James M Scobbie CASL Research Centre LOT summer school Ultrasound, phonetics, phonology: Articulation for Beginners! With special thanks to collaborators Jane Stuart-Smith & Eleanor Lawson Joanne Cleland & Zoe Roxburgh Natasha Zharkova, Laura Black, Steve Cowen Reenu Punnoose, Koen Sebreghts Sonja Schaeffler & Ineke Mennen Conny Heyde Alan Wrench (aka Articulate Instruments Ltd) for AAA software and UTI hardware Various funding – thank you to ESRC, EPSRC, QMU June 2013

Ultrafest! November 2013 Edinburgh

Sociophonetics / Lg var & change Scottish English 1.Rhotic tongue shape 2.Derhoticisation among WC speakers 3.Vowel system generally Is it time for some nitty gritty stuff? Scottish English again 4. Fronted /u/ Extensions, if time –Northern Irish /u/ and diphthongs –Dutch /r/

1. Tongue shape for /r/ Retroflexion vs. bunching for /r/ is claimed to make little or no acoustic difference in US English (Boyce & Espy-Wilson 1997, Zhou et al 2008, Guenther et al 1999) –Sustained phonations There is no social variation in the appearance of the variant shapes (Mielke et al, 2010, Twist et al 2007) –USA, among rhotic speakers We find strong and consistent MC (bunch) vs. WC (retroflex) difference in Scottish English

LM16 “par” TIP UP (retroflex) EF6 “far” FRONT BUNCHEDEM3 “purr” MID BUNCHED aviavi LF1 “purr” FRONT UP

Social variation – MC more bunched Lawson, Scobbie and Stuart-Smith (2011) Overlay (n=9-12), each frame a speaker

Social variation – WC more tip-up contra Mielke, Baker and Archangeli for US Eng

results 2 raters, 49% identical rating and 90% agreement to adjacent categories within a 5 point rating scale, then the 10% redone. Results present average From light to dark:

results 2x2 Chi 2 shows main effects of –class p<0.001 (MC bunching, except for LM15) –gender p<0.01 (female bunching, in WC)

Individual tokens and speakers Should stats be done on a speaker basis?

Mean /r/ (rotated & translated to /o/) MC: Female (left) and Male (right) WC: Female (left) and Male (right) palates /o/ Mean /r/ with 1 s.d.

Confirmation – glasgow 2011 I couldn’t find the chart! 7/8 WC tip up + 1 rather hyper-triller 8/8 MC bunched

Summary – tongue shape for /r/ Pre-pausal WC /r/ looks “more retroflex” than MC /r/ What about non-prepausal contexts? When the tongue tip raises, we lose image – are these characterisations really what we think they are? We come back later to –the 4-way impressionistic categorical analysis –WC pre-pausal /r/ tends to be late in its post- alveolar constriction as well

2. Derhoticisation and covert /r/ Vernacular Scottish English is variably derhotic –breaking / diphthongisation before overt rhotic consonant –weakening acoustic rhoticity (loss of trill & high F3 in approx) –social and age-grading provide apparent-time evidence –high % r-loss in contemporary Glasgow (Stuart- Smith 2007) vs. literature provides evidence of real- time change

Auditory variation in Scottish coda /r/ MC auditorily strong, postvocalic /r/ variant (traditionally labelled as an alveolar or retroflex approximant far purr poor WC auditorily weak, “derhoticised /r/”, including pharyngealised vowels and plain vowels with no /r/ apparent far purr poor Scottish coda /r/ is weakening in WC speakers Romaine (1979); Speitel and Johnston (1983); Stuart-Smith (2007)

Word-final derhoticisation in ECB08 Rhotic ear (above) car (below) F3 F2 F3 F2 F3 F2 F3 F2 Derhoticised ear (above) car (below)

“I heard some screaming – ehm – and I turned to see two men running in the middle of the road – ehm – more* or less - - it, - - I heard the guys screaming help – ehm - When I’ve turned round – ehm - I seen one man chasing the other – ehm – and then I seen a knife.” *mair /mer/ “…by it’s thought, his passenger. Now, the incident happened at the town’s Hole Farm Road. I went there today and found one woman, young mother, Denise Ponsonby, who claims to have witnessed everything - - Typical derhoticised coda /r/ (radio)

Anglo vs. vernacular Scottish “r-loss”: non-rhoticity vs. derhoticisation

results 2 raters, 49% identical rating and 90% agreement to adjacent categories within a 5 point rating scale, then the 10% redone. Results present average From light to dark:

On the 9-point compromise scale 2-way ANOVA for class and scale showed no interaction and 2 main effects Social class p<0.001 Gender p<0.05

