Variation in fine phonetic detail modulates the outcome of sound change

Road map

The problem
Danish stop gradation
Research questions
Methods and materials
- The corpus
- The stats
Results
Discussion and conclusions

The problem

Multiple degrees of freedom in the phonetic realization of laryngeal contrasts
- The “neat” voiced–unaspirated–aspirated distinction looks more like an unbroken continuum

The problem

Multiple degrees of freedom in the phonetic realization of laryngeal contrasts
- The “neat” voiced–unaspirated–aspirated distinction looks more like an unbroken continuum
- Languages vary w.r.t. voicing and F₀ perturbations in unpredictable ways
- Do these details impact higher-order linguistic structures?

The problem

Laryngeal realism: [±voice] is insufficient for two-way laryngeal contrasts
- Regressive voicing assimilation common in ‘true voice’ languages
- Progressive aspiration assimilation common in ‘aspiration’ languages
- Debuccalization to [h] found in ‘aspiration’ languages
Does phonology care about anything smaller?

The problem

We have good reason to assume the answer is yes from other domains
- Velar palatalization before front vowels is the result of small differences in burst noise characteristics
- Lenition predominantly targets codas because word-final information is more contextually predictable, and as such, hypoarticulated
Difficult to test though!

The problem

Enter: Danish stop gradation!
- Phonological process which targets stops
- Outcome known to vary geographically
- Stop phonetics also known to vary geographically
- Relevant varieties documented in a huge legacy corpus

Danish stop gradation

Danish phonology makes reference to strong and weak prosodic positions
- Strong positions (SP) are onsets before a full vowel
- Weak positions (WP) are codas and onsets before a neutral vowel, i.e. [ə] or [ɐ], as well as [i] in some morphemes

Danish stop gradation

Modern Standard Danish (MSD) shows alternations between
- aspirated stops in SP, unaspirated stops in WP
- unaspirated stops in SP, semivowels in WP
This is often interpreted as an active phonological process
- Colleagues and I have argued against this

Danish stop gradation

/p t k/	→	[pʰ tʰ kʰ]	/	SP	skalpere
		[p t k]	/	WP	skalp
/b/	→	[p]	/	SP	købte
		[p ~ ʊ̯]	/	WP	købe
/d/	→	[t]	/	SP	validere
		[ɤ̯]	/	WP	valid
/g/	→	[k]	/	SP	bagte
		[ɪ̯]	/	WP, _ [-back, -high]	bage
		[ʊ̯]	/	WP, _ [+back, -high]	bagværk
		Ø	/	WP, _ [+high]

Danish stop gradation: variation

Stop gradation affected almost the entire Danish-speaking area, but the precise outcomes differed
Thanks to a historically strong tradition of dialectology, this variability has long been well-described

Danish stop gradation: variation

Danish stop gradation: variation in /b/

Danish stop gradation: variation in /g/

Danish stop gradation: variation in /d/

Danish stop gradation: variation

Research questions

Broad RQ:
- Are sound changes sensitive to the phonetic details of laryngeal contrast beyond broad descriptive features like ‘aspiration’ and ‘true voice’?
Narrow RQ:
- Is the variation in stop gradation patterns in Jutland Danish limited to WP, or are there meaningful correlates in SP?

Hypotheses

Stop gradation led to an increase in aperture almost across the board
The outcomes of stop gradation were affected by the precise implementation of the laryngeal contrast
- The degree of sonority in WP is reflected in the ‘phonetic sonority’ of stops
- I.e., more voicing, less aspiration = more sonorous

Hypotheses

The data

A bit of background
- The past century has been very hard on regional variation in Denmark
- The traditional dialects of Danish are mostly moribund or extinct
Tape recordings were gathered from elderly dialect speakers in the early 1970s

The data

The corpus consists of
- 525 sociolinguistic interviews
- 370 hours of speech data
- Almost entirely unused…and un-annotated :-(

The data

This study
- 213 different recordings
- 49 women, 164 men
- Mean age = 77.4 years
  - I.e., this is roughly the same generation captured in the dialect maps of Bennike & Kristensen (1898–1912)

The data

Acoustic analysis

First step: finding the stops
- By…
- …listening through the recordings -_-
- And noting the rough locations of each stop until 50 /p t k/ tokens were found
- Noting the locations of /b d g/ tokens in that same time span

Acoustic analysis

Phoneme	Number of tokens
/p/	1,386
/t/	5,169
/k/	4,095
/p t k/ total	10,650
/b/	2,212
/d/	2,369
/g/	2,273
/b d g/ total	6,854

Acoustic analysis

Positive voice onset time was measured manually in /p t k/

Acoustic analysis

Positive voice onset time was measured manually in /p t k/

Acoustic analysis: voiced or not voiced?

Stats

Generalized additive mixed models
- Very useful for modeling non-linear effects
- Omnipresent in linguistics in the past half decade

Stats

Generalized additive mixed models
- Very useful for modeling non-linear effects
- Omnipresent in linguistics in the past half decade
In this case, spatial GAMMs

Stats: model structure

Dependent variables
- Voice onset time
  - Scaled t distribution
- Presence or absence of voicing
  - Binomial distribution

Stats: model structure

Two-dimensional smooth modeling geographical coordinates
Independent variables
- Place of articulation
- Stress
- Speaker gender
- Preceding boundary
- Palatalization
- Vowel features (roundness, backness, height)

Stats: model structure

Independent variables were coded with sum or Helmert contrasts
By-speaker random slopes for all independent variables
Fitted in R with mgcv

Results: VOT

Results: voicing

Discussion: regional variation

In MSD, voicelessness in /b d g/ is maintained with glottal spreading
- This serves to block intervocalic voicing
- It is unlikely that (Northern) Jutlandic varieties have this gesture
- For some speakers, voicing is even found in absolute initial position, which requires extra effort

Discussion: regional variation

The observed patterns suggest that stop gradation = increase in aperture in /b d g/
- If /b d g/ are voiced at high rates, the result should be a voiced fricative or an approximant
- If /b d g/ are largely voiceless, the results should be a voiceless fricative
  - …and we might expect increased prominence of aspiration in /p t k/

Discussion: regional variation

Discussion: Modern Standard Danish

MSD provides a counterexample!
- Laryngeal contrast is highly aspiration-oriented
- Stop gradation outcomes is highly sonorous
- Why?

Discussion: Modern Standard Danish

Contrast in MSD used to be more voicing-oriented
- More voicing during the first stages of stop gradation
- Subsequent drift towards more aspiration, less voicing in SP
- This severed any synchronic connection between SP and WP allophones
- Jutland stop gradation has more hallmarks of an active phonological process

Conclusion

Uncovered systematic, highly gradient patterns of covariability in VOT and voicing rates in Jutland Danish
These patterns have direct parallels in the outcome of stop gradation in other prosodic positions
This suggests that fine phonetic detail directly impacts sound change/phonological processes
- Broadly defined features are insufficient!

Tak for opmærksomheden!

rpuggaardrode.github.io
r.puggaard@phonetik.uni-muenchen.de
@rpuggaardrode

These slides are available at rpuggaardrode.github.io/lancaster23

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