ARTICULATORY AND ACOUSTIC
CHARACTERISTICS OF
WHISTLED FRICATIVES IN
CHANGANA
The impact of whistled fricative in changana to
the lerners as second language
STRUCTURE OF PROJECT
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
ARTICULATORY AND ACOUSTIC
CHARACTERISTICS OF WHISTLED
FRICATIVES IN CHANGANA
Intro.
Changana is most spoken in southern
Mozambican provinces, as well as in
neighboring South Africa and Zimbabwe
(Sitoe 1996: vii).
The language has a set of two alveolar
whistled fricatives, voiced and voiceless.
METHODS
Was 5 speakers of Changana recorded,
some from Gaza province and Maputo and
one of them spend a few years in south
Africa doing some business according to
him and he had opportunity of learning
and speak Changana spoken exactly in
that region. Those people made this
project possible, and they were recorded
for this study. They were about 15 to 21
years old.
CONTI.
Methods
For audio recording analysis, audio
was recorded using a SmartphoneSamsung S4 GT-I9500. The
recording was made about 10cm of
distance from the device microphone.
The speakers repeated a list of
nonsense items where varied
between the voiceless whistled
fricative [sv] and the non-whistled
voiceless fricative [s].
CONTI.
 Methods
During the audio recording, the whistled
tokens were repeated five times for each
one and the non-whistled items were
repeated twice. During the audio
recording the speaker repeated each item
one additional time, so for acoustic
analysis there were a total of six
repetitions of whistled tokens for some of
them and three repetitions of nonwhistled tokens. A few natural-word
tokens were also elicited and are included
for illustration.
RESULTS
Changana
english
Svosvi
Now
Ku sveka
To cook
Svakuda
Food
Sva mina
My
Svi piche
Sva nandzika
Cats
It’s delicious
Svitolo
Shops
CONT.
RESULTS
Frame 2
Frame 3
Titos
I-S: 4.23 cm
L-R: 7.16 cm
Cândida
I-S: 4.90 cm
L-R: 7.22 cm
Frame 1
Teófilo
I-S: 3.75 cm
L-R: 7.02 cm
CONT.
RESULTS
Frame 4
Frame 5
Pedro
I-S: 3.65 cm
L-R: 7.13 cm
Luísa
I-S: 3.75 cm
L-R: 6.94 cm
CONT.
RESULTS
Those are the frames of lips during
the production of [esvi] in lè-svì. The
way lips looks during the production
of whistled fricative sound may vary
just a bit depending on the
particularity of each one, but the
frames above illustrate the common
way.
CONT.
RESULTS
The Figure 1 shows that lip spread decreased by
only about 4% from Frame 1 (representing the
final glottal pulses of the vowel [e]) to Frame 5
(the end of the high frequency peak in the
whistled fricative [sv] plus the beginning of
glottal vibration in the vowel [i]). Between these
frames, distance between the upper and lower
lips decreased by about 29%. In Frame 1, the
amplitude of the whistle falls off dramatically,
the decrease in left–right distance is only about
1% and there is no inferior–superior difference.
DISCUSSION AND
CONCLUSION
The tudy of the whistled fricatives in Zone
S, including their origins, may help
linguists understand the relevance of
secondary articulations in sound change.
The data presented here suggest acoustic
differences between the whistled and nonwhistled fricatives of Changana.
DISCUSSION AND
CONCLUSION
The data regarding labial configuration
present some new insights. A decrease in
left–right distance is associated with the
whistled fricative in unrounded vocalic
environments. In the presence of [u]
however, horizontal distance is minimized
during the plain fricative, not the whistled
fricative.
The whistled fricative sound sv and zv are
the main aspect of changana speech
system.