Articulatory hypotheses Stuart-Smith reports derhoticised rimes often sound “pharyngealised” for consistent or variable speakers –/ir/  [iə]… (fronter higher vowels, a centralising diphthong) –/ ɔ r/  [ ɔ ˁ ]… (lower backer vowels, a pharyngeal offglide) –/ar/  [ ɑ ]… (even rhotic speakers have allophonic [ ɑɹ ] ) /r/ has multiple gestures (pharyngeal + post-alveolar) where the latter is more “consonantal” (Sproat & Fujimura 1993) & the anterior gesture could show –weakening –temporal delay Gradual gestural change with complex acoustics Recall that WC both derhoticise, and are retroflex

Waterfall time sequence: hair In onset, pharyngeal and anterior gestures are more simultaneous In coda, dissociation occurs, to varied degrees Tongue root retraction Tongue blade/tip raising [he] [ɹ][ɹ] [ɹ][ɹ] əə

Spontaneous speech, raw video

Covert gesture in a derhoticising speaker car Scobbie & Stuart-Smith (2008) find that articulatorily a strong rhotic gesture may be retained, delayed beyond strong source energy into (near-)silence Seen also in Dutch (Scobbie and Sebregts, 2011) nb bunched /r/

Mean proportional lag in CVr## words in ECB08 corpus /r/ maximum constriction after voicing offset before A two-way between – groups ANOVA showed no interaction effects for gender and social class. A main effects model showed a large significant effect for social class F= p<0.001 η 2 = 0.328, n=128

Timing Bunched shape is achieved earlier during the rime (Lawson et al) Tip raising associated with delay and covert /r/

Movies (single citation words) hut vs. hurt in phrase final position –2 derhoticising speakers (m & f) –M (LM17) hut vs. hurt –F (LF1) hut vs. hurt2 Tip up vs. tip down in initial position Glottal stop vs. glottally reinforced version of /t/ [folder]folder

Phonological implications /r/ before a voiceless stop like /p/ or glottal /t/ (or before silence) can be acoustically masked –Environments likely to lead to loss of /r/ Less likely before voiced lingual consonants due to coarticulation? Vowels before /r/ in word final pre-pausal position can appear to occur in open syllables for the first time (FUR) –/ ʌ / new phonotactics –/ar/ > / ɑ / new phoneme –New role for duration in system / ʌ / vs. / ɑ /

/r/ & derhoticisation summary WC speakers have been observed to have –weak rhoticity during /r/ –breaking & pharyngealisation before /r/ Ultrasound has shown that –Even tokens without much audible rhoticity at all have a visible /r/ articulation in pre-pausal location, in the silence at the end of the word –WC speakers have more “tip-up” /r/ than MC speakers –MC speakers appear to have a vocalic or syllablic /r/ in some words, like American English / ɚ /

Why make “inaudible” gestures? Functional explanations emphasise lexicality Speakers aim to –maximise perceptibility of lexical/grammatical info –minimise effort –also to vary prosodically for information structures and –express a social identity –vary for social and interpersonal purposes and –use structured input –deal with novel input

The speaker-hearer triangle Acquisition, use, change are socially variable at phonetic and phonological levels Hearing & perception (input vs. intake) acoustic Representation articulation output speaker oriented output listener oriented

How do covert articulations spread? Are covert articulations long-lasting (i.e. learnable) or a phenomenon found at a point in time when there is an inter-generational loss of /r/? What do speakers do, when asked to “mimic” a derhotic /r/? –Copy the tongue shape –Copy the timing (late & perhaps covert) –Fail to hear that the derhoticised /r/ is even there at all? Pilot study by Lawson, with a de-rhoticising model speaker and a derhoticising mimicker.

LM17 “hurt” provided an audio stimulus LM 17 “hut” Brief, delayed tongue-tip raising (derhoticised) Simple tip raising and sometimes none at all folder Original covert contrast in LM17

LM17 “hurt” provided an audio stimulus Pilot 1’s mimicked version of LM17’s stimulus of “hurt” Brief, delayed tongue-tip raising (derhoticised) No tip raising (rless) – makes it rather like “hut?” Mimicry of LM17

Pilot 1’s mimicked version of “hurt” audio stimulus. Pilot 1’s mimicked version of “hut” audio stimulus. No covert rhotic curl in mimicked HURT. The durations of mimicked HUT and HURT were almost identical Both had glottal stop replacement of /t/ Merged hut & hurt in mimicry?

