Phonetic variation from the bottom up: evidence from Liverpool ...

1. Phonetic variation from the bottom up: evidence from Liverpool English plosives KEVIN WATSON Lancaster University k.d.watson@lancaster.ac.uk

2. 2

3. 3 Phonetics in phonology It is well known that phonetics, phonology and sociolinguistics have traditionally had an uneasy coexistence

4. 4 Phonetics in phonology This uneasy relationship can be connected to the well-cited distinction between language competence and language performance

5. 5 Phonetics in phonology �Under this view, there would be no point in doing research on �language variation and linguistic theory� for variation would have nothing to do with competence, and linguistic theory would have nothing to do with anything outside of competence� (Guy 1997: 127)

6. 6 Phonetics in phonology This view has not disappeared e.g. Newmeyer (2003) defends the notion that speakers� internal grammar is separate from their usage criticises the use of corpora because they are collections of performance data

7. 7 But� It has been shown time and again that language variation is part of speakers competence (Docherty, Foulkes, Milroy, Milroy & Walshaw 1997, Docherty & Foulkes 2000, Docherty & Foulkes in press)

8. 8 So� �We should be pursuing a view of language and linguistics that is as encompassing and integrative as possible. It is simply good science to try to explain the broadest possible range of facts and to take note of all relevant data. Hence our theories should de designed to have utility in accounting for both language structure and language use.� (Guy 1997: 141)

9. 9 The underlying theme of the talk The relationship between language structure and language usage That is, between Phonology Phonetics Sociolinguistics

10. 10 What is Liverpool English? �One third Irish, one third Welsh, and a third catarrh� Liverpool English is said to have been �born� around the 1850s when high numbers of Irish people arrived in the city Not just the Irish, though� Popularly (and probably falsely) thought to originate because of air pollution

11. 11 Liverpool English Phonology STRUT and FOOT - /?/ DANCE - /a/ not /??/ START vowel is fronted to /a:/ NURSE and SQAURE MERGER LOOK and COOK have /u:/ diphthongal

12. 12 Liverpool English Phonology The NURSE/SQUARE merger is to the front vowel /??/ rather than the central /??/ found in other northern English accents The word-final weak vowel is typically [?] (walker, winter) Dental fricatives [?] and [?] are often �stopped� (e.g. this [????] and there [????]) /r/ is tapped (e.g. mirror [????]) /k/ is often realised as a fricative (dock [???] week [????]) /t/ can surface as [t ?? ? ? ? ?] Glottal stops are rare - particularly in word-final and intervocalic position

13. 13 Lenition in Liverpool English voiceless stops sometimes lack complete closure in certain syllable-final environments, so that varieties of fricatives [? t? ?] result for /p, t, k/ in such words as snake [?????], short [?????], and daughter [??????]. (Wells 1982: 371)

14. 14 A classic example of spirantisation can be found in the city of Liverpool, where the voiceless stops [p, t, k] have become the voiceless fricatives [? ? ?] respectively, and the voiced stops [b, d, g] have become the voiced fricatives [?, ?, ?] respectively, in non word-initial environments. (Radford et. al. 1999: 121) Lenition in Liverpool English

15. 15 What is lenition? �a cline of phonetic weakening� (Hickey 1996: 182) �a form of articulatory softening whereby a phonological stop is affricated or aspirated, or can be realised as a fricative� (Sangster 1999: 1) �a systematic reduction process, often resulting in deletion, which affects certain consonants depending on their position within the word or phonological phrase� (Escure 1975: 5)

16. 16 Lenition trajectories Lass 1984: 178

17. 17 If these are lenitions, what is lenition? Kirchner (1998: 2) says lenition has been �largely ignored in the theoretical literature�

18. 18 articulatory phonology (Browman & Goldstein 1989, 1992, Hind 1996), acoustic phonetics (Lavoie 1996, 2000, 2001), dependency phonology (Anderson & Jones 1974, Anderson & Ewen 1987, Ewen 1995), government phonology (e.g. Kaye, Lowenstamm & Vergnaud 1985, 1990, Harris 1990, 1994, Honeybone 2001, 2002), optimality theory (Kirchner 1998, 2000). If these are lenitions, what is lenition?

19. 19 Lenition in GP approaches Some background to elemental phonology Segments are made up of smaller privative elements (not e.g. binary distinctive features) The same elements can occur in consonants and vowels Elements have the potential to be independently interpretable

20. 20 Some Elements |palatality|, |coronality|, |dorsality| |occlusion|, |frication| |nasal| |spread|, |voice|

21. 21 Segments /t/ /s/ /h/ |coronality| |coronality| |occlusion| |frication| |spread| |spread| |spread|

22. 22 Lenition as element loss t ? ts ? s ? h

23. 23 Lenition in Liverpool English Stops at all places of articulation are lenited to a certain extent The widest range of realisations are found for /t/: e.g. [t, th, ts, ht, st, s, h, ?, ?] (interestingly not [?])

24. 24 Lenition as lax articulation Articulation is generally lax in Scouse � this applies to the lower lip as well as the tongue � and the active articulator exerts little pressure on the passive one. For stops, the pressure is often insufficient to make or maintain the closure, as that these consonants are often impressionistically fricatives or affricates (more precisely the �cardinal� categories of stop, fricative and affricate are inappropriate for the description of Scouse consonants. Knowles (1973: 107) Maybe mention Sangster but might not have time.Maybe mention Sangster but might not have time.

