Logo Logo

Citation: Harrington, Jonathan: Supplementary material to "The physiological basis of the phonologization of vowel nasalization: a real-time MRI analysis of American and Southern British English.". 26. March 2024. Open Data LMU. 10.5282/ubm/data.458

Supplementary material to "The physiological basis of the phonologization of vowel nasalization: a real-time MRI analysis of American and Southern British English."
Supplementary material to "The physiological basis of the phonologization of vowel nasalization: a real-time MRI analysis of American and Southern British English."

The diachronic change by which coarticulatory nasalization increases in VN (vowel-nasal) sequences has been modelled as an earlier alignment of the velum combined with oral gesture weakening of N. The model was tested by comparing American (USE) and Standard Southern British English (BRE) based on the assumption that this diachronic change is more advanced in USE. Real-time MRI data was collected from 16 USE and 27 BRE adult speakers producing isolated monosyllables with coda /Vn, Vnd, Vnz/. For USE, nasalization was greater in V, less in N, and there was greater tongue tip lenition than for BRE. The dialects showed a similar stability of the velum gesture and a trade-off between vowel nasalization and tongue tip lenition. Velum alignment was not earlier in USE. Instead, a closer approximation of the time of the tongue tip peak velocity towards the tongue tip maximum for USE caused a shift in the acoustic boundary within VN towards N, giving the illusion that the velum gesture has an earlier alignment in USE. It is suggested that coda reduction which targets the tongue tip more than the velum is a principal physiological mechanism responsible for the onset of diachronic vowel nasalization.

sound change, coarticulation, nasalization, English dialects, magnetic resonance imaging
Harrington, Jonathan
2024

[thumbnail of comments on the dataset] Plain Text (comments on the dataset)
description.txt - Other

302B
[thumbnail of zip files containing the dataset] Other (zip files containing the dataset)
nasals.zip

72MB

DOI: 10.5282/ubm/data.458

This dataset is available unter the terms of the following Creative Commons LicenseCC BY 4.0

Abstract

The diachronic change by which coarticulatory nasalization increases in VN (vowel-nasal) sequences has been modelled as an earlier alignment of the velum combined with oral gesture weakening of N. The model was tested by comparing American (USE) and Standard Southern British English (BRE) based on the assumption that this diachronic change is more advanced in USE. Real-time MRI data was collected from 16 USE and 27 BRE adult speakers producing isolated monosyllables with coda /Vn, Vnd, Vnz/. For USE, nasalization was greater in V, less in N, and there was greater tongue tip lenition than for BRE. The dialects showed a similar stability of the velum gesture and a trade-off between vowel nasalization and tongue tip lenition. Velum alignment was not earlier in USE. Instead, a closer approximation of the time of the tongue tip peak velocity towards the tongue tip maximum for USE caused a shift in the acoustic boundary within VN towards N, giving the illusion that the velum gesture has an earlier alignment in USE. It is suggested that coda reduction which targets the tongue tip more than the velum is a principal physiological mechanism responsible for the onset of diachronic vowel nasalization.

Uncontrolled Keywords

sound change, coarticulation, nasalization, English dialects, magnetic resonance imaging

Item Type:Data
Contact Person:Harrington, Jonathan
E-Mail of Contact:jmh at phonetik.uni-muenchen.de
Subjects:Languages and Literatures
Dewey Decimal Classification:400 Language > 410 Linguistics
ID Code:458
Deposited By: Prof.Dr. Jonathan Harrington
Deposited On:28. Mar 2024 08:23
Last Modified:28. Mar 2024 13:56

Repository Staff Only: item control page