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Pharyngeal Vowels in Other Khoisan Languages

• Traill (1985, 1986) describes two types of pharyngeal vowels in !Xóõ: ‘pharyngeal’ and ‘strident’. Each comes in both oral and nasal varieties, and each is restricted to the back vowels.

• Traill argues that strident vowels are phonologically ‘pharyngeal’ and ‘breathy’.

• Phonetically, pharyngeal and strident vowels seem to differ in the location and degree of their posterior constrictions.

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X-Ray Tracings from Traill (1985)

Plain [a] and [u]

Pharyngeal [a̰] and [u ̰]

Strident[a̰h] and [u ̰h]

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Pharyngeal Vowels in Juǀ’hoansi

• The Northern Khoisan language Juǀ’hoansi has only one type of pharyngeal vowel, which Miller-Ockhuizen (2003) calls ‘epiglottal’.

• Impressionistically, Juǀ’hoansi ‘epiglottals’ seem similar to !Xóõ ‘pharyngeals’ (Amanda Miller, p.c.).

• Juǀ’hoansi epiglottal vowels pattern as ‘guttural’ segments and so cannot co-occur in roots with ‘guttural’ consonants.

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Questions

• How many types of pharyngeal vowels are there in Nǀu?

• How do these vowels pattern with respect to ‘guttural’ consonants?

• How are Nǀu pharyngeal vowels articulated?

• How do the acoustic and articulatory properties of these vowels relate to those described for other Khoisan languages?

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Nǀu Vowels

• There are five contrastive vowel qualities ([i], [e], [a], [o], [u]).

• Vowels can be oral, nasal, pharyngeal, glottalized or breathy, though breathiness may not be contrastive independent of voicing and/or tone.

• There are four surface levels of lexical tone (SH, H, L, SL), though SL may not be independent of non-modal phonation.

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Nǀu Pharyngeal Vowels

• Nǀu has only one type of contrastive pharyngeal vowel, though it can be oral or nasal and its realization can vary tremendously. [!aˁaˁ] ‘sky’ Speaker 1 Speaker 2

• Nǀu differs from both !Xóõ and Juǀ’hoansi in that it has front pharyngeal vowels. [ʔee] ‘yes’ [tzeˁeˁ] ‘fly (v)’

• Nǀu also differs from Juǀ’hoansi in that pharyngeal vowels can co-occur with ‘guttural’ consonants. [!χ’aˁaˁ.ʔi] ‘bitter’

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Ultrasound

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Methods

• Data were collected via a GE LOGIQbook with a GE 8-CRS microconvex probe (4-10 MHz).

• Video from the ultrasound was mixed with video from a camcorder and with audio from a head-mounted microphone.

• The mixed signal was captured on a Dell Inspiron 8600 with Adobe Premiere Pro at 30 fps.

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Ultrasound Set-up

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Data Collection• Data were collected from four of the thirteen

remaining speakers, though data from only one of these will be discussed here.

• Consultants repeated target words 5 times in the frame sentence ‘Na ka ___.’ (‘I say ___.’).

• Target words:– [ʔee] ‘yes’ vs. [tzeˁeˤ] ‘fly (v)’ – [ǃaa] ‘hartebeest’ vs. [!aˤaˤ] ‘sky’ – ([!oo] ‘hole’ vs. [ǁɔˤɔˤ] ‘chameleon’)

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Data Analysis

• Audio files were extracted and points of interest were labelled in Praat.

• Labels were used to calculate frame numbers.

• The peak of the [k] gesture in the frame sentence was used to estimate the degree of mis-alignment.

• The relevant frames were marked with EdgeTrak and traces were exported and analyzed with S-Plus.

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Challenges

• Movement of head, body and probe were not constrained.

• The nature of the community gave us little choice in which speakers to use.

• The mis-alignment of audio and video introduces additional uncertainty.

• Picture quality is degraded by the set-up.

