Rhotics. New Data and Perspectives

x In this paper, we discuss the acquisition of /ʁ/ for two children acquiring French, for one of whom, /ʁ/ triggers within-cluster assimilation of coronal obstruents. This is conspicuous, as French has a placeless rhotic. Accordingly, the rhotic of the other child is the target of place assimilation. Rose (2000, 2003) attributes the difference to the fact that the French rhotic is phonetically fricative-like, whereas it behaves – phonotactically – like a liquid. Hence, two possible sources of information for the acquiring child contradict each other. We discuss cross-linguistic evidence for and against place-bearing rhotics, concluding that both possibilities exist. To see to what degree the /ʁ/ is the same in the two children, we present an acoustic study, after which we demonstrate a reconstruction of the possible path of acquisition of Théo. Finally, we discuss the relevance of phonetic measurement for phonological patterns.

x The paper is based on perception and production tests conducted with 90 adult Pakistani learners of English with the aim to study their acquisition of English [ɹ]. The study is conducted in the SLM paradigm hypothesizing that learnability of an L2 sound is proportional to the perceived phonetic distance between the target L2 and the corresponding L1 sound. The results show that Pakistani learners can discriminate English [ɹ] from [w] and [l] but they develop strong equivalence classification between English [ɹ] and the L1 [r] in their L2 phonemic inventory.

x In this paper we offer an Ultrasound Tongue Imaging (UTI) based description of rhotics in bilingual speakers from South-Tyrol. In particular we examine whether adult Italian/Tyrolean bilinguals display differentiated patterns of articulation for rhotics in each language they speak and whether bilinguals’ articulatory patterns in each examined language are similar to those used by almost monolingual speakers or not. Intraspeaker comparison shows that very late sequential bilinguals do not present distinct articulatory patterns for rhotics in the two languages, while the simultaneous bilingual do. Besides interspeaker comparison shows that articulatory patterns for rhotics used by simultaneous monolinguals differ from those used by the very late sequential bilingual speakers. This data helps to understand how phonological categories are organized by bilinguals, and tackles the long debated issue regarding the possibility that bilinguals make use of a single shared phonological system or of two separate ones.

x The first of two studies in this paper (both using electromagnetic articulography) focused on onset clusters in German and French. Less overlap of C1 and C2 was found in plosive-nasal and plosive-rhotic clusters compared to plosive-laterals. Articulatory modeling was used to identify why the preferred coordination patterns are acoustically advantageous, and implications for metathesis and other diachronic processes are discussed. The second study analyzed the syllabic consonants /l/ and /r/ in Slovak. These consonants did not become kinematically more ‘vocalic’ in nuclear compared to marginal position. However, nuclear consonants preferred low-overlap coordination with the preceding consonant, compared to onset clusters and to vocalic syllables. We suggest that a low overlap setting favours the emergence of syllabic consonants.

x We investigate the lingual shapes of the five liquid phonemes of Malayalam: two rhotics, two laterals and a more problematic 5th liquid. Ultrasound is used to image the mid-sagittal tongue surface, mainly in an intervocalic within-word /a__a/ context. The dark retroflex lateral and trill have a retracted tongue root and lowered tongue dorsum, while the three other clear liquids show advanced tongue root and dorsal raising. The 5th liquid is post-alveolar and laminal. Some additional data from an /a__i/ context is considered: the liquids are slightly clearer before /i/: all have a slightly advanced tongue root, and all bar the trill show palatalization. Dynamically, the trill and retroflex lateral have a very stable tongue root in /a__a/, and the 5th liquid has unusual anterior kinematic properties which require further investigation.

