Fricatives, part 2

1. Fricatives, part 2 November 20, 2013

2. Down the Stretch They Come • Today: fricatives and fricative acoustics… • Formant plotting + vowel production exercises is due at 5 pm today! • I will post production exercise #4 after I’ve received everybody’s vowels. • This Friday: fricative spectrograms!

3. Fricative Place of Articulation • A fricative’s place of articulation is where, in the vocal tract, its turbulence noise is made. • Fricatives may be produced at essentially any place of articulation. • At different places of articulation, fricatives will have: • Different filters • based on the area and shape of the vocal tract in front of the obstruction of the airflow • Different sound sources • based on the flow of air through the obstruction

5. Glottals, Epiglottals,and Pharyngeals • Glottal fricatives: [h] • Epiglottal fricatives: • Pharyngeal fricatives: • Note: try not to confuse the symbols for the: • voiced epiglottal fricative • voiceless epiglottal stop • And also not the symbols for the: • voiced pharyngeal fricative • glottal stop

6. Agul • Glottals, epiglottals and pharyngeals contrast in the Caucasian language Agul.

7. Uvular Fricatives

8. Uvular Fricative Symbols • Peter says: • Uvular fricatives contrast with pharyngeals and glottals in one dialect of Hebrew.

10. Palatals and Velars

11. Palatal and Velar Symbols <-- Peter says • Possible confusion #1: • voiceless palatal fricative [ç] • voiceless palatal stop [c] • Possible confusion #2: • voiced palatal fricative • voiced palatal stop • Possible confusion #3:

12. Greek

13. Coronal Fricatives Peter says: • The coronal fricative landscape is very complex. • Next time we’ll look in detail at how coronal fricatives are produced in: • English • Chinese • Polish

14. Toda Toda is spoken in southern India.

15. Toda Mid-Sagittal Diagrams

16. Bilabial Fricatives • Bilabial fricatives exist allophonically in some languages (e.g., Spanish) • They were not recognized as a potentially contrastive sound until relatively recently (‘70s or ‘80s) • it was discovered that they contrasted with labio-dental fricatives in Ewe, a language spoken in Ghana.

17. Ewe

18. Turbulence Sources • For fricatives, turbulence is generated by forcing a stream of air at high velocity through either a narrow channel in the vocal tract or against an obstacle in the vocal tract. • Channel turbulence • produced when airflow escapes from a narrow channel and hits inert outside air • Obstacle turbulence • produced when airflow hits an obstacle in its path

19. Obstacles, Channels, Walls • General rule of thumb: obstacle turbulence is much noisier than channel turbulence • [f] vs. • Also: obstacle turbulence is louder, the more perpendicular the obstacle is to the airflow • [s] vs. [x] • [x] is a “wall fricative” • Rule of thumb: voiced fricatives are hard to make. • In fact, fricatives are kind of hard to make in general.

20. Fricatives = difficult • Fricatives require great articulatory precision. • it’s necessary to create a narrow channel through which air can flow. • (and hold it) • ballistic vs. controlled articulations • Some data for [s]: (Subtelny et al., 1972) • alveolar constriction  1 mm • incisor constriction  2-3 mm • Larger constriction sizes result in -like sounds • Also: voiced fricatives are even more difficult • Why?

21. Some Typology • Languages with the following number of fricatives • From the UPSID database (total of 316 languages) • Voiceless Voiced Voiced/Voiceless • [s] 266 [z] 96 0.36 • 146 51 0.34 • [f] 135 [v] 67 0.50 • [x] 75 40 0.53 • 29 13 0.45 • 21 32 1.52 • 18 21 1.16

22. Some Typology • Languages with the following number of fricatives • From the UPSID database (total of 316 languages) • Voiceless Voiced Voiced/Voiceless • 21 32 1.52 • 18 21 1.16 • 17 3 0.17 • [ç] 16 7 0.43 • 13 9 0.69

23. Aerodynamics • Note: voiced fricatives have two sound sources. • one at the glottis • one at the fricative constriction • In voicing, air rushes through the glottis in short, regular bursts • Glottis is closed part of the time •  Difficult to maintain a steady stream of flowing air at the fricative constriction. •  Frication (second source) can be lost

24. vs. [s] [z]

25. Some More Typology # of Fricatives # of languages % of total 0 21 6.6% 1 37 11.7% 2 62 19.6% 3 47 14.8% 4 37 11.7% 5 26 8.2% 6 28 8.8% 7 19 6.0% 8 20 6.3% > 8 22 6.4%

26. Fricative Fun Facts • Of the 21 languages without any fricatives, 15 are Australian languages • Hawaiian is another example • Australian languages also tend to lack affricates • But remember: many Australian languages have five or more place contrasts for stops. • Kabardian has the most fricatives: 22 • Kabardian also has 2 (count ‘em) vowels • Languages with one fricative: [s] • Languages with two fricatives: [s], or [s], [f] • Languages with three fricatives: [s], , [f]

27. Sibilants • [s] and are known as sibilant fricatives • Sibilants have more acoustic energy at higher frequencies than other fricatives • Two reasons why: • they are obstacle fricatives • = the back of the upper teeth •  louder than other fricatives • small, short resonating filter • = between constriction and the lips •  higher frequencies resonate

28. [s] vs. [f] “sigh” “fie” • Note: acoustic energy for [f] is weaker, and spread more evenly across all frequencies

29. vs. “shy” “thigh”

30. vs. [s] “sigh” “shy”

31. Acoustic Enhancement • Note: is post-alveolar and [s] is alveolar •  more space in vocal tract in front of • including a “sub-lingual cavity” • This “filter” of resonates at lower frequencies • In English, this acoustic distinction is enhanced through lip rounding for • this extends the vocal tract • further lowers the resonant frequencies of

32. The Sub-lingual Cavity • Let’s check the videotape...

33. Behind the Constriction [s] • Let’s check the ultrasound…