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Perceptual

explanations

of articulatory

variability

in the realisation of

the nasal feature

for the consonants.J. Vaissière

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Perceptual explanations of articulatory variability

in the realisation of the nasal feature

for the consonants.

Jacqueline Vaissière

Laboratoire de Phonétique et de phonologie -UMR 7018, Paris

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1) The nasal feature?

• Most of the languages use the feature [nasal] for contrasting consonants

• Only 20% of the languages use it also for contrasting the vowels (but often no real pairs, such as in French)

• Most of the nasal vowels emerge from contextual anticipatory nasalisation due to N in coda, followed and N-loss

• Easy articulatory, difficult acoustically, complex perceptually

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The death of nasal consonant in coda and the birth of nasal vowels?

• Regressive vowel nasalisation• Final nasal consonants are more likely to nasalize the

preceding vowels – Ex « pan » in English

• But also « cama » first /a/ nasalized

• Final nasal consonants are more likeky to dissappear (N-loss) than initial consonants (nasal vowels)– Ex « panum » in Latin > pE in French

• Intervocalic nasal consonants may dissappear too– Ex portuguese

• Luna = Lua Solo = Só

• Some cases of spontaneous nasalisation.

• .

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• the observed articulatory and aerodynamic inter-speakers and inter-languages differences

• between initial nasal consonants (/n/), and unreleased final consonants (/N/)?

• Perceptual ?• Other known types of explanations for

velum behavior in general– articulatory (for anticipation)– aerodynamic (for stops and fricatives)

2) goal of this communication?

2) Goal of this communication?

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• Does not deal directly with the vowels• or with the place of articulation of the nasal consonants• -----• This paper does deal with the nasalisty feature, the

perception of nasality• and the differences between initial and final nasals• Data from in a number of languages• French and English (X-ray), Japanese, and others• Based on the available litterature, work in my lab, my

own work.

2) goal of this communication?

2) Goal of this communication?

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3) the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general

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the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general: The syllable as a unit?

• Unit of physiological organization? (Stetson, 1951) – no

• Coextensive with the temporal domain of coarticulation (Kozhenikov and Chistovichn 1965) ?– no

• Thoughs in the mvt pattern of one articulator (Gay, 1978)? – no

• Characteristics patterns of articulatory organisation (Krakow, 1989)? – yes, in careful speech at least

• Syllable organisation of phonological patterns (Ohala et Kawasaki, 1984)– yes

3) the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general

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Straka and Durand1) stress

2) Position in syllable, word, syntagma

the effect of the position of a consonant in a syllable in general

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Sonorant in coda

• Sonorants « fused » with the preceding vowel– Becoming more vowel-like– /l/ > [u] (chevals > chevaux)– /r/– Nasal consonant > nasal vowels or nasal

glide or glide

– Backing also for nasal (velar nasal)

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4) what is well known about the nasality feature?

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A lot of very nice studies

• Japanese (Fujimura, Sawashima, Honda, etc.)

• English (Cohn*, Krakow*, Ohala, Bell-Berti, …

• French (Benguerel, Amelot*; Rossato*, Delveaux*, Basset & al; Cohn*, Badin …

• Spanish (Solé …)

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Which have shown the many different factors influencing the velum behavior

The many different factors influencing the velum behavior

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Many factors

Syllable boundaries

style

Language influences production and perception

Speaker’s strateegy

South French

Canadien French

dialects

Intrinsic velar height

Nasal features first !

/a/ lower thet /i/

/p,t,k/ > sonorants

Impedance extremely important

/a/ less thet /i/

Around stops

Coarticulatory nasalized phonologized in English

Spontaneous/carefully

Stress and effort

Position in sentence

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style

Less than expectedMore than expected

Basset & al, 2001

Nasalized /k/

Nasalized /v/

Anticipation attendue avant N

Basset & al, 2001

No anticipation

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Open velopharyngeal port is the unmarked case

Natural « coda nasalisation »

Position in sentence

sentence

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/atu/ sequence

From the university of Strasbourg (France)

Final position favors nasalisation

Pause behave as a nasal consonant in

French

cV+pause = final nasalisationLess well known,

wrongly ignored in current litterature

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/atu/

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/atu/

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Maximum opening(before /a/!!!)

/atu/

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Jaw starts to riseClosing gesture startsAt the vowel beginning !!!

/atu/

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/atu/

Vocal tract already halfClosed (in the middle of the« acoustic » vowel !!!

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Protrusion of the lip starts

/atu/

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/atu/

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Lip continue to round(in anticipation of /u/)

/atu/

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Lip continue to protrude

/atu/

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/atu/

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Lip continue to protruded, they areAs protruded as for /u/

/atu/

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/atu/

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/atu/

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Deprotrusion startsVelum lowers

/atu/

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/atu/

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/atu/

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Lips still very protrudedCarry-over; velum low)

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Natural final nasalisation

• You don’t hear it.• You barely see it on spectrograms• But it is there.

• in French• mV + pause = the velum does not rise again• Pause act as a nasal phoneme

• This may explain presence of N as a coda

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But conflicting conclusions …

• Transitional because unspecified in English

• Cohn: airflow

• phonologized anticipatory nasalisation in English

• Malécot, Ohala, Vaissière, and others

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Initial /n/ Final /N/

Vn V N

Onset Release

V

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Partly due to different instrumentations

• In all cases, the nasal feature is realized by lowering the velum

• Connection oral and nasal cavities

• If enough acoustic coupling, the phoneme is perceived as nasalized or as a nasal vowel or consonant

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Principal results

A phoneme is perceived as nasal when there is enough coupling between the main VT and the nasal cavity

Coupling necessary depends on the phoneme identity and on the speaker native language.

