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ABSTRACT
DOES PROSODIC WORD RECURSION CAUSE PHONETIC INITIAL STRENGTHENING?
The paper is the very first study to address the issue of domain-initial
strengthening in recursive prosodic words. Domain-initial strengthening concerns
the articulatory strength of segments at the left edges of prosodic domains. The
widely-used scale of prosodic positions is the prosodic hierarchy. The current
study employs a different scale, i.e., recursive prosodic words in which smaller
prosodic words are recursively embedded in a larger word. The length of /s/ is
measured when it is placed in the initial positions of 2-, 3- and 4-word Vietnamese
noun compounds in order to investigate whether prosodic word recursion causes
articulatory strengthening. The findings show that there is no significant duration
difference among the domains of recursive prosodic words, which reflects no
strengthening effect of prosodic recursion on segmental articulation. Therefore,
domain-initial strengthening appears to be sensitive to the categories of prosodic
constituents rather than the depth of their embedding.
Key words: domain-initial strengthening, prosodic word recursion
Phuong Hoai DangMay 2013
DOES PROSODIC WORD RECURSION CAUSE PHONETIC
INITIAL STRENGTHENING?
by
Phuong Hoai Dang
A thesis
submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Linguistics
in the College of Arts and Humanities
California State University, Fresno
May 2013
APPROVED
For the Department of Linguistics:
We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.
Phuong Hoai Dang Thesis Author
Chris Golston (Chair) Linguistics
Brian Agbayani Linguistics
Sean Fulop Linguistics
For the University Graduate Committee:
Dean, Division of Graduate Studies
AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION
OF MASTER’S THESIS
x I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.
Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.
Signature of thesis author:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis
supervisor Chris Golston and committee members Brian Agbayani and Sean Fulop
for their devoted support, invaluable guidance and constructive feedback during
the preparation and completion of the thesis.
I would like to send my special thank to Thuong Bui and Duc Dang for
their indispensable help in the process of data collection.
I also owe a big debt to the participants in the current thesis. I could not
have completed the thesis without their patient and devoted participation.
Last but not least, I am indebted to my family who always give me
encouragement and support towards the completion of the thesis.
TABLE OF CONTENTSPage
LIST OF TABLES vi
LIST OF FIGURES vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Domain-initial strengthening 1
1.2 Prosodic recursion 3
1.3 The current study 5
CHAPTER 2: NOUN COMPOUNDS IN VIETNAMESE 8
2.1 Description 8
2.2 Prosodic organization 14
CHAPTER 3: METHODS 16
3.1 Prosodic domains 16
3.2 Participants 17
3.3 Materials 17
3.4 Data collection procedures 19
3.5 Data analysis procedures 20
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21
4.1 Results 21
4.2 Discussion 22
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 25
REFERENCES 27
APPENDICES 32
APPENDIX A: VIETNAMESE NOUN COMPOUNDS 33
LIST OF TABLES
..............................................................PageTable 1. Speech materials for the study
................................................................................................................................18
Table 2. Variation across compounds and speakers...............................................23
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1. Prosodic organization of 2-, 3- and 4-noun compounds.........................15
Figure 2. The waveform and spectrogram of the compound mui sɛ ‘car roof’......20
Figure 3. Mean /s/ duration for all speakers...........................................................21
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Domain-initial strengthening
It has been observed that the phonetic properties of segments vary
according to their positions in the prosodic structure of languages thanks to a wide
range of research regarding the interaction between prosody and segmental
articulation. French consonants and vowels have greater amplitude and duration in
stressed syllables than in unstressed syllables. English /s/ seems to have less
aspiration noise in the middle of Word than at the beginning of Word and
Intonational Phrase. There is an increase in the Voice Onset Time of Korean
aspirated consonants from Word-medial positions to Word-initial positions to
Accentual Phrase-initial positions (see Fougeron 1999 for a review). The examples
above are only a few out of different studies on the effect of prosodic positions on
phonetic segments which is called prosodic strengthening. Cho (2005: 3867)
defines prosodic strengthening as “temporal and/ or spatial expansion of
articulation due to accent and/ or prosodic boundaries” and mentions the three so-
called strong prosodic positions are the left edges of prosodic domains, the right
edges of prosodic domains and accented syllables.
One line of prosodic strengthening research is domain-initial strengthening
which concerns “prosodic strengthening associated with left edges of prosodic
domains” (Cho et al. 2007: 211). Trask (1996) defines “strengthening” as “a
phonological process in which some segment becomes stronger.” The widely used
scale of prosodic positions for domain-initial strengthening is the prosodic
hierarchy which is a hierarchically organized structure of prosodic domains such
as Utterance, Intonational Phrase, Phonological Phrase, Word, Syllable, etc.
(Selkirk 1978; Selkirk 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1986; see Selkirk 1995; Selkirk
2
2009 for a review). In general, domain-initial strengthening is a phonological
process in which segments at the left edges of higher prosodic constituents are
articulatorily stronger than those at the left edges of lower prosodic constituents.
The phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening has been investigated in
different languages such as English (Fougeron & Keating 1996; Keating et al.
1999), Taiwanese (Hsu & Jun 1998; Hayashi et al. 1999; Keating et al. 1999),
Korean (Keating et al. 1999; Cho & Keating 2001), French (Keating et al. 1999;
Fougeron 2001), German (Kuzla et al. 2007; Kuzla & Ernestus 2011), and Arabic
(Al Taisan 2011). These studies generally explore two research questions. The first
concerns how the organization of prosodic constituents affects the articulation of
speech segments, and the second examines whether the articulatory variation of
segments at the beginning of prosodic domains can help mark the prosodic
hierarchy of a language.
The common measurements are linguopalatal contact and segment duration.
Some acoustic parameters are also used in the domain-initial strengthening
studies; however, the results concerning them and their correlations with
linguopalatal contact or segment duration are not consistent to reflect the general
picture of domain-initial strengthening. On the one hand, Fougeron and Keating
(1996) do not find any strong correlations between linguopalatal contact and
acoustic measurements like VOT, vowel duration and stop burst energy for the
English nasal /n/; Hsu and Jun (1998) and Hayashi et al. (1999) see that there is no
significant effect of prosodic positions on VOT duration of the investigated stops
in Taiwanese. On the other hand, Cho and Keating (2001) find that the acoustic
measurements like stop closure duration, VOT, Total Voiceless Interval, %
voicing during closure, vowel duration, stop burst energy, nasal duration and nasal
3
energy vary according to the prosodic positions of the four tested Korean stops
and some of them have correlations with linguopalatal contact; Kuzla and Ernestus
(2011) find that /b/, /d/, and /g/ have less glottal vibration and /p/, /t/, /k/ have
shorter VOT duration after higher prosodic boundaries in German.
The general finding is that speech segments in higher prosodic domains
have more linguopalatal contact and/or longer duration than those in lower
domains; and the increase of segmental articulation from the lowest to highest
domain is usually cumulative. The found pattern of domain-initial strengthening,
on the one hand, reflects the effect of prosodic organization on phonetic
articulation, on the other hand, provides articulatory and/or acoustic cues to
distinguish prosodic boundaries. Note that the findings of domain-initial
strengthening show certain variation across languages, segments, speakers, and
prosodic domains. For instance, Cho and Keating (2001:185) observe that Korean
has a clearer and more consistent picture of domain-initial strengthening than
English, French, and Taiwanese. Regarding the variation across segments,
Fougeron (2001:119) sees that “/s/ is less systematically affected by prosodic
position compared to the other consonants studied like stops and /l/.” Furthermore,
it is observed that not all speakers distinguish all prosodic domains. Fougeron and
Keating (1996) report two speakers make distinction among three levels while the
other speaker distinguishes only two. In the study which compares domain-initial
strengthening in four languages, Keating et al. (1999) also discuss that all speakers
make at least two domains distinct, which is robust in the findings.
1.2 Prosodic recursion
In the discussion of prosodic recursion, it is crucial to mention the Prosodic
Hierarchy Theory proposed by Selkirk (1978) and developed by Selkirk (1984)
4
and Nespor and Vogel (1986) (see Selkirk 1995; Selkirk 2009 for a review). The
theory claims that a string of speech in a language can be exhaustively parsed into
different prosodic constituents in which higher domains contain lower ones.
(1) The Prosodic Hierarchy (Selkirk 1995: 5)
Utt Utterance
IP Intonational Phrase
PhP Phonological Phrase
PWd Prosodic Word
Ft Foot
σ Syllable
There is a set of constraints on prosodic domination which characterizes the
features of the prosodic hierarchy. Specifically, the two constraints of Layeredness
and Headedness claim that speech in every language is hierarchically organized in
prosodic constituents; higher-ranked constituents dominate lower-ranked
constituents. In a stricter sense, the constraints of Exhaustivity and Non-recursivity
require that every higher domain must dominate or must be completely parsed into
immediate lower domains, which means that there is no level skipping or
repetition at any prosodic domain. The first two constraints are inviolable and
undominated thanks to the observation that every language has several prosodic
levels. On the other hand, it has been argued that Exhaustivity and Non-recursivity
are violable and low-ranked because certain prosodic levels are found to be
skipped or recurred in a number of languages (Selkirk 1995; Ito & Mester 2009).
In sum, the violability and low ranking of Exhaustivity and Non-recursivity result
in prosodic skipping and recursion.
