The University of Iowa Department of Linguistics Colloquium Series

Fall 2015

Thursday, October 22, 2015

4:00 pm

106 EPB
While there has been descriptive research done on the phonetic and phonological properties of Shoshoni, little to no acoustic analysis has been done thus far.  This paper analyzes the production of initial stops by a native speaker of the Northern dialect of Shoshoni. Previous phonetic and phonological work defines Shoshoni as a single stop series contrast (Gould & Loether, 2002).  However, given relatively limited acoustic work on single stop series languages, and Shoshoni’s high level of contact with English, which has a two-way stop contrast, it was unclear what this would mean on the acoustic level.  Furthermore, in Shoshoni language classes, English stops are described as voiced and voiceless aspirated with Shoshoni stops differing from English by being voiceless unaspirated. However, acoustically, it is widely acknowledged that English has a contrast, not between voiced and voiceless aspirated, but rather between voiceless aspirated and voiceless unaspirated (Lisker & Abramson, 1964). Therefore, it was unclear how this contrast would manifest in Shoshoni acoustics.  Because of the influence of English on Shoshoni, this study also analyzes the speaker’s production of initial stops in English to compare and contrast the production.

Theories on single stop contrast languages often conclude that the range of values for voiceless unaspirated stops in a single stop contrast language will be broader than values for language with a two way contrast (Brookes & Kempe, 2014).  These data may support this hypothesis as the average values for voiceless unaspirated stops in Shoshoni is higher than the average for voiceless unaspirated stops in English.  However, the range of values seen in these data is not especially broad when the velars, which should be categorized differently due to the glottal features, are excluded.  Furthermore, the average VOT for voiceless unaspirated stops in Shoshoni is still within the range of acceptability for voiceless unaspirated stops in English. Therefore, this paper proposes a variety of options to further investigate this theory, including a broader sampling of speakers and tokens as well as perception tests in which speakers could rate tokens with varying VOT.