Acoustics and obsolescence in
Scottish Gaelic stop consonants
Claire Nance and Jane Stuart-Smith
c.nance.1@research.gla.ac.uk
j.stuart-smith@englang.arts.gla.ac.uk
University of Glasgow
Overview
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•
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•
•
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(Very brief) sociolinguistic introduction
Stop consonants in Gaelic
Research questions
Methods
Results
Ongoing work
Conclusion
Sociolinguistic context
• c.60,000 ‘speakers’ but numbers reducing
• Revitalization ongoing
• MacKinnon 2010
• Framework here: obsolescence (Anderson
1982, Dorian 1981, Jones 1998, Babel 2009),
and contact with English (Thomason 2007)
Lewis context
Lewis/
Leòdhas
• Densest
concentration
(MacKinnon
2010)
Stop consonants in Gaelic
• Word initial
/ph th kh/ and /p t k/
• Word medial and word final
/hp ht hk/ and /p t k/ (Ladefoged et al. 1998)
• (Also palatalised vs. velarised distinction)
• ‘Aspirating language’ (Jessen and Ringen
2002), [spread glottis] (Kingston, forthcoming
2010)
Examples
boc ‘male goat’
bog ‘soft’
Examples
smoc ‘smoke’
snog ‘nice’
Research questions
• What are the phonetic correlates of the
contrast /ph th kh/ and /p t k/ in modern
Gaelic?
• Is this system changing as the language
undergoes obsolescence?
Methods
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Native speakers of Lewis Gaelic
3 older generation, 3 younger
Recording conditions
Word list data
Non-parametric statistical tests
Durational measures
• Segmenting on the waveform in Praat
• What is pre-aspiration? (Ní Chasaide 1985)
Vowel
Modal voice
a
Preaspiration
BV
Noise
c
a
Adapted Zero Crossing Rate
(Gordeeva and Scobbie 2010)
• Ongoing work: Adapted ZCR in collaboration
with Olga Gordeeva – still awaiting statistical
analysis
• Compares and quantifies pre- and postaspiration using by counting zero crossings on
a band-pass filtered sound file
• Interested in noise from the glottis
Results: contrast /kh/, /k/
càl [kʰɑ:ɫ ̪ ] cabbage, gal [kaɫ ̪ ] steam
/kʰ/
n = 306
/k/
vot
vowel
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Results: contrast /hk/, /k/
aca ‘at them’ [aʰkə], baga ‘bag’ [pakə]
/ʰk/
vowel start
Stop burst
n = 54
closure
preasp
modv
vot
-300
-250
/k/
-200
-150
-100
-50
0
50
Differences: word initial
• YP VOT longer
• Also proportionally
n = 306
n = 306
older
older
vot
% vot
vowel
% vowel
younger
-100
younger
100
300
0%
50%
100%
Results medial and final /hk/, /k/
• YP Shorter pre-aspiration
• Pre-aspiration different
n = 144
Stop closure
Results medial and final /hk/, /k/
• YP Shorter pre-aspiration
• Pre-aspiration different
% modal
voice
% breathy
voice
% noise
Older
n = 144
Younger
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Examples: can you hear the
difference?
Older speaker: boc ‘male goat’
Younger speaker: boc ‘male goat’
Older speaker: smoc ‘smoke’
Younger speaker: smoc ‘smoke’
Adapted Zero Crossing Rate:
Initial /kh/ càl [kʰɑ:ɫ ̪ ], /k/ gal [kaɫ ̪ ]
4500
younger /kh/
older /kh/
younger /k/
older /k/
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
n = 108
500
0
zcr_1
zcr_2
zcr_3
zcr_4
zcr_5
3500
Word medial /hk/, /k/
aca ‘at them’ [aʰkə], baga ‘bag’
[pakə]
3000
2500
2000
1500
younger /hk/
1000
older /hk/
500
n = 72
younger /k/
older /k/
0
zcr_1
zcr_2
zcr_3
zcr_4
zcr_5
Word final /hk/, /k/
boc ‘male goat’ [pɔʰk], bog ‘soft’ [pok]
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
younger /hk/
1000
older /hk/
500
n = 108
younger /k/
older /k/
0
zcr_1
zcr_2
zcr_3
zcr_4
zcr_5
Conclusion
• Apparent time differences
• Comparison to Ladefoged et al. (1998) Real
time change?
Noise
Younger
n = 190
Older
VOT
Ladefoged
-150
-100
-50
0
50
Conclusion
• Gradient phonetic shift (Babel 2009)
• Obsolescence / contact / ‘normal’ change?
• Lexical attrition
References
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Anderson, R., 1982. Determining the linguistic attributes of language attrition. In Lambert and Freed, eds.,
The loss of language skills. Rowley: Newbury House Publishers
Babel, M., 2009. The phonetic and phonological effects of obsolescence in Northern Paiute. In J. Stanford
and D. Preston, eds., Variation in indigenous minority languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Dorian, N., 1981. Language death: the life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press
Gordeeva, O., and Scobbie, J., 2010. Preaspiration as a correlate of word-final voice in Scottish English
fricatives. In S. Fuchs, M. Toda, M. Zygis, eds., Turbulent sounds: an interdisciplinary guide. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter
Jessen, M., and Ringen, C., 2002. Laryngeal features in German. Phonology, 19:2, pp. 189-218
Jones, Mari, 1998. Obsolescence and revitalization: linguistic change in two sociolinguistically contrasting
Welsh communities. Oxford: Blackwell
Kingston, J., Voice. Forthcoming in Phonology
Ladefoged, P., and Ladefoged, J., Turk, A., Hind, K., Skilton, St. J., 1998. Phonetic structures of Scottish
Gaelic. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 28, pp. 1-41
MacKinnon, K., 2010. Scottish Gaelic today: social history and contemporary status. In M. Ball and N.
Müller, eds., The Celtic languages. 2nd. ed. London: Routledge
Ní Chasaide, A., 1985. Pre-aspiration in phonological stop contrasts. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of
Bangor
Silverman, D., 2003. On the rarity of pre-aspirated stops. Journal of linguistics, 39:3. pp. 575-598
Thomason, S., 2007. Language contact: an introduction. 4th ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Tapadh Leibh / Thank you
• My supervisor and co-author: Jane Stuart-Smith
• Collaborator: Olga Gordeeva, Acapela Group
ogordeeva@gmail.com
• My informants: Susan Bell, Christeen Combe,
Aoghas MacCoinnich, Sarah MacKinnon, Colm
Macqueen and all those who wished to remain
anonymous
• Research funded by a Kelvin-Smith Scholarship,
University of Glasgow