5
Prosodic recursion refers to the repetition of prosodic domains at a certain
level of the prosodic structure. Specifically, prosodic recursion involves the
embedding of a prosodic domain of a certain level in another prosodic domain of
the same level; the larger domains contain the smaller ones (Inkelas 1990; Selkirk
1995; Ito & Mester 2008; Ito & Mester 2009; Kabak & Revithiadou 2009; Selkirk
2009; Féry 2010). Furthermore, it is observed that compound structures are
frequently exemplified as prosodic recursion thanks to the notion that the
compound structures as well as their components belong to the same category and
the compounds are larger constituents containing their smaller components (Ladd
1990; Ladd 1996; Inkelas 1990; Green 2007; Kabak & Revithiadou 2009).
1.3 The current study
As mentioned above, domain-initial strengthening, a type of prosodic
strengthening concerning the articulatory strength of segments at the left edges of
prosodic constituents has been explored in a wide range of research in which the
currently-employed scale of prosodic positions is the prosodic hierarchy of
languages. It is interesting to revisit this phenomenon with a different prosodic
scale. Particularly, the current study investigates the articulation of phonetic
segments in the initial positions of prosodic domains of the same level called
recursive prosodic words. The study is the first to examine the interaction between
prosodic recursion and segmental articulation.
More specifically, the paper addresses the issue of domain-initial
strengthening in recursive prosodic words. Prosodic recursion involves the
containment of smaller constituents inside a larger constituent of the same
category; therefore, the formation of recursive prosodic words concerns the
embedding of smaller prosodic words in a larger prosodic word. Compounds in
6
languages are argued to be recursive prosodic words (Inkelas 1990; Green 2007;
Kabak & Revithiadou 2009).
The studied case is Vietnamese noun compounds. Vietnamese is a tonal
monosyllabic language in which syllables are argued to be the smallest units of
phonological and morphological analysis (Ngo 1984; Nguyen 2011). Particularly,
Ngo (1984) proposes the notion of “syllabeme” is the minimal grammatical unit in
Vietnamese; it can function as a syllable, a morpheme and a word. Nguyen (2011)
argues that a word in Vietnamese is a minimal meaningful unit whose spoken
form is a syllable and written form is a separate group of letters. A compound in
Vietnamese can be comprised of two or more elements; each is a one-syllable
word; and the compounding of these monosyllabic elements creates a new lexical
item. Therefore, Vietnamese compounds are appropriate candidates for the notion
of recursive prosodic words thanks to the fact that the whole compounds are larger
prosodic words which are constituted by smaller prosodic words.
In order to investigate the articulatory variation across initial positions of
recursive prosodic words, the duration of the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ is
measured when it is at the beginning of each monosyllabic word of 2-, 3-, and 4-
word noun compounds. The two possibilities are hypothesized towards the
findings of the study. First, there is a cumulative increase of segmental length from
the smallest to the largest constituent-initial positions, which reflects the
significant role of the embedding of smaller prosodic words in larger prosodic
words. Second, there is no strong distinction among the domains of recursive
prosodic words, which implies the effect of prosodic categories on domain-initial
strengthening.
7
Generally speaking, the study aims at exploring the phenomenon of
domain-initial strengthening with the scale of recursive prosodic words. /s/ is
placed in the initial positions of 2-, 3-, and 4-word compounds and its duration is
measured to examine whether prosodic word recursion causes articulatory
strengthening.
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CHAPTER 2: NOUN COMPOUNDS IN VIETNAMESE
2.1 Description 1
Compounding is the word formation process which involves the
combination of existing words to build new lexical items. Vietnamese compounds
are formed under such the process; two or more monosyllabic words are combined
to generate a single category. There are three word types of compounds in
Vietnamese: compound nouns, verbs and adjectives; each of them is classified into
two subtypes including coordinate and subordinate compounds.
Coordinate compounds involve the compounding of two or more words in
which “each constituent is a center” and “occurs in juxtaposition” (Nguyen
1997:66). Semantically, they are called generalizing compounds because the
meanings of the two centers are combined to form a more general lexical item.
These centers belong to the same category or are synonyms or antonyms.
(1) a. bàn ɣé
table chair
‘furniture’
b. muə bán
buy sell
‘buy and sell’
c. cɑi cuot
brush polish
‘be meticulous’
Subordinate compounds concern the combination of the words with the
head-complement order. The heads are more general lexical items or concepts and
1 See more examples of Vietnamese noun compounds in Appendix A.
9
the complements modify and narrow the meanings of the heads. Subordinate
compounds refer to more specific lexical items and then are called specializing
compounds.
(2) a. nɯɤk dɑ
water ice
‘ice’
b. làm ruọŋ
do rice field
‘do farming’
c. sɛ lɯə
vehicle fire
‘train’
More specifically, coordinate noun compounds involve the combination of
nouns and their meanings reflect the generic category of the constituent nouns.
The examples in (3), (4) and (5) exemplify the 2-word, 3-word and 4-word noun
coordinate compounds respectively. Note that 3-word coordinate compounds are
not as popular as the other two.
