Phonation Types in Santiago Laxopa Zapotec
Maho Morimoto, Jeff Adler
University of California, Santa Cruz
2. Experiment
1. Introduction
Santiago Laxopa Zapotec (SLZ)
• Understudied language in the Otomanguean
family from the Zapotec group, spoken in
Santiago Laxopa, Ixtlàn, Oaxaca, Mexico
• Endangered, most speakers are natively bilingual
of Spanish and SLZ
Production experiment during fieldwork
• Participants: Two male native speakers, both in their thirties
• Stimuli:
50 monosyllabic words with vowel [a]
Four different phonation types (B=13, C=9, M=11, R=17)
Presented on a computer screen in Spanish and SLZ
• Procedure: Words were randomized and were repeated 5 times
Carrier sentence was una ___ ji tulas, 'say ___ again'
Recording made using head-mounted microphone and
Zoom handheld recorder, mono, 16kHz sampling rate
Examination of Spectral Measurements
Sample slide:
caminar
za
Disclaimer: results on this poster are only preliminary; the classification prior to the experiment was not perfect (and not
rectified for current analysis); tone was ignored; deficit in carrier phrase; no fillers; not subjected to statistical analysis yet.
3. Results
Duration: Modals shorter than non-modals as expected,
possibly to allow for realization of contrastive tone [7].
CPP (Ceptral peak prominence): against expectation,
higher value for C & R, compared to M; B as low as
Modal is also unusual.
Phonation Types
• Preliminary analysis suggests contrastive
phonation types and tones
Examples (near-minimal quadruplet from Subj02)
Breathy (B >M)
Subj01
Subj02
✔
✖
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Laryngealized (L<M)
Subj01
Subj02
✔
✖
C✖, R?
C✖, R✔
✔
✖
C✖, R✔
✖
✔
✖
C✔, R✖
✖
4. Future Direction
• Identification of acoustic correlates (esp. spectral
measurements) that best predict phonation
types in male and female voice
• Closer examination of tone-phonation phasing
• Further acoustic characterization of the
phonation types, along with interaction with
tones, speech style, and their consonant types
(especially fortis-lenis distinction)
• Phonological and phonetic alternation of
laryngealized vowels
• Cross-dialect and cross-linguistic comparison
Time (s)
M any thanks to: Fe Silva-Robles ◦ Samuel Diaz-Ramirez ◦ Cecilio Robles-Jeroni m o ◦ M aziar
Toosarvandani
◦ Grant M cGuire ◦ Field M ethods (Linguistics 282) 2016 ◦ UCSC Linguistics
Department ◦ Nicolas Fernandez ◦ Jacob Chemnick ◦ other consultants in Santiago Laxopa.
The study was partially funded by a UC M exus Small Grant.
10.05
338.003575
Time (s)
338
31.6808313
Time (s)
31.68
48.6354758
Spectral Tilt (H1*-H2*): as expected, largely positive
value B and negative value for C & R.
Energy (RMS): expected low intensity for non-modals
overall, but not consistent across duration.
C: na’ (there)
Frequency (Hz)
0
48.21
References
1. Chávez-Peón, M . E. (2011). Non-modal phonation in Quiaviní Zapotec: An acoustic
investigation. In M emorias del V Congreso de Idiomas Indígenas de Latinoamérica,
6–8 de
octubre de 2011, Universidad de Texas en Austin (p. 274).
2. Esposito, C. M . (2004). Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec Phonation. UCLA Working Papers in
Phonetics, 103, 71-105.
3. Gordon, M ., & Ladefoged, P. (2001). Phonation types: a cross-linguistic overview.
Journal of Phonetics, 29(4), 383-406.
4. Paul B oersma & David Weenink (2013): Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer
program]. Version 5.3.51, retrieved 2 June 2013 from http://www.pr aat .o rg /.
5. R Core Team (2015). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R
Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R- pr ojec t. or g/ .
6. Shu e, Y .-L ., P. K eati n g , C . Vice nik, K . Yu (2 01 1) Voic eS auc e: A p ro gr am f or v oic e a nalysis,
Proceedings
of the ICPhS X VII, 1846-1849.
7. Silverman, D. (1997). Laryngeal Complexity in Otomanguea n Vowels. Phonology, 1997,
14, 2, 1Chávez-Peón4( 2),
235-261.
8. Sjölander, K . (2004). Snack sound toolkit. K TH Stockholm, Sweden.
http://www.spe ech .kt h.se /sn ack.
R: na’a (now)
0
31.33
48.2133619
5000
Frequency (Hz)
Checked
0
337.6
31.3327199
5000
F0: lowest for B and higher for C & R, consistent with
tone-phonation interrelation reported in some
surrounding languages (e.g. [1])
Measurement
Na(5 tokens each)
H1*-H2*
H1*+H2*/2-A1*
H1*-A1*
H1*-A2*
H1*-A3*
A2*-A3*
Acknowledgments
B: nah (land ready
for seeding)
Breathy
Frequency (Hz)
0
9.74
337.612928
5000
Rearticulated
10.0479793
M: nan (grandma)
Modal
Frequency (Hz)
9.73974996
5000
• Languages differ in measures categorizing phonation the best
• Tryout of measures (mid-third) for a near-minimal quadruplet
(na’, ‘now’ for M, as ‘grandma’ not available for Subj01) [1]
• H1*-A1* & H1*-A3* seem to be the most reliable as of now,
but laryngealized vowels (C & R) need timing-sensitive analysis
48.64
Time (s)
Goal of the Experiment
• Providing acoustic characterizations of phonation
types in SLZ, as a first step to investigating the
interrelation between tone and phonation
November-December 2016 • ASA Honolulu meeting • Website: http://people.ucsc.edu/~mamorimo • Email: [email protected]
9. Wikimedia Commons (2010). Regions and M unicipalities of Oaxaca. Retrieved from
https://uplo ad .wiki me dia .o rg /wik ip ed ia/ co m mo ns/ th u mb /3 / 3e /O axac a_r egi o ns_an d_ dis tri
cts.svg/1024px- Oax aca_ re gi ons_ an d_ dist ricts.sv g. p ng
(with modification in color).
SLZ Resources & Contact at UCSC
1. Trilingual dictionary searchable in Spanish, Santiago Laxopa Zapotec,
http://zapo tec. ucsc. e du /slz/
2. Workshop on the Languages
of M eso-America
and Spanish:
(WLM A): http://zap ote c.ucsc .e du