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1) Velar height

• velum only down for the realisation of the nasal phonemes?

– Yes, but sometimes down for oral low vowel• Same height for all oral consonants?

– No, lower for stops than sonorants, lower for low vowels than high vowels

• Same height for all nasal consonants?– No, ower for final consonants, than initial,– Yes, for /m/ and /n/

• Few data because invasive?– X-ray, yes, but MRI, no

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2) Nasal airflow

1. Nasal airflow is always a by-product of an open velopharyngeal port?

No, positive airflow may be the result of a pumping effect

No, Negative airflow is possible when velum goes down long the velo-phayrngeal wall

No, glottal consonants

No; cold

2) Nasal airflow proportionnal to VP opening

No, impedance (/i/ > /a/)

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3) Velopharyngeal port

1. The best!

but, lateral opening of theVP port is possible (IRM)

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4) Articulatory synthesis

Rather easy

Maeda’s model

Vowels and consonants

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5) acoustics

• Not too bad, but dangerous to infer the velum behavior from only acoustic data

• Consonants: /l/ has also zeros

• Vowels: – Zeros due to context

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5) Perception

• If easy to create the sensation of nasality• More difficult to do it in a well-motivated way• Nasal tract very complicated• Aerodynamics constraints difficult to model1. Nasalisation of sonorants , fricatives and

vowels may go unnoticed because no nasal counterparts (non-native contrasts)

2. For stops, corresponding nasal may be more easily heard

3. The listeners would be sensitive to the total nasalisation in VN# sequence (Beddor, 2007)

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Is differences between initial and final consonants strickly

physiologically necessary (production) ?

No !

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Initial and final

Consonants

Could behave

the same way

Anticipatory

and carry-over

are not strictly necessary

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what differences between initial and final consonants generally

observed ?

Yes !

Why?

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Lower velum for final than initial nasal

a) Differences in velar height and VP opening

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Also X-ray, X-ray microbeam system, IRM, French, Japanese, etc.

Differences in velar height and VP opening

51Krakow, English

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b) Differences in coarticulatory patterns

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• More anticipation than carry-over

• More coarticulation when tautosyllabic but no blocking

• More anticipation when tautosyllabic (cvN)

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what differences between initial and final consonants generally

observed ?

Some conflicts in the conclusion

But I will concentrate on similarities

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Variability observedsame instrumentation

same language (French)

• Variability beginning and middle of murmur in nV

• Maximum at /n/ release

• = the only instant where nasality is necessary

Benguerel

Ouvaroff

Cohn

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Maximum nasal airflowMinimal velum height

Close for aerodynamic reason

Perceptual requirement

But masking

A point of rendez-vous:

The release of the nasal consonant

If missed: no nasality perceived

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demo

• Most of the nasal murmur • in nV, or VnV or VnV• is not necessary for /n/ to be perceived as nasal

• J’admets > Jeanne met• Et demi > ennemi• Maintenant > mainnant• Nombre, number > nomme

• What counts perceptually is the release; only the release

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• So if the release perceptually counts for initial /n/

• What happens when a non released final consonant to be perceived as a nasal?

• Observations: – Articulatory observation: minimum VH at VN

boundary, that is at the N onset.

• A perceptual complication: If short and no anticipatory nasalisation of the vowel, masking and murmur not perceived

105

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Maximum nasal airflowMinimal velum height

Close for aerodynamic reason

Perceptual requirement

But masking

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• So if the release perceptually counts for initial /n/

• What happens when a non released final consonant to be perceived as a nasal?

• Observations: – Articulatory observation: minimum VH at VN

boundary, that is at the N onset.

• A perceptual complication: If short and no anticipatory nasalisation of the vowel, masking and murmur not perceived

105

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What solution(s)?

• What to do the nasalisity of the coda to be perceived• The French way:

– Released it ! – Liaison– Enchaînement

• Make it long !• Vowel anticipatory nasalisation ! (Beddor, 2007:

integration)

• Anticipatory nasalisation even in French

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language

Anticipatory

nasalisation

In languages

With

Even in languages

With nasal vowels

Cohn

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VN/ + C

• Different behavior depending on the surrounding consonants

• N+stop: nasal release of the stop, maximum velar height

• If unvoiced stop: VP close at the beginning

• If fricative: maximum velar height at the middle

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Maximum nasal airflowMinimal velum height

Close for aerodynamic reason

Perceptual requirement

But masking

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Conclusions?

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1) Perceptual consideration

• nV, VnV,• A long murmur is not

necessary• Not audible for most

of its lenght• Around the consonant

release • It is essential

importance

• VN, VNC,• Long murmur

necessary• If short, masked• Anticipatory

nasalisation as a compensation

• Integration of nasality over V and N (Benguerel, Beddor)

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Recall …

• The same perceptual constraints for

• /k,g/

Perceptual necessity and not articulatory ease!

F2

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2) alignement

• Consonants:

• Onset of unvoiced stop is [- nasal] (of better VP close), aerodynamics

• Release of stops has to be |-nasal] , perception, nasal counterparts

• Fricative: middle, variability at the edge

• Nasal vowels: middle and last part, perception

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3) From phonetic to phonology

• Much advantage to phonetically divide the « phoneme » into three or four parts

• Onset, steady state, just before release, release, transition …

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4) multi-instrumentation

• Necessary for the nasality feature

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5) Integration of multiple considerations

• Release

• And duration

• And anticipatory phenomena

• Should be faced in once

• Because of perception

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Merci!