(3) a. cim muoŋ
bird beast
‘animals’
b. rau kɔ
vegetable grass
‘veggies’
c. ruoŋ nɯɤŋ
wet field dry field
‘cultivated fields’
10
d. ruòi muõi
fly mosquito
‘flies/ bugs’
e. kwʌn Ɂɑu
pant coat
‘clothes’
(4) a. vɯɤn Ɂɑu cuòŋ
garden pond shed
‘traditional Vietnamese farm’
b. Ɂaɲ cị Ɂɛm
brother sister younger sibling
‘brothers and sisters’
c. ræŋ hàm mæt
tooth jaw face
‘the medical study of teeth, jaws and face’
d. tai mũi hɔŋ
ear nose throat
‘the medical study of ears, noses and throats’
(5) a. bɑ kɔn ko bák
grandmother child aunt uncle
‘relatives’
b. sɤn hɑ sɑ tæk
mountain river village principle
‘country’
c. soŋ núi nɯɤk nɔn
river mountain water mountain
11
‘country’
d. zɯɤŋ tủ bàn ɣé
bed wardrobe table chair
‘furniture’
e. maj lan kúk ʈúk
apricot orchid chrysanthemum bamboo
‘set of four symbolic flowers and plants’
Subordinate noun compounds involve the combination of heads and
complements in which the complements follow and modify the heads. Regarding
2-word subordinate compounds, Nguyen (1997) observes that there are the three
combinations; the heads are always nouns whereas the complements can be nouns,
verbs and adjectives. The examples in (6) exemplify the 2-word subordinate
compounds which involve the three types of noun compounding such as a noun
and a noun (6a-b), a noun and a verb (6c-d) as well as a noun and an adjective (6e-
f).
(13) a. bɔ kɔn
cow/ox child
‘calf’
b. kɤm ɣɑ
rice chicken
‘chicken rice’
c. sɛ dạp
vehicle to pedal
‘bike’
d. kɤm næm
rice to wisp
12
‘rice ball’
e. bɔ dɯk
cow/ox male
‘ox’
f. bɔ kái
cow/ox female
‘cow’
The examples in (7) and (8) are 3-word and 4-word compounds in which
the heads are left-edged.
(7) a. dɯɤŋ cʌn ʈɤi
line foot sky
‘horizon’
b. báɲ sɛ bɔ
wheel vehicle cow/ox
‘cow/ox cart wheel’
c. bụi than dɑ
dust coal stone
‘coal dust’
d. vụn báɲ mì
crust cake wheat
‘bread crust’
e. kỏ Ɂɑu vét
neck blouse suit
‘suit collar’
(8) a. vɔ thʌn kʌi dɑ
bark body tree banyan
‘banyan tree bark’
b. duoi kɑ nɯɤk mæn
tail fish water salty
‘sea water fish tail’
c. thʌn kʌi kɑ cuə
body tree eggplant sour
‘tomato tree body’
d. vɔ báɲ sɛ bɔ
tire wheel vehicle cow/ox
‘cow/ox cart wheel tire’
e. kiẻu kỏ Ɂɑu vét
model collar blouse suit
‘suit collar model’
Another type of 4-word subordinate compounds is also found to be popular
in Vietnamese; they involve the combination of two 2-word subordinate
compounds, as seen in (9).
(9) a. bén sɛ mien doŋ
station car region east
‘Eastern station’
b. bɯk tɯɤŋ Ɂʌm thaɲ
piece wall audio sound
‘sound wall’
c. bài thɤ tìɲ Ɂieu
piece poem sentiment love
‘love poem’
d. vɔi nɯɤk bòn tæm
faucet water tub bath
‘bathtub tap’
e. Ɂoŋ bɤm sɛ dạp
pipe pump vehicle bike
‘bike pump’
2.2 Prosodic organization
Vietnamese noun compounds are recursive prosodic words; the whole
compounds are the largest word constituents which contain smaller word
constituents. In the current study, 2-, 3- and 4-word coordinate and subordinate
compounds are investigated. The prosodic organizations of these compounds are
presented in (10). Coordinate and subordinate compounds are abbreviated as ‘CC’
and ‘SC’, respectively.
(10) Prosodic organizations of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds
2-word SC (word (word))
2-word CC (word (word))
3-word SC (word (word (word)))
4-word SC with left-edged heads (word (word (word (word)))
4-word SC of two 2-word SCs (word (word)) (word (word))
4-word CC (word (word)) (word (word))
The diagrams in Figure 1 provide a clearer picture of the prosodic
organizations of the compounds. The arrows below the transcriptions display the
meaning relation among the words; the single arrows refer to the head-
14 1
4
complement relation and the double arrows refer to the equal relation between two
words.
