ARTICULATORY AVOIDANCE Sylvia Moosmüller Acoustics Research Institute Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna IAFPA 2006, Gothenburg Acoustics Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences: A-1010 Wien; Reichsratsstraße 17. Tel / Fax +43 1/

Crioulo, Guinea Bissau: I dipus bida dana dja na pa sempri (then life will be destroyed forever)

Pidgin English, Nigeria: before

Application of phonological processes Speech chain is planned according to well-known linguistic and extralinguistic principles:  Prosodic position  Speech task  Speech situation  Interactional patterns (gender, age, fashion, profiling)… Execution of the plan might show impairments according to:  Degree of attention  Degree of tiredness  Motor speech disorders  Amount of drug consumption… The variability observed is systematic and consistent, and, consequently, predictable to a high degree.

Articulatory Avoidance Plan:to depart as little as possible from a neutral vocal tract configuration. This demands a high degree of attention.  No articulation: only F0-contour  Little articulation: hardly any movement in formant frequencies  Segment borders are difficult to detect  Phonetically unplausible substitutions, e.g. / ŋ /  [f]  Unmotivated deletions (morphemes, words, parts of sentences)  Low voice Execution of the above plan highly depends on:  Degree of attention  Degree of tiredness The variability observed is unsystematic and inconsistent, does not follow phonetically motivated principles, and is, consequently, not predictable. The more attentive, the less tired a speaker is, the better he/she will be able to produce sounds which depart only little from a neutral vocal tract configuration. „Normal“ performance increases with decrease of attentiveness.

Spontaneous speech (magenta) vs. repeating sentences (red) Articulatory avoidanceNo articulatory avoidance t = 1,22, p = 0,12t = 7,03, p = 0,00 F1 /a/ in stressed positions:

4 tokens of ntene (I have): Durations: 136 ms [ ɜ̤̃ɜ̃ ] 173 ms [ tsɛːɛ̃ ] 252 ms [ ndzɛɐ̃ ] 313 ms [ nt̬zɛnɛ̃ ] From the sentence: „ntene centu i cincu“ (I have hundred and five)

Spontanteous speech: ntene (I have): 216 ms [ ndɛ̃ ] From the sentence: „Nca casa, ntene fidju“ (I am not married, but I have a child)

Results on “ntene”:  In spontaneous speech, the speaker exhibits a higher articulatory precision.  In repeating utterances, the speaker exhibits the highest precision when it can be assumed that attention is lower.  Processes are applied which are not observed in the spontaneous speech material.

I na panhado qualquer parti di Europa (one is caught in some parts of Europe) 2 nd round: /n/ deleted: na, panhado Frications of plosives: panhado, qualquer Deletions of syllables: panhadu, qualquer, parti, europa /r/: deleted in parti or realized as tap in europa

I na panhado qualquer parti di Europa (one is caught in some parts of Europe) 4 th round /n/ deleted: panhado Frications of plosives: panhado, qualquer, parti di (absorption) Deletions of syllables: none /r/: realized as tap in parti, as trill in europa

Summary Application of substitutions and processes take place when attention is high (1 st and 2 nd round) Processes used might not be allowed in the language Processes used might lack phonetic plausibility Articulatory precision is higher with respect to clear cut segment boundaries when attention is lower Process application takes place contrary to phonological, sociophonological and psychophonological knowledge