Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis

Welsh is a p-Celtic language spoken mostly in the British Isles. Its consonant inventory features six plosive phonemes, i.e. /p, t, k, b, d, g/. The Welsh plosives exhibit a contrast between the fortis and lenis series marked phonetically by a number of phonetic features, the most important of t...

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Main Authors: Jaworski, Sylwester, Baran, Michał
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2023
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/22678/1/Gema_23_3_6.pdf
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author Jaworski, Sylwester
Baran, Michał
author_facet Jaworski, Sylwester
Baran, Michał
author_sort Jaworski, Sylwester
collection UKM
description Welsh is a p-Celtic language spoken mostly in the British Isles. Its consonant inventory features six plosive phonemes, i.e. /p, t, k, b, d, g/. The Welsh plosives exhibit a contrast between the fortis and lenis series marked phonetically by a number of phonetic features, the most important of them being aspiration. A previous study on Welsh plosives conducted by the authors of this paper revealed that, unlike the other plosives, the Welsh /t/ has a strong tendency towards affrication in some contexts. Since affrication of plosives has received some attention in phonetic studies on other languages, it seemed striking that potential affrication of Welsh plosives has not yet been studied phonetically. The present study includes word-initial and word-final realisations of /t/ in Welsh monosyllabic lexemes. The analysis of four key spectral moments; namely, centre of gravity, dispersion, skewness and kurtosis, was conducted to confirm the assumptions regarding allophonic variation of the Welsh /t/ based on a visual inspection of spectrograms. The results suggest that the Welsh /t/ may actually have as many as four allophones, i.e. the aspirated allophone [th ], the affricated allophone [ts], which can also be aspirated in two different ways; namely, aspiration can occur simultaneously with affrication [t sh] or it can follow the affricated section [tsh ].
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spelling ukm.eprints-226782023-12-18T05:27:52Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/22678/ Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis Jaworski, Sylwester Baran, Michał Welsh is a p-Celtic language spoken mostly in the British Isles. Its consonant inventory features six plosive phonemes, i.e. /p, t, k, b, d, g/. The Welsh plosives exhibit a contrast between the fortis and lenis series marked phonetically by a number of phonetic features, the most important of them being aspiration. A previous study on Welsh plosives conducted by the authors of this paper revealed that, unlike the other plosives, the Welsh /t/ has a strong tendency towards affrication in some contexts. Since affrication of plosives has received some attention in phonetic studies on other languages, it seemed striking that potential affrication of Welsh plosives has not yet been studied phonetically. The present study includes word-initial and word-final realisations of /t/ in Welsh monosyllabic lexemes. The analysis of four key spectral moments; namely, centre of gravity, dispersion, skewness and kurtosis, was conducted to confirm the assumptions regarding allophonic variation of the Welsh /t/ based on a visual inspection of spectrograms. The results suggest that the Welsh /t/ may actually have as many as four allophones, i.e. the aspirated allophone [th ], the affricated allophone [ts], which can also be aspirated in two different ways; namely, aspiration can occur simultaneously with affrication [t sh] or it can follow the affricated section [tsh ]. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2023-08 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/22678/1/Gema_23_3_6.pdf Jaworski, Sylwester and Baran, Michał (2023) Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 23 (3). pp. 98-110. ISSN 1675-8021 https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1615
spellingShingle Jaworski, Sylwester
Baran, Michał
Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis
title Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis
title_full Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis
title_fullStr Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis
title_full_unstemmed Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis
title_short Affricated allophones of North Welsh /t/: an acoustic analysis
title_sort affricated allophones of north welsh t an acoustic analysis
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/22678/1/Gema_23_3_6.pdf
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AT baranmichał affricatedallophonesofnorthwelshtanacousticanalysis