Figure 1. Prosodic organization of 2-, 3- and 4-word noun compounds
15 1
5
2-word SC 2-word CC 3-word SC
4-word SC with left-edged heads
4-word SC of two 2-word SCs
4-word CC
CHAPTER 3: METHODS
3.1 Prosodic domains
The paper addresses the issue of domain-initial strengthening in recursive
prosodic words. The studied case is the length variation of /s/ in the initial
positions of each word of Vietnamese noun compounds which are recursive
prosodic words in which the whole compounds are larger word constituents and
component words are recursively embedded smaller constituents. 2-, 3- and 4-
word noun compounds are speech materials; therefore, the tested domains are the
left edges of each word of these compounds. They are coded as W1i, W2i, W3i
and W4i which refer to the initial positions of the words in the compounds; for
instance, W1i corresponds to the initial position of the first word in the
compounds.
Recalling the prosodic organization of these compounds in Section 2.2, for
all compounds, the leftmost edge is the largest word boundary where the edge of
the whole compounds coincides with that of the first word; the smaller boundaries
are those of component words embedded inside the compounds; and the smallest
is the left edge of the last word. Particularly, in 2-word compounds, the W1i
position is the largest word boundary; and the W2i the smallest. In 3-word
compounds, the W1i position is the largest; the W2i the second largest; and the
W3i the smallest. In 4-word subordinate compounds with left-edged heads, the
word boundaries progressively decrease from the W1i position to the W4i
position. In 4-word subordinate compounds of two 2-word subordinate
compounds, the W1i position is the largest, the W3i the second largest, the W2i
the third largest, and the W4i the smallest. In 4-word coordinate compounds, the
W1i position is the largest, the W3i the second largest, and the W2i and W4i the
smallest. 3.2 Participants
Ten speakers, five males and five females, participate in the study. These
participants are native speakers of Vietnamese; they all speak the Southern dialect.
Among the ten speakers, four live in Ben Tre City and six live in Ho Chi Minh
City; these two cities locate in South Vietnam where the Southern dialect is
mainly spoken. The age of the participants ranges from 18 to 53. All of the
speakers are literate and have no speech problems.
3.3 Materials
The investigated speech segment is /s/, which is chosen thanks to the ease
of recognition and measurement. It is placed in the initial position of each word
noun compounds. It is surrounded by sonorants like nasals and vowels. Also, the
carrier word of the segment is kept the same for each set of the target compounds
so as to avoid the impact of other sounds on the segment if any.
The tested environments are coordinate and subordinate noun compounds.
Regarding coordinate compounds, 2- and 4-word compounds are under
investigation due to the fact that the small number of the 3-word compounds in the
language does not provide sufficient environments containing the target speech
segment. In addition to 2-, 3- and 4-word left-headed compounds, 4-word
compounds composed of two 2-word subordinate compounds are also employed.
All of the investigated positions are at the word domain of the prosodic
hierarchy but in different word constituents of recursive PWs from the largest to
the smallest. /s/ is placed in the initial positions of the first and second words in 2-
word compounds, in those of the first, second and third words in 3-word
compounds or in those of the first, second, third and fourth words in 4-word
17
compounds. Then the compounds are embedded in the same carrier sentence (e.g.
læp lai sɛ hɤi bɑ lʌn ‘Repeat car three times’).
Table 1 below presents the speech materials used in the study and illustrates
the descriptions concerning the speech segment /s/, the tested environments of
Vietnamese noun compounds and the investigated domains of recursive prosodic
words.
Table 1. Speech materials for the study
Subordinate compounds Coordinate compounds
2-word
compounds
sɛ hɤi
vehicle car
‘car’
mui sɛ
roof vehicle
‘car roof’
soŋ núi
river mountain
‘the whole country’
núi soŋ
mountain river
‘the whole country
3-word
compounds
sɛ bɑ báɲ
vehicle three wheel
‘three-wheeled cart’
mui sɛ hɤi
roof vehicle gas
‘car roof’
vɔ báɲ sɛ
tire wheel vehicle
‘bike/motorbike/car tire’
4-word
compounds with
left-edged heads
sɛ hòŋ thʌp tɯ
vehicle red cross word
‘ambulance’
mui sɛ Ɂo to
18
roof vehicle auto
‘car roof’
vɔ báɲ sɛ hɤi
tire wheel vehicle gas
‘car tire’
màu vɔ báɲ sɛ
color tire wheel vehicle
‘vehicle tire color’
4-word
compounds of two
2-word
compounds
sɛ hɤi dò cɤi
vehicle gas thing play
‘toy car’
vɔ sɛ dò cɤi
tire vehicle thing play
‘toy car tire’
kʌu cwien sɛ dạp
fish story vehicle bike
‘bike story’
kʌu cwien vɔ sɛ
fish story tire vehicle
‘tire story’
soŋ núi bɤ kɔi
river mountain bank region
‘the whole country’
nɔn soŋ dʌt nɯɤk
mountain river earth water
‘the whole country’
bɤ kɔi soŋ núi
bank region river mountain
‘the whole country’
bɤ kɔi núi soŋ
bank region mountain river
‘the whole country’
3.4 Data collection procedures
The speakers were given the list of 19 Vietnamese noun compounds like
those in Table 1 above. They were asked to read through these compounds and
explained that they were going to read them aloud as naturally as possible, each
compound was repeated three times, and their speech was recorded individually.
