Duration of Blackfoot /s/.

A comparison of assibilant,

affricate, singleton, geminate and

syllabic /s/ in Blackfoot.

Donald Derrick, UBC Linguistics

For: WSCLA 11, UBC, April, 2006

Introduction

• Blackfoot is an Algonquian language

primarily spoken in Alberta and

Montana

• Blackfoot consonant inventory includes

/m, n, p, t, k, ts, ks, s/ in singleton and

geminate contrasts.

Introduction

• Blackfoot has only the one sibilant: /s/

• Blackfoot /s/ appears in many contexts:– Assibilation

• underlying /k/ or /t/ next to an /i/ and across morphemeboundaries “-” become /ks/ and /ts/ respectively (Frantz &Russel 1991, 1995, Armoskaite & Chávez-Peón, 2005)

[st xts tsi] st ht-itsiunder-p nt "underp nt"(F&R 1995:232) (BB 06/02/09)

s t a a t s t s i

Time (s)3.83257 5.10649

Introduction

– Affricates• /ks/ or /ts/ within a morpheme (Elfner, 2004)

[ st sts pik m ] isttsi-ts pikimm

p in-wire/strin "b rbed wire"

(F&R 1995:97) (BB 06/02/01)

i s tt s t s aa p i k I mm

Time (s)2.39934 3.99541

Introduction

– Singletons• does not alter underlying preceding vowel lengths

(Frantz & Russel 1995)

[ni s p o]niis-kiipo

four-ten "forty"

(F&R, 1995:134) (BB 05/10/12)

n ii s i pp o

Time (s)5.51657 6.53907

Introduction

– Geminates

• defined as an /s/ which shortens preceding long vowels

or laxens preceding short vowels (Frantz & Russel 1995)

[ s t s i] i-s t isi

VERB-o ended "become offended!"

(F&R 1995:204) (BB 06/02/01)

i s a t ss i

Time (s)0.075963 1.30434

Introduction

– Syllabic /s/• defined as elng /s/ preceded by a consonant (Derrick,

2006)

[ om ks ks i n ]om hk-sskssiin

bi -insect "bi insect”

(F&R 1995:86) (BB 05/11/29)

o m a k ss k ss ii n aa

Time (s)6.69156 8.58086

Introduction

– Super-long combinations

• defined as spirantizations (affricates) followed by syllabic/s/ (Derrick, 2006)

[ om kss pi ts s] om hk-i-ss pi 'tsis

bi -VERB-telescope "bi eld l sses"

(F&R 1995:85) (BB 06/03/16)

om a k sss a p ia t s s

Time (s)9.78145 12.4279

Hypotheses1) Blackfoot geminates /s/ and syllabic /s/ will

be the same duration

2) Blackfoot long /s/ will be longer thansingleton /s/

3) Blackfoot singleton /s/ will be longer thanBlackfoot affricate /s/

4) Blackfoot affricate /s/ will be longer thanBlackfoot assibilant /s/

5) All Blackfoot /s/’s will be longer whenadjacent to vowels than when adjacent toconsonants.

Experiment

• Blackfoot data involving /s/ in all the

contexts listed was recorded and /s/

durations were measured in order to

test the above 5 hypotheses:

Methods - participant

• One participant (Beatrice Bullshields)

provided citation form words containing

Blackfoot assibilations, affricates,

singletons, geminates, syllabic /s/’s and

super-long /s/’s.

• A minimum of 3 tokens from 6 words for

18 measurements was elicited for each

form (except ksV - 14 only)

Methods - stimuli

• Forms included: CsssV, CssC, CssV, VssC,CssC, VsV, VsC, tsV, tsC, t-V, ksV, ksC, k-V

• C = Consonant

• V = Vowel

• sss = affricate + syllabic /s/

• ss = geminate or syllabic /s/

• s = singleton s

• s = affricate

• - = assibilation/morpheme boundary

Methods - recording

• Recordings were completed using a Marantz

660 solid-state recorder with a countryman

(phantom power) wired lapel microphone.

• Measurements were recorded using text tiers

on PRAAT 4.4.0.7 for Mac

• Data was compiled in Excel 2004 for Mac

• Statistics were analyzed using JMP IN 5.1 for

Mac

Results - by type

segm

ent

length

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

affricate assibilant geminate singleton super-longsyllabic

segment group

Each Pair

Student's t

0.05

affricate

assibilant

geminate

singleton

super-long

syllabic

Level

80

57

38

89

21

73

Number

129.588

102.579

299.632

155.348

381.524

240.233

Mean

6.744

7.990

9.786

6.394

13.163

7.060

Std Error

116.32

86.87

280.39

142.77

355.63

226.35

Lower 95%

142.85

118.29

318.88

167.92

407.41

254.12

Upper 95%

Std Error uses a pooled estimate of error variance

Means for Oneway AnovaLevel Mean

super-long A 381.52381 geminate B 299.63158 syllabic C 240.23288 singleton D 155.34831 affricate E 129.58750 assibilant F 102.57895

• All categories significantly different F(5,252) 123, P < 0.0001

• Each category is statistically different from each other P < 0.005

Results - by Vowel Adjacency• Vowel adjacency to either edge of a

long /s/ correlates to greaterduration

• Duration of a geminate /s/ followedby a consonant is similar to asyllabic /s/ followed by a vowel

• Duration of a consonant boundedsyllabic /s/ similar to vowel boundedsingleton /s/

• Vowel bounded geminates aremuch longer than vowel boundedsingletons

segm

ent

length

100

200

300

400

500

CssC CssV VsV VssC VssV

segment

Each Pair

Student's t

0.05

Results - by Vowel Adjacency

• Singleton /s/ in onset position is 100% longer than singleton /s/ in coda

• Affricate /s/ in onset position is 33% shorter than affricate /s/ in coda

segm

ent

length

50

100

150

200

250

300

coda onset

position

segm

ent

length

50

100

150

200

250

300

coda onset

position

Both results are highly

significant (P < 0.0001)

coda

onset

Level

45

35

Number

150.067

103.257

Mean

6.3162

7.1619

Std Error

137.49

89.00

Lower 95%

162.64

117.52

Upper 95%

Std Error uses a pooled estimate of error variance

Means for Oneway Anova

coda

onset

Level

38

51

Number

91.316

203.059

Mean

6.4081

5.5314

Std Error

78.58

192.06

Lower 95%

104.05

214.05

Upper 95%

Std Error uses a pooled estimate of error variance

Means for Oneway AnovaS

i

n

g

l

e

t

o

n

A

f

f

r

i

c

a

t

e

Discussion - Hypothesis tests

Hypothesis 1: Blackfoot geminates /s/ andsyllabic /s/ will be the same duration

– False - syllabic /s/ is on average 25% shorterthan geminate /s/

• long /s/ is approximately 50 ms longer per edgeadjacent to a vowel.

Hypothesis 2: Blackfoot long /s/ will be longerthan singleton /s/

– True - geminate /s/ is 100% longer thansingleton /s/, just like other geminates inBlackfoot

Discussion - Hypothesis tests

Hypothesis 3: Blackfoot singleton /s/ will belonger than Blackfoot affricate /s/

– True, but not by much - Blackfoot singleton /s/ isabout 25% longer than affricate /s/

• in onset position, the difference is much greater withaffricate /s/ at mean 103 ms and singleton /s/ at mean201 ms, or 100% longer.

Hypothesis 4: Blackfoot affricate /s/ will belonger than Blackfoot assibilant /s/

– True, but again not by much - Blackfoot affricate/s/ is about 25% longer than assibilant /s/.

• And, assibilant and affricate /s/ are similar lengthswhen in onset position.

Discussion - Hypothesis test

Hypothesis 5: All Blackfoot /s/’s will be longerwhen adjacent to vowels than whenadjacent to consonants.

– False, Blackfoot singleton and geminate /s/ arelonger when adjacent to vowels, but affricatesare shorter when adjacent to vowels

• Slower energy changes on either side of /s/sounds may correlate with longer durations:

Discussion - Energy Change

• /s/ energy builds sloweroff of /t/ than /k/ onset.(comparisons to appear inproceedings.)

o m ax k ss k ss ii n aa

Time (s)6.69156 8.58086

• /s/ energy decreasesslowly into a vowel,quickly into a consonant.

i ss ao k aa s i

Time (s)0.481826 1.67286

• singleton /s/ is shorter andsometimes quieter than geminate /s/.

• singleton /s/ does not reducepreceding vowels.

I ss k ss ii n aa

Time (s)2.82541 4.04091

k i t s i k s i kk a k oo m

Time (s)6.74064 8.48575

• /s/ energy decreasesslowly into a vowel, andvowel energy decreasesinto an /s/

Conclusion

• Underlying morphophonology combined withvowel adjacency jointly predict averageduration differences between geminate /s/,syllabic /s/, singleton /s/, and affricate &assibilant /s/

• With geminate and syllabic /s/, voweladjacency effects are symmetrical

• Assibilant and underlying affricate /s/ havestatistically similar duration in onset position

• More speakers and more natural speechmust be analyzed to finalize theseconclusions

References

Armoskaite, Solveiga and Chávez-Peón