Origins of Kra-Dai tones

Studies in African Linguistics, 2010

Uralic studies, languages, and researchers. Studia uralo-altaica 54, 2021

In this paper, I give an overview of the presentations of the Nganasan vowel system and attempt to ascertain which of the competing views are more adequate for the description of the language. Moreover, I suggest some modifications which are are without precedent in the history of the research. In Section 1, I present the descriptions and define their differences. In Section 2, I examine whether the distinction of central vowels is phonologically necessary. In Section 3, I explore whether complex vowel constructions should be analyzed as diphthongs and long vowels or as vowel sequences. In Section 4, I reconsider the position of a in the vowel system. Finally, in Section 5, I argue that ua is probably not a phoneme in Nganasan.

2009

This paper examines the phonetic structures of Kalanguya, an Austronesian language spoken in Northern Philippines. This study uses static palatography to determine the articulatory positions of four coronal consonants and acoustic analysis to describe some characteristics of certain salient sounds in Kalanguya. Some remarkable findings of this study are as follows: (a) the places of articulation of coronal consonants /t/, /d/, /l/ and /n/ are at dental and alveolar regions. (b) The glottal consonant /h/ can be considered as a “true fricative” and compensates for the lack of [s] in Kalanguya. (c) The voiced bilabial stop /b/ is labialized (rounded) [bʷ], which is quite rare in Austronesian languages. (d) The voiceless plosive /k/ in Kalanguya is uvular [q]. (e) Finally, there are four vowel sounds in Kalanguya: one front vowel [], two central [a] and [3], and one back vowel []. Moreover, Kalanguya vowel inventory has no internal symmetry in terms of F1 and F2 measurements and gender differences and syllable stress have no effects on vowel height and frontness. (The discussion on the articulatory and acoustic properties of consonants was presented in a conference. You can also cite it as: Santiago, Paul Julian. 2010. An Articulatory and Acoustic Analysis of Kalanguya Consonants. Paper Presented at the 1st Philippine Conference-Workshop on Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education held at the Capitol University, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, on Feb. 18-20, 2010.

2022

This is a brief introductory course to Phonetics for college students of linguistics. The main goal is to cover the basics of phonetics from a clear, unambiguous perspective since there is a huge confusion about some aspects of this very sub-field of linguistics, i.e., Phonetics. At the end, I’m just an undergraduate student, for now. So, it’s better to follow with your academic in a parallel way and ask questions, it’s important to make things clearer for you, my cherished colleague. It is important to state that this course is based on the syllabus provided by the professor Maryeme Ouchen (m.ouchen@uiz.ac.ma), Faculty of Languages, Arts and Humanities, Ait Melloul, Morocco.

2021

Lhowa, an undescribed Central Bodish language spoken in Nepal, exhibits a rich inventory of 41 consonant and 5 vowel phonemes. In terms of points/places of articulation, it contains seven types of consonants, viz., labial, dental, alveolar, retroflex, palatal, velar and glottal. Likewise, in terms of manner of articulation, it presents seven types of consonants, viz., stops, nasals, affricates, fricatives, trills, laterals and approximants. In terms of voicing, there are two types of consonant phonemes, viz., voiceless and voiced whereas in terms of aspiration there are two types of consonants, viz., aspirated and unaspirated. In Lhowa, each syllable is intrinsically high or low. Thus, Lhowa contains voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiced murmured and voiceless murmured. It exhibits distinct consonant distribution and clusters. Lhowa contains five vowels which present oppositions in terms of height, front-back positions and breathiness. It lacks the contrastive length. Breathy vowels can occur only word-initially. There are four diphthongs in Lhowa. Lhowa displays a canonical structure of the syllable in which V (i.e., nucleus) is obligatory and the other constituents, (C i , initial consonant), (X, glide or liquid), and (C f , final consonant) are optional. Lhowa admits only six types of syllable patterns. It exhibits a word tone system. The high vs. low tone is distinguished only on the first syllable of a word. In Lhowa, like in Lhasa Tibetan, compound words and certain derived and inflected verb forms demonstrate four types of tone melodies, viz., HH (high followed by high), LH (low followed by high), LL (low followed by low) and HL (high tone followed by low). Stress is not distinctive whereas intonation is meaning differentiating in Lhowa.

Lingua, 2009