570 speech tokens (19 compounds x 3 repetitions x 10 speakers) were recorded
and analyzed in the study.
19
3.5 Data analysis procedures
Two criteria are used to define the segment length. First, /s/ is a fricative,
which means that its large acoustic energy is distributed at a high frequency. The
view range of the spectrograms is adjusted to be as high as 10000 Hz in order that
such energy is clearly observed. Second, /s/ is a voiceless sound and, as mentioned
in Section 3.3, it is surrounded by nasals and vowels, which implies the absence of
the pitch line on the spectrograms. Figure 2 below presents the waveform and
spectrogram of the compound mui sɛ ‘car roof’. It is seen that the target duration
of /s/ is the shaded part on the waveform and the high frequency section between
the pitch lines on the spectrogram.
Figure 2. The waveform and spectrogram of the compound mui sɛ ‘car roof’
The t-test for independent samples is used to investigate the difference of
segment durations in each set of compounds. The p-values are expected to be
smaller than 5% in order that the mean scores of the two investigated values
achieve a significant difference.
20
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Results
Figure 3 below presents the findings regarding the duration of /s/ in each
word domain of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds measured for all of the ten speakers.
Coordinate compounds are abbreviated as ‘CC’; and subordinate compounds ‘SC’.
Figure 3. Mean /s/ duration for all speakers
Paired-samples t-tests were run to investigate statistically significant
contrasts in each pair of word constituents in the compounds for all speakers and
for each speaker. The null hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the
mean durations of /s/ in each pair of domains is rejected with p < .05.
The results of the t-tests appear to support the null hypothesis thanks to the
findings that the speakers make very few significant distinctions among the
domains of the compounds. Besides, it is observed from the chart that there are
uniformly very small differences in either of the two directions that segments in
larger words are longer or shorter than those in smaller words. Therefore, despite
the statistical significance, these differences seem to have no linguistically
meaningful value in the whole picture of the effect of recursive prosodic words on
segmental duration investigated in the study. Instead, they are likely to behave in a
random manner, which may be due to the variation in the speakers’ speech
production. Generally speaking, there is no significant difference among the word
domains of the investigated compounds; that is, prosodic word recursion does not
cause any domain-initial strengthening.
4.2 Discussion
This paper addresses the issue of domain-initial strengthening in recursive
prosodic words; specifically it investigates the question whether prosodic word
recursion causes articulatory strengthening to segments at the left edges of
recursively embedded word constituents.
The results show that there are few statistically significant distinctions
among the word domains of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds investigated in the
current study. These distinctions are relatively small, which is consistent across the
compounds for all speakers and for each speaker. Therefore, their effects as well
as their direction of difference are not likely to play any crucial role in deciding
whether prosodic word recursion causes articulatory variation. On the other hand,
the much larger and more uniform part of the findings show that the speakers
participating in the study do not distinguish the word constituents of the tested
compounds, which strongly supports the conclusion that there is no effect of
prosodic word recursion on segmental articulation.
Domain-initial strengthening concerns the articulatory strength of phonetic
segments at the left boundaries of prosodic constituents; those in higher prosodic
domains are expected to be temporally and/or spatially stronger than those in
lower prosodic domains. The prosodic structure of languages is currently
employed as the scale of prosodic positions in the studies of domain-initial
22 2
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strengthening. In such the scale, the prosodic constituents of different categories
are hierarchically embedded in the way that the higher ones contain the lower
ones; that is, the labeling of prosodic domains is subject to the depth of their
embedding. Thus the phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening found in the
studies with the use of this scale reflects the effect of the depth of the structural
embedding; segments in higher-embedded levels are found to have more
linguopalatal contact and/or longer duration than those in lower embedded levels
(Fougeron & Keating 1996; Hsu & Jun 1998; Hayashi et al. 1999; Keating et al.
1999; Cho & Keating 2001; Fougeron 2001; and others). At the same time,
domain-initial strengthening informs the categories of the prosodic domains. The
more strongly articulated segments mark the higher prosodic boundaries in the
prosodic structure. The strengthening details provide prosodic cues for listeners to
recognize the prosodic hierarchy of languages (Keating et al. 1999; Cho & Keating
2001; Cho et al, 2007).
In the current study, the employment of a different scale of prosodic
positions, i.e., recursive prosodic words challenges the role of the embedding and
labeling of prosodic domains in the issue of domain-initial strengthening. The
question is which of them does matter in the strengthening of speech segments.
