[lingtalks] TODAY: Kemmonye Monaka 10/15 (Linguistics Colloquium)
Klinton Bicknell
kbicknell at ucsd.edu
Mon Oct 15 08:49:30 PDT 2007
TODAY at 3pm, Kemmonye Monaka (University of Botswana and UC-Berkeley)
will give a colloquium in the UCSD Linguistics Department, in AP&M 4301.
:: Abstract ::
Voiceless Unaspirated Plosives in Sotho-Tswana: The Case of Shekgalagari
There have been many inconsistent and inconclusive reports as to whether
the voiceless unaspirated plosives in the Sotho-Tswana group of
languages are produced on the laryngeal air stream mechanism or on the
pulmonic air stream mechanism. Using one of the languages of this group,
Shekgalagari, a Western Sotho-Tswana language, the present study
provides an analysis of the voiceless unaspirated plosives. Using
combined electro- laryngography (both the Gx and the Lx signals) and the
spectrograms as well as the speech pressure waveform (Sp), the paper
examines the nature of the voiceless unaspirated plosives in
Shekgalagari, to find out whether these plosives are produced on a
pulmonic egressive air stream as plain plosives or on the laryngeal air
stream mechanism as ejectives. The qualitative description is based on
visual inspection of the properties of Gx, Lx, Sp signals and the
spectrograms, and the quantitative analysis on the measurement of voice
onset time (VOT). The findings of the investigation are discussed in the
light of the phonetic realisations of the plosive consonants in the
other languages reported in the literature as well as within the
framework of speech production, and it is thought that they could
possibly have a bearing on the study and description of voiceless
unaspirated plosives in Sotho-Tswana languages - which are genetically
associated with Shekgalagari. These plosives in these languages may
possibly be plain rather than ejective plosives.
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For further information about the Linguistics department colloquia
series, including the schedule of future events, please visit
http://ling.ucsd.edu/events/colloquia.html .
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