25. 25 Lenition as lax articulation The approximation of the articulators for the �fricatives� tends to be less close in Scouse than is usual in RP. Knowles (1973: 107)

26. 26 Questions What is �lax articulation� exactly? The articulatory target is complete closure Lenition is articulatory undershoot Random and unstructured Is the articulation of LE plosives random?

27. 27 Lenition inhibition Lenition in LE isn�t completely random Prosodically strong positions (utterance- initial, word-initial) inhibit lenition (e.g. Escure 1975) And segments that share elemental material are stronger than those that don�t (Honeybone 2001)

28. 28 Lenition inhibition �cat� lenition to stage 2 possible �milk� lenition to stage 2 possible �halt� lenition to stage 1 possible �thank� lenition to stage 1 possible �school� no lenition possible

29. 29 Lenition inhibition For Honeybone (2001) the presence of lenition is governed by the phonological system. LE lenition belongs in /phonology/ and not in [phonetics]. However, in considering only the stage of lenition (e.g. affricate, fricative etc) the details of the phonetics are overlooked If the phonology of lenition is not random, is the phonetics?

30. 30 Questions In a prosodically weak position, is any phonetic variation in the surface form random and unstructured? Or is there evidence for a particular target over another? That is, is the phonetic variation structured?

31. 31 The Data 16 speakers (9 female and 7 male) �Hangman� elicitation task Stops in all places of articulation 2458 tokens Say what I�ll do is go through each stop in turn (concentrating on voiceless series) and first show the picture of what happens when we look at (i) each speaker, and (ii) male and female speakers for the stage of lenitoin, and then compare that with the picture for looking at the phonetic details. Sometimes there�s a match, and sometimes there isn�t. Does the phonetics tell us anything the phonology doesn�t.Say what I�ll do is go through each stop in turn (concentrating on voiceless series) and first show the picture of what happens when we look at (i) each speaker, and (ii) male and female speakers for the stage of lenitoin, and then compare that with the picture for looking at the phonetic details. Sometimes there�s a match, and sometimes there isn�t. Does the phonetics tell us anything the phonology doesn�t.

32. 32 /g/ stage of lenition, male/female

33. 33 /p/ - stage of lenition, male/female

34. 34 The phonetics of /p/ 3 attested realisations 1. stop closure and burst transient 2. stop closure and extended release 3. no stop closure And these correspond closely with the stages of lenition highlighted on the lenition traj beforeAnd these correspond closely with the stages of lenition highlighted on the lenition traj before

35. 35 /p/ - burst & aspirated release

36. 36 /p/ - stopless variant

37. 37 The phonetics of /p/

38. 38 The phonetics of /p/

39. 39 /k/ Two attested realisations: aspirated release fricative

40. 40 /k/ - stage of lenition by speaker

41. 41 /k/ - phonetic variants Fricative: palatal, fronted velar, velar, back velar, uvular. Straight-forward case of place assimilation to the vowel?

42. 42 /k/ - variant by gender Males fronted fricatives coincided with the high front vowels and raising diphthongs as expectedMales fronted fricatives coincided with the high front vowels and raising diphthongs as expected

43. 43 /t/ Stages of lenition for /t/: [t, ts, s, h]

44. 44 /t/ - stage 2 lenition by speaker Black � affricated Pattern - fricativeBlack � affricated Pattern - fricative

45. 45 /t/ - phonetic variants ts at varying degrees of oral approximation Obviously difficult to categorise, but�Obviously difficult to categorise, but�

46. 46 /t/ - phonetic variants Aspirated and affricated variants Pre-aspirated/affricated variants

47. 47 /t/ - phonetic variants

48. 48 /t/ - phonetic variants �controlled� sibilants

49. 49 /t/ - phonetic variants �dynamic� sibilants

50. 50 /t/ - variants by gender

51. 51 What�s going on?

52. 52 Articulatory Gestures

53. 53 Articulatory Gestures

54. 54 Summary Men and women speakers might reach the same stage of lenition (that is, have the same phonological structure) But the phonetic realisation of that stage (the gestural organisation) is often different Individual speakers are also consistent in their choice of low-level phonetic realisation Say something about the gestural organisationSay something about the gestural organisation

55. 55 Summary So�lenition in Liverpool English can not be explained sufficiently in terms of the nature of the sugsegmental elements The surface forms vary in a structured way, yet have the same elemental makeup The timing of the elements would have to be handled in the �phonetic component of the grammar� Say something about the gestural organisationSay something about the gestural organisation

56. 56 Summary But�lenition in Liverpool English can no longer be just because of �lax articulation� Lenited forms occur too frequently and consistently They are indexical markers They cannot be articulatory by-products or articulatory undershoot Say something about the gestural organisationSay something about the gestural organisation

57. 57 So what is it then? Neither? Or both?

58. 58 Marrying the �etics and -ology We need both articulatory gestures and underlying subsegmental material How do we get from one to the other?

59. 59 A usage based model of phonology Gestures are pre-linguistic units which become units of linguistic contrast (babbling to speech, see Vihman & Croft 2005 for overview) Browman & Goldstein (1989: 202) : the emergence of the linguistic significance of gestures can be considered a �function of the particular language environment in which the child finds itself� The variability in the speech signal necessitates, and creates, abstraction (Pierrehumbert, Beckman & Ladd 2000: 292)

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61. 61 Concluding remarks Fine grained phonetic variation must be included in a model of phonology It is insufficient to ship it of to �the phonetic component of the grammar� A model of phonology which incorporates indexical information and lexical contrast information is necessary

62. 62 Concluding remarks A cognitive, usage based model of phonology is a step in that direction

63. 63 Concluding remarks Phonetics