The first hypothesis is that the depth of prosodic embedding causes articulatory
variation; that is, segments at the left edges of larger constituents are stronger than
those at the left edges of smaller constituents. The second hypothesis is that no
strengthening effect is found; there is no significant articulatory variation of
segments in the initial positions of recursive prosodic words. The findings of the
study support the second hypothesis. There is no significant difference among the
word domains of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds. Therefore, it may be concluded
that prosodic word recursion does not cause any articulatory strengthening to
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3
segments at the left edges of recursively constructed words; therefore, the
phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening is sensitive to the type or category of
prosodic constituents rather than the depth of prosodic embedding.
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4
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
The paper addresses the issue of domain-initial strengthening in recursive
prosodic words. Domain-initial strengthening concerns the effect of prosody on
articulation of segments at the left edges of prosodic domains. It has been
investigated in different studies with the use of the prosodic hierarchy as the scale
of prosodic positions. The prosodic hierarchy is a hierarchically organized
structure of prosodic constituents; the higher ones dominate and contain lower
ones. Therefore, the pattern of domain-initial strengthening is that segments in
higher prosodic levels are more strongly articulated than those in lower levels. The
current study employs a different scale, that is, recursive prosodic words in which
larger word constituents contain smaller word constituents.
The duration of the voiceless fricative /s/ is measured when it is in the
initial positions of each word of 2-, 3- and 4-word Vietnamese noun compounds in
order to investigate the effect of prosodic recursion on segmental articulation. The
findings show that the speakers make few distinctions among the word domains of
the tested compounds. This reflects that prosodic recursion has no strengthening
effect on the articulation of speech segments. Furthermore, it shows that the types
or categories of prosodic constituents matter in the phenomenon of domain-initial
strengthening. The speakers somehow acknowledge that recursively embedded
domains belong to the same categories.
The paper is the very first study concerning the issue of domain-initial
strengthening in recursively embedded structures. It explores a new angle in a
well-researched issue of domain-initial strengthening. Therefore, it is expected to
attract more research on the effect of prosodic recursion and segmental
strengthening which can be extended to different languages, different recursive
word patterns and different recursive domains.
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30Kuzla, Claudia; Taehong Cho; and Mirjam Ernestus. 2007. Prosodic strengthening
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: VIETNAMESE NOUN COMPOUNDS
(1) 2-word coordinate compounds
a. sác vɤ
book notebook
‘books’
b. bàn ɣé
table chair
‘furniture’
c. bát jĩə
bowl plate
‘dishes/ dinnerware’
d. cùə cien
pagoda temple
‘temples/ pagodas’
e. kɔn cáu
child grandchild
‘offspring/ descendants’
f. Ɂéc ɲái
frog tree toad
‘batrachians’
g. zʌi bút
paper pen
‘desk supplies’
h. mɯə zɔ
rain wind
‘inclement weather’
i. fo fɯɤŋ
street guild
‘streets’
j. thɔk lúə
paddy rice
‘rice’
k. kʌi kɔ
tree grass
‘vegetation’
l. thwien bɛ
boat raft
‘boats’
m. soŋ núi
river mountain
‘country’
n. ɲɑ kɯə
house door
‘houses’
o. ʈʌu bɔ
buffalo ox/cow
‘livestock’
(2) 4-word coordinate compounds
a. lɔŋ lʌn kwi fụŋ
dragon unicorn turtle phoenix
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‘set of four symbolic animals’
b. doŋ tʌi nam bæk
east west south north
‘directions’
c. kɤm Ɂɑu ɣɑu tien
rice blouse rice money
‘daily earnings’
d. ŋeu sɔ Ɂok hén
shell oyster snail mussel
‘a drama title’
e. hỉ nọ Ɂái Ɂo
happiness anger love disgrace
‘emotions’
f. sáŋ ʈɯə ciew toi
morning afternoon evening night
‘different times of a day’
g. koŋ juŋ ŋon hạɲ
labor beauty speech behavior
‘four female virtues’
h. dʌt dai ruọŋ vɯɤn
earth land field garden
‘lands and farms’