• The corpus we drew the wordlist from was not as large as it could have been.

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However....

• Even without precise measurements, we can get qualitative information about what is going on with the tongue root.

• The segments under investigation are fairly long, so small errors in the alignment will have relatively little impact on the results.

• The severely engangered status of the language means that time is of the essence.

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Results for [aa] vs. [aˁaˁ] (S1)

All Traces for the Modal Vowel in [!aa] 'hartebeest'

<- Front

Up

->

40 50 60 70 80

-55

-50

-45

-40

-35

[k] of frameTarget vowel

All Traces for the Pharyngeal Vowel in [!a?a?] 'sky'

<- Front

Up

->

40 50 60 70 80

-55

-50

-45

-40

-35

[k] of frameTarget vowel

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Traces for Modal and Pharyngeal [aa] at the 1/2 Point

<- Front

Up

->

40 50 60 70 80

-55

-50

-45

-40

-35

ModalPharyngeal

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All Tongue Traces for the Modal Vowel in [?ee] 'yes'

<- Front

Up

->

40 50 60 70 80

-55

-50

-45

-40

-35

[k] of frameTarget vowel

All Tongue Traces for the Pharyngeal Vowel of [tze?e?] 'fly(v)'

<- Front

Up

->

40 50 60 70 80

-55

-50

-45

-40

-35

[k] of frameTarget vowel

Results for [ee] vs. [eˁeˁ] (S1)

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Traces for Modal and Pharyngeal [ee] at the 1/2 Point

<- Front

Up

->

40 50 60 70 80

-55

-50

-45

-40

-35

ModalPharyngeal

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The Vowel Space

Modal and Pharyngeal Vowel Spaces (S1)

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

50010001500200025003000

F2

F1

Modal [e]

Pharyngeal [e]

Modal [a]

Pharyngeal [a]

Modal [o]

Pharyngeal [o]

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Conclusions

• Qualitative ultrasound data can complement other types of phonetic data collected in the field.

• Nǀu seems to pattern differently from other Khoisan languages in its distribution of the pharyngeal vowels.

• A revised methodlolgy and narrowly-designed experiment will allow us to collect ultrasound data that is useful in our characterization of the phonetics and phonology of Nǀu.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation grant “Collaborative Research: Descriptive and Theoretical Studies of Nǀu” (BCS-0236735/BCS-0236795, PIs: Amanda Miller-Ockhuizen, Christopher Collins and Bonny Sands).

I am grateful to Amanda Miller and Mats Exter for making the time to collect new data during their field trip in March 2005.

I would like to thank Levi Namaseb of the University of Toronto and the University of Namibia, whose advice on both logistic and linguistic matters has proven invaluable during the course of this project.

I would also like to acknowledge the help of the South African San Institute (SASI) in arranging and facilitating our visits to South Africa.

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Most of all, I would like to thank our consultants Kheis Brou, Katrina Esau, Anna Kassie, Hannie Koerant, Hanna Koper, Andreis Olyn, ǀUna Rooi and Griet Seekoei, as well as our translators Collin Louw, Willem Damarah, Gerhardus Damarah and Gertuida Sauls, whose patience and good humor made recording much more fun than it otherwise might have been.

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References

Miller-Ockhuizen, A. (2003). The phonetics and phonology of gutturals : Case study from Ju|'hoansi. New York: Routledge.

Miller-Ockhuizen, A., L. Namaseb and K. Iskarous. (forthcoming). TB constriction differences in click types. In: J. Cole and J. Hualde (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology IX.

Traill, A. (1985) Phonetic and phonological studies of !Xóõ Bushman. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 1. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.

Traill, A. (1986). The laryngeal sphincter as a phonatory mechanism in !Xóõ Bushman. In: R. Singer and J. K. Lundy (Eds.), Variation, culture and evolution in African populations: Papers in honour of Dr. Hertha de Villiers. (pp.123-131). Johannesburg: Witwaterstrand University Press.