P1 unable to mimic LM17’s hut / hurt contrast Yet P1 himself has derhotic / covert contrast In mimicry he appears to be show categorical misperception He also found connected speech models hard P1’s baseline “hut”P1’s baseline “hurt”

3. Vowel materials for ECB08 9 monophthongs in labial & /h/ environments –beam fame hip hem map hum awe hope boom – / i e ı ɛ a  ɔ o ʉ / 9 (in practice 8) vowels before /r/ –beer bare (fir) herb far fur for bore poor –All vowels take /r/ except / ɪ / fir (merges with fur) Issues with UTI and available real lexical items –High/mid vowels are breaking i.e. diphthongal –Low / a / already has categorical allophony –Low / ʌ / does not appear in open syllables –Low / ɔ / has too few minimal pairs (awe vs. or) We focus on / ʌ / & / ʌ r /, and on / a / & / ar / –HUT, HURT, HAT, HEART

ECB08 materials: single words n=41 openpbtdm ʌ puppub hubhut buttbud bum mum hum purr fir fur burp (verb herb) hurt Burt bird(perm) firm a/ ɑ ma pa baa map-hat-pam palm par bar far harp parp barb heart part hard harm farm arm weak suburbhammered Two tokens of materials above plus single tokens from: Warm-up liquids: ram, rum, lumber, lamb, cull, Mull, hulk, pill, cult, film, bulb Cool-down vowels: hem, beer, bear, beam, boom, hope, hip, for, awe, poor, fame, bore, hubbub, with extra cool-down materials for MC participants: sure, pure, bare.

ECB08 corpus shows two (connected?) socially indexed patterns –Variation in tongue-shape –Delayed / weakened post-alveolar constriction Covert or acoustically weak contrast in WC speakers but no mergers or new vowels yet

Checked vowels before /r/ Merger of the 3 checked vowels is more common before /r/ in MC speakers than WC speakers, who nevertheless merge fir and fur Perhaps the bunched shape of MC /r/ is non- accidentally associated with –Aggressive coarticulation over a preceding central vowel –Early /r/ initiation –Strong rhoticity Leading to higher likelihood of merger And the occurrence of a new vowel, rhoticised schwa (“schwar”) or syllabic /r/, whichever seems theoretically less upsetting

acoustics Mergers

Just the vowels

With /r/ too

LM15LM16LM17LM18 LF1LF2LF3LF4 No recordingEM3EM4EM5 EF3EF4EF5EF6 WC males MC males WC females MC females EM4 data less reliable - probe shift - but still tip down

Summary and Conclusions MC “V” early in the rime is almost identical to /r/ in average spline-to-spline distance Not just merger /r/ vocalisation Recall that WC speakers derhoticise 2 “opposite” lenitions of consonantal /r/

Rhotic (MC) speaker Lex sets BIRD WORD + HERD merged (8/11) –Earth, verb, berth, (err) = firm, word, surf, birth, fur –Monophthong could be rhotic vowel / ɚ / - it lacks segmentable vowel + transition + rhotic portion No /a/ split (Pam/palm) – contra Aitken 1979 / ʉ / is central and not very high i ɹ ʉɹ o ɹ e ɹ ɚ ɔ ɹ ɑɹ i ʉ o e ı ɔ ɛ a ʌ firm (fur) far verb

i ə ʉ ə o ʌ e ə ɔ ˤ ɛˤ ɑ ʌ ʕ More vowels (and environments) with weak /r/ –No merger of / ɛ r / + / ʌ r / (8/8) -& not [ ɚ ], but [ ʌˁ ] (_##) –/a/ “split” (hat/heart) [a] vs. [ ɑ ] for most derhoticised –/ ʌ r / can be very short [ ʌˁ ] (sir, blur) –/ ʌ r / vs. /ar/ (_##) still contrast (car) Future / ʌ / merger? (hut/hurt/heart, bud/bird) i ʉ o e ı ɔ ɛ a ʌ Derhoticising (WC) speaker fur, fir far herb

MC pattern /r/ remains rhotic but can be more “vowel like”! / ɛ r / is now merging with /  r / & / ɪ r/ New monophthongal vowel / ɚ / is descriptive, not causal /  r / & / ɪ r/ had merged in all speakers… without it? –/  /, / ɚ /, /a/ and / ar / all remain distinct (& / ar / >> /  r /?) Derhoticisation and the pL inventory i ʉ o e ı ɔ MC ɛ a( ɑ ) ʌ

If / r / is vocalising / derhoticising in WC…? –/  r /  /  / (& / ar /  / ɑ /) in open syllables –a new phoneme and new phonotactic distribution? /a/ (BRA, PALM) vs. / ɑ / (FAR, FARM) /  / (FIR, FUR) not currently in open syllables –/  r / and / ar / may merge in some closed syllables? –/  / may merge with /  r / and / ar / in closed syll? Derhoticisation and the pL inventory i ʉ o e ı ɔ MC ɛ a( ɑ ) ʌ i ʉ o e ı ɔ WC ɛ a ɑ ʌ

Summary /r/ and vowels MC speakers are more phonetically rhotic –Strong rhotic quality to /r/ –New rhotic vowel / ɚ / instead of V+/r/? –Used in BIRD, WORD, HEARD, leading to merger WC speakers –Plenty of opportunity to guess what might happen next… “loss” of /r/ leading to new vowels? –Unclear if derhotic BIRD, WORD, HEARD merged More speculations –/o/ is the new high back corner vowel –/u/ is fronted… but is it lowered phonologically?