@article {492, title = {Effects of obstruent voicing on vowel fundamental frequency in Dutch}, year = {2021}, publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen}, address = {online}, abstract = {It has been known for a long time and for a wide variety of languages that vowel fundamental frequency (F0) can be affected by the intrinsic properties of the preceding consonants. In particular, F0 following voiceless obstruents tends to be significantly higher than F0 following voiced obstruents (e.g., House and Fairbanks, 1953; Hombert et al., 1979). There has been a long-standing debate about the cause of this phenomenon. Some evidence in previous work is more compatible with a physiological/aerodynamic account of this effect (e.g., Halle and Stevens, 1967; Kirby \& Ladd, 2016), while other supports an auditory enhancement account (e.g., Kingston and Diehl 1994). This paper investigates these consonant-related F0 perturbations in Dutch after initial fricatives (/v f/) and stops (/b p/), as compared to after sonorant /m/, in recordings by Pinget (2015). Dutch is particularly interesting for the investigation of F0 perturbations for two reasons: 1) Dutch {\textendash} unlike English {\textendash} is a true voicing language and 2) Dutch initial fricatives are currently undergoing a process of devoicing (e.g., Kissine et al., 2003; Pinget, 2015). The F0 contours in isolated words were analyzed using GAMM (e.g., Wieling 2018) with /m/ as baseline condition. Results show that after unvoiced /p, f/, the F0 at vowel onset is significantly higher than this baseline. Moreover, voicing measures (degree of voicing, duration, and VOT) interact with the main effects of onset consonant on F0. Especially after /v/, F0 at vowel onset increased as the voicing measures of preceding /v/ decreased. Thus, we found no trace of an active gesture to explicitly lower F0 after highly devoiced fricatives, as would be predicted by an auditory enhancement account. In conclusion, these results regarding F0 contours, the time course of the effects and the covariation patterns are taken as evidence to support a physiological/aerodynamic cause of F0 perturbations. References Halle, M., \& Stevens, K. (1967). Mechanism of glottal vibration for vowels and consonants. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 41(6), 1613-1613. Hombert, J.-M., Ohala, J. J., \& Ewan, W. G. (1979). Phonetic explanations for the development of tones. Language 55, 37{\textendash}58. House, A. S., \& Fairbanks, G. (1953). The influence of consonant environment upon the secondary acoustical characteristics of vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 25, 105{\textendash}113. Kingston, J., \& Diehl, R. L. (1994). Phonetic knowledge. Language, 70, 419{\textendash}454. Kirby, J. P., \& Ladd, D. R. (2016). Effects of obstruent voicing on vowel F 0: Evidence from {\textquotedblleft}true voicing{\textquotedblright} languages. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 140(4), 2400-2411. Kissine, M., Van de Velde, H., \& van Hout, R. (2003). An acoustic study of standard Dutch /v/, /f/, /z/ and /s/. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 20(1), 93{\textendash}104. Pinget, A. (2015). The actuation of sound change. PhD Dissertation, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Wieling, M. (2018). Analyzing dynamic phonetic data using generalized additive mixed modeling: A tutorial focusing on articulatory differences between L1 and L2 speakers of English. Journal of Phonetics, 70, 86-116. }, author = {Anne-France Pinget and Hugo Quen{\'e}} } @article {21, title = {Regional variation in the pronunciation of /s/ in the Dutch language area}, year = {2017}, publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen}, address = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, abstract = {

In this socio-phonetic study we investigated regional variation in the realization of /s/ in the Dutch language area, and tested the observation that /s/ is sometimes pronounced more like [ʃ] (so-called s-retraction), especially in the Randstad (Collins \& Mees, 2003, p. 190).

One hundred native speakers born and raised in one of five regions of the Dutch language area (West Flanders, Flemish Brabant, Netherlands Limburg, South Holland, Groningen) produced nineteen monosyllabic words containing /s/ in different syllabic contexts. Spectral centre of gravity (CoG) was measured to assess the degree of s-retraction: CoG of /s/ is higher than that of /ʃ/. CoG values were significantly lower (consistent with more retraction) in the Dutch regions than in the Flemish regions. Male speakers displayed a more retracted pronunciation than females. From our data it is unclear whether these differences are solely caused by anatomical differences or constitute evidence for a sociolinguistic gender effect in an incipient sound change.

In conclusion, /s/ shows regional variation in Standard Dutch. The pattern is not fully consistent with the observation forwarded by Collins \& Mees (2003): s-retraction is found in an area larger than the Randstad, possibly pointing towards a North-South variation pattern (Belgian vs. Netherlandic Dutch).

References:

{\textbullet} Collins, B. \& I. Mees (2003). The phonetics of English and Dutch, fifth revised edition. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV.

}, author = {Anne-France Pinget and Sanne Ditewig and Willemijn Heeren} } @article {11, title = {The onset voicing effect: evidence from Dutch labiodental fricatives}, year = {2016}, month = {16.05-16.25}, publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen}, address = {Utrecht, Nederland}, abstract = {

In a wide variety of languages, it has been reported that vowel F0 at the onset tends to be lower after voiced than after voiceless consonants (e.g., Hombert et al., 1979). This phenomenon has been called onset voicing effect (OVE) by Kirby \& Ladd (2015). Learning second language (L2) sounds is influenced by the first language (L1) sound system. This current study seeks to examine how English language learners who have a smaller L1 vowel inventory perceive English sounds. To reveal L2 sound perception, we measured the mouse trajectories related to the hand movements performed by Javanese and Sundanese language learners as they selected their responses. This paper investigates the presence of the OVE in Dutch initial labiodental fricatives. Previous studies have shown that Dutch initial fricatives are currently devoicing (e.g., Kissine et al., 2003; Pinget, 2015). We thus examine whether the OVE is maintained in the case of devoicing. The maintenance of the OVE in the case of devoicing would provide evidence for incipient tonogenesis, whereas the disappearance of the OVE would indicate that initial labiodental fricatives develop as a full merger. This study aims to map the patterns of real-time processing through compatible hand movements, to reveal any uncertainties participants have when making selections. The participants completed a categorization task, classifying stimuli as long or short vowels. Results show clear regional differences in the OVE that corresponds to the regional differences in fricative devoicing. The devoicing process seems thus to trigger a reduction of the OVE, but not (yet) its full disappearance. We argue that these results are in line with the full merger hypothesis.

}, author = {Anne-France Pinget} } @article {61, title = {Cross-regional differences in the perception of a sound change in progress}, year = {2013}, publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen}, address = {Utrecht, The Netherlands}, abstract = {

This paper presents the results of a speeded categorization task aimed at getting insight in the speech perception patterns of speakers from three regions of the Dutch language area. In these regions the devoicing of onset /v/ to [f] is in different stages (West-Flanders: incipient, South-Holland: advanced and Groningen: almost complete) and the regions show differences in the implementation of the voicing contrast (Kissine et al. 2004). We tested the use of two dimensions (degree of periodicity and duration, 9 steps each) in the perception of the Dutch labiodental fricatives. In each region we selected 10 male and 10 female participants, age 18-28, and highly educated. The participants had to categorize 405 stimuli (9 x 9 x 5 runs) asv orf. It turned out that in all regions, periodicity is consistently used as the main cue in the cat- egorization of the stimuli, but speakers from West-Flanders and Groningen also use duration information but in different ways in the categorization of the labiodental fricatives. People from Groningen are the least categorical in their judgments. The results will be discussed in relation to the production differences found in previous studies.\ 

}, author = {Anne-France Pinget and Hans Van de Velde and Ren{\'e} Kager} }