x Acoustic and articulatory (EPG) examination of the Greek rhotic in several prosodic positions (singleton phrase initially, word initially and word medially, also in /Cr1/ clusters and /rC/ sequences) revealed a single constriction of short duration suggesting a tap articulation. This contained a vocalic part in /Cr/ and /rC/ contexts, but interestingly, also in phrase initial position when the rhotic was followed by a vowel. The constriction phase had a fairly stable duration and was shorter than the vocalic part, whose duration depended on prosodic position and context: it was longest phrase initially, next longest in /rC/ sequences and shortest in /Cr/ clusters. Finally, the vocalic interval’s formant structure was typically similar to that of the nuclear vowel, but with more centralized formant values. We hypothesize a vocalic gesture upon which the rhotic is superimposed. Articulatorily, the place and degree of constriction of the tap varied as a function of prosodic position, context and speaker.

x This study investigates the hypothesis that the rhotic segment containing one constricted interval, [ɾ], has a more complex internal phonetic structure that includes vocalic elements flanking the constriction, as suggested in classic studies, as well as more recent ones (Stolarski 2011 and references cited therein). The current experiment focuses on the quality of the vocalic elements of the sound in Romanian (contexts #rV, Cr, rC) and the acoustic analysis shows them to systematically stay mid-high and central (to front) across contexts. The paper also briefly touches on a phonological implication of this structure of the tap.

x This paper presents an acoustic study of final V+/r/ sequences in American English stressed monosyllables. We provide experimental data to show the durational and spectral characteristics of the vowel, the consonant and the VC transition, we explain the presence of this transition in relation to the vowel and the consonant, and we examine the role of speaking rate. The results show the presence of a transitional vocalic element that varies significantly as a function of the vowel and speaking rate. They also show significant durational and spectral differences which can be interpreted as the result of VC coarticulation.

x In this paper, the distribution of the various allophones of /r/ in the Washili variety of Shingazidja, a Bantu language spoken on Grande Comore, is discussed in detail. /r/ appears as a trill ([r]) in absolute initial position (except before [i]) and after a consonant, and as a tap ([ɾ]) in intervocalic position. Complications arise since /r/ undergoes fortition to [ʈʂ] in some classes but undergoes lenition in initial position when the following vowel is low-toned. An analysis is sketched in the CVCV framework (Lowenstamm 1996; Scheer 2004), claiming that the [r] allophone is underlyingly a geminate.

x The behaviour of rhotics in (Modern) Hebrew loanwords from English differs from that of all other consonants. Rhotics metathesise, and words containing rhotics show a preference for pseudo-reduplicative structures. Within an Optimality Theoretical framework, I argue that this unique behaviour results from the interaction among various universal well-formedness constraints, whose effect is unattested in native Hebrew grammar. This is evidence of the role of phonological universals in adult grammars.

x This paper aims at giving the first contribution to the phonetic description of the different realisations of /r/ in the present-day Italo-Romance languages spoken in Italy. It discusses a selection of phonetic phenomena observed in current use from a descriptive point of view and which have been confirmed in most cases by experimental evidence. Descriptions are based on a sample of a thousand r-realisations from different speakers (of different origins and with idiosyncratic phonetic properties) and are offered in terms of ‘narrow phonetics’.

x In this paper the socio-geographical distribution of alveolar and uvular /r/ in Flanders is researched to provide support for the idea that uvular [ʀ] has become more wide-spread in Flanders in the course of the 20th century. Due to its contact history with French and its relationship with German dialects, the Flemish situation might provide more insight in the controversy around the spread of uvular [ʀ] in Western-Europe. Three data sources are used for this study: two existing traditional dialect survey and a new socio-geographic survey based on a sociolinguistic approach.

x This chapter focusses on the middle phase of a very rapid change, exploring the relation between the phonological conditioning and the stylistic conditioning of the variation across the lifespan with regard to the situation of the speaker in the change spectrum. An analysis of the real-time change from apical [r] to posterior [ʀ] in Montreal French for two speakers across the lifespan illustrates that the sensitivity to stylistic conditioning is a complex phenomenon. Although both speakers acquired the apical variant as children they are not equally sensitive to the stylistic environment. Further research using a combination of trend and panel study needs to be done on other variables involved in the process of change if we want to better understand the relation between stylistic markedness and the process of change.