i. ʈɤi ʈæŋ mʌi zɔ
sky moon cloud wind
‘weather’
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6
j. nɔn soŋ dʌt nɯɤk
mountain river earth water
‘country’
k. soŋ núi bɤ kɔi
river mountain river bank region
‘country’
l. bɤ kɔi núi soŋ
river bank region mountain river
‘country’
m. Ɂoŋ bɑ cɑ mɛ
grandfather grandmother father mother
‘grandparents and parents’
n. ko jì cú bák
aunt aunt uncle uncle
‘aunts and uncles’
o. vɤ còŋ kɔn kái
wife husband child child
‘parents and children’
(3) 2-word subordinate compounds
a. sɛ bɔ
vehicle cow/ox
‘cow/ox cart’
b. fɔŋ xác
room guest
‘living room’
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c. sɛ ŋɯə
vehicle horse
‘horse cart
d. cʌn zɯɤŋ
leg bed
‘bed leg’
e. súŋ mái
gun machine
‘machine gun’
f. bɔŋ dɑ
ball to kick
‘football’
g. ŋɯɤi Ɂɤ
person to reside
‘servant’
h. ŋɯɤi làm
person to do
‘servant’
i. bàn ủi
table to iron
‘iron’
j. bɔŋ cwien
ball to pass
‘volley ball’
k. kɑ cuə
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8
eggplant sour
‘tomato’
l. dɯɤng kɑi
road main
‘main road’
m. dũə kɑ
chopstick big
‘stirring chopstick’
n. tiéŋ fáp
language French
‘French’
o. báɲ ŋɔt
cake sweet
‘cake’
(4) 3-word subordinate compounds with left-edged heads
a. búə thɤ ren
hammer worker smith
‘sledgehammer’
b. kwán kɤm ɣɑ
store rice chicken
‘chicken rice store’
c. Ɂien sɛ ŋɯə
saddle vehicle horse
‘horse cart saddle’
d. bọt xwai mì
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flour potato wheat
‘cassava flour’
e. kʌi kɑ cuə
tree eggplant sour
‘tomato tree’
f. dạn súŋ mái
bullet gun machine
‘machine gun bullet’
g. bɤm sɛ dạp
pump vehicle bike
‘bike pump’
h. thʌn kʌi kaw
body tree areca
‘areca tree body’
i. næp cai sɯə
lid bottle milk
‘milk bottle lid’
j. kɑ nɯɤk ŋɔt
fish water sweet
‘fresh water fish’
k. vɔ ʈɯŋ vịt
shell egg duck
‘duck eggshell’
l. ɲãn cai rɯɤu
label bottle wine
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‘wine bottle label’
m. cuoŋ ɲɑ thɤ
bell house worship
‘church bell’
n. xuŋ kɯə sỏ
frame door book
‘window frame’
o. kàŋ kuə dòŋ
claw crab field
‘fresh water crab claw’
p. sɛ bɑ báɲ
vehicle three wheel
‘three-wheel cart’
(5) 4-word subordinate compounds with left-edged heads
a. ʈɯɤŋ dọi bɔŋ dɑ
captain team ball kick
‘football team captain’
b. næm kɯə fɔŋ xác
wisp door room guest
‘living room door knob’
c. củ kwán kɤm ɣɑ
owner store rice chicken
‘chicken rice store owner’
d. màu vɔ sɛ dạp
color tire vehicle bike
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1
‘bike tire color’
e. tiéŋ cuoŋ ɲɑ thɤ
sound bell house worship
‘church bell sound’
f. kɤ næp cai sɯə
size lid bottle milk
‘milk bottle lid size’
g. ʈɯɤŋ dọi bɔŋ cwien
captain team ball pass
‘volleyball team captain’
h. màu Ɂien sɛ ŋɯə
color saddle vehicle horse
‘horse cart saddle color’
i. vien xuŋ kɯə sỏ
border frame door book
‘window frame border’
j. vɔ dạn súŋ mái
case bullet gun machine
‘machine gun bullet case’
k. vʌi kɑ nɯɤk ŋɔt
fin fish water sweet
‘fresh water fish fin’
l. màu ɲãn cai rɯɤu
color label bottle wine
‘wine bottle label color’
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m. næp họp kɤm næm
lid box rice wisp
‘rice ball box lid’
n. vʌi duoi kɑ biẻn
fin tail fish sea
‘sea fish tail fin’
o. duoi kɑ nɯɤk ŋɔt
tail fish water sweet
‘fresh water fish tail’
(6) 4-word subordinate compounds of two 2-word subordinate compounds
a. bɯk tɯɤŋ tìɲ Ɂieu
piece wall sentiment love
‘love wall’
b. bài hát tìɲ Ɂieu
piece sing sentiment love
‘love song’
c. ŋɯɤi cɤi bɔŋ cwien
person play ball pass
‘volley ball player’
d. áɲ sáŋ dɛn dien
reflection bright light electricity
‘electric light’
e. bản dò ɲɑ mɑi
piece draw house machine
‘factory map’
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3
f. sɯ tíc kɑ vɔi
thing legend fish elephant
‘whale legend’
g. sɛ hɤi dò cɤi
vehicle car thing play
‘toy car’
h. mɑi tíɲ sác tɑi
machine calculator carry hand
‘laptop’
i. sɛ lɤə hɤi nɯɤk
vehicle fire gas water
‘steam train’
j. mɑi bɑi sieu thaɲ
machine fly super sound
‘supersonic plane’
k. ŋɯɤi sɛm ʈwien hìɲ
person watch transmit image
‘television audience’
l. sɛ dạp dò cɤi
vehicle bike thing play
‘toy bike’
m. de thi tiéŋ aɲ
text exam language English
‘English test’
n. sɯ tíc jɯə hʌu
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thing legend melon name of a melon
‘watermelon legend’
o. bản mʌu de thi
piece sample text exam
‘test sample’
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5