J. Vaissière

1. Perceptual explanations of articulatory variability in the realisation of the nasal feature for the consonants. J. Vaissière

2. Perceptual explanations of articulatory variability in the realisation of the nasal feature for the consonants. Jacqueline Vaissière Laboratoire de Phonétique et de phonologie -UMR 7018, Paris

3. 1) The nasal feature? • Most of the languages use the feature [nasal] for contrasting consonants • Only 20% of the languages use it also for contrasting the vowels (but often no real pairs, such as in French) • Most of the nasal vowels emerge from contextual anticipatory nasalisation due to N in coda, followed and N-loss • Easy articulatory, difficult acoustically, complex perceptually

4. The death of nasal consonant in coda and the birth of nasal vowels? Regressive vowel nasalisation Final nasal consonants are more likely to nasalize the preceding vowels Ex « pan » in English But also « cama » first /a/ nasalized Final nasal consonants are more likeky to dissappear (N-loss) than initial consonants (nasal vowels) Ex « panum » in Latin > pE in French Intervocalic nasal consonants may dissappear too Ex portuguese Luna = Lua Solo = Só Some cases of spontaneous nasalisation. .

5. 2) Goal of this communication? • the observed articulatory and aerodynamic inter-speakers and inter-languages differences • between initial nasal consonants (/n/), and unreleased final consonants (/N/)? • Perceptual ? • Other known types of explanations for velum behavior in general • articulatory (for anticipation) • aerodynamic (for stops and fricatives) 2) goal of this communication?

6. 2) Goal of this communication? • Does not deal directly with the vowels • or with the place of articulation of the nasal consonants • ----- • This paper does deal with the nasalisty feature, the perception of nasality • and the differences between initial and final nasals • Data from in a number of languages • French and English (X-ray), Japanese, and others • Based on the available litterature, work in my lab, my own work. 2) goal of this communication?

7. 3) the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general

8. the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general: The syllable as a unit? • Unit of physiological organization? (Stetson, 1951) • no • Coextensive with the temporal domain of coarticulation (Kozhenikov and Chistovichn 1965) ? • no • Thoughs in the mvt pattern of one articulator (Gay, 1978)? • no • Characteristics patterns of articulatory organisation (Krakow, 1989)? • yes, in careful speech at least • Syllable organisation of phonological patterns (Ohala et Kawasaki, 1984) • yes 3) the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general

9. the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general Straka and Durand 1) stress 2) Position in syllable, word, syntagma

10. Sonorant in coda • Sonorants « fused » with the preceding vowel • Becoming more vowel-like • /l/ > [u] (chevals > chevaux) • /r/ • Nasal consonant > nasal vowels or nasal glide or glide • Backing also for nasal (velar nasal)

11. 4) what is well known about the nasality feature?

12. A lot of very nice studies • Japanese (Fujimura, Sawashima, Honda, etc.) • English (Cohn*, Krakow*, Ohala, Bell-Berti, … • French (Benguerel, Amelot*; Rossato*, Delveaux*, Basset & al; Cohn*, Badin … • Spanish (Solé …)

13. Which have shown the many different factors influencing the velum behavior The many different factors influencing the velum behavior

14. dialects Many factors South French Canadien French Nasal features first ! /a/ lower thet /i/ /p,t,k/ > sonorants Intrinsic velar height Stress and effort Impedance extremely important /a/ less thet /i/ Around stops Position in sentence Language influences production and perception Syllable boundaries Speaker’s strateegy Coarticulatory nasalized phonologized in English style Spontaneous/carefully

15. Anticipation attendue avant N style Basset & al, 2001 More than expected Less than expected Nasalized /k/ No anticipation Nasalized /v/ Basset & al, 2001

16. sentence Position in sentence Open velopharyngeal port is the unmarked case Natural « coda nasalisation »

17. /atu/ sequence Final position favors nasalisation Pause behave as a nasal consonant in French cV+pause = final nasalisation From the university of Strasbourg (France) Less well known, wrongly ignored in current litterature

18. /atu/

19. /atu/

20. /atu/ Maximum opening (before /a/!!!)

21. /atu/ Jaw starts to rise Closing gesture starts At the vowel beginning !!!

22. /atu/ Vocal tract already half Closed (in the middle of the « acoustic » vowel !!!

23. /atu/ Protrusion of the lip starts

24. /atu/

25. /atu/ Lip continue to round (in anticipation of /u/)

26. /atu/ Lip continue to protrude

27. /atu/

28. /atu/ Lip continue to protruded, they are As protruded as for /u/

29. /atu/

30. /atu/

31. /atu/ Deprotrusion starts Velum lowers

32. /atu/

33. /atu/

34. Lips still very protruded Carry-over; velum low)

35. Natural final nasalisation • You don’t hear it. • You barely see it on spectrograms • But it is there. • in French • mV + pause = the velum does not rise again • Pause act as a nasal phoneme • This may explain presence of N as a coda

36. Transitional because unspecified in English Cohn: airflow phonologized anticipatory nasalisation in English Malécot, Ohala, Vaissière, and others But conflicting conclusions …

37. Initial /n/ Final /N/ Release Onset n V V N V

38. Partly due to different instrumentations • In all cases, the nasal feature is realized by lowering the velum • Connection oral and nasal cavities • If enough acoustic coupling, the phoneme is perceived as nasalized or as a nasal vowel or consonant

39. Principal results A phoneme is perceived as nasal when there is enough coupling between the main VT and the nasal cavity Coupling necessary depends on the phoneme identity and on the speaker native language.

40. 1) Velar height • velum only down for the realisation of the nasal phonemes? • Yes, but sometimes down for oral low vowel • Same height for all oral consonants? • No, lower for stops than sonorants, lower for low vowels than high vowels • Same height for all nasal consonants? • No, ower for final consonants, than initial, • Yes, for /m/ and /n/ • Few data because invasive? • X-ray, yes, but MRI, no

41. 2) Nasal airflow 1. Nasal airflow is always a by-product of an open velopharyngeal port? No, positive airflow may be the result of a pumping effect No, Negative airflow is possible when velum goes down long the velo-phayrngeal wall No, glottal consonants No; cold 2) Nasal airflow proportionnal to VP opening No, impedance (/i/ > /a/)

42. 3) Velopharyngeal port • The best! but, lateral opening of theVP port is possible (IRM)

43. 4) Articulatory synthesis Rather easy Maeda’s model Vowels and consonants

44. 5) acoustics • Not too bad, but dangerous to infer the velum behavior from only acoustic data • Consonants: /l/ has also zeros • Vowels: • Zeros due to context

45. 5) Perception • If easy to create the sensation of nasality • More difficult to do it in a well-motivated way • Nasal tract very complicated • Aerodynamics constraints difficult to model • Nasalisation of sonorants , fricatives and vowels may go unnoticed because no nasal counterparts (non-native contrasts) • For stops, corresponding nasal may be more easily heard • The listeners would be sensitive to the total nasalisation in VN# sequence (Beddor, 2007)

46. Is differences between initial and final consonants strickly physiologically necessary (production) ? No !

47. Initial and final Consonants Could behave the same way Anticipatory and carry-over are not strictly necessary

48. what differences between initial and final consonants generally observed ? Yes ! Why?

49. a) Differences in velar height and VP opening Lower velum for final than initial nasal

50. Differences in velar height and VP opening Also X-ray, X-ray microbeam system, IRM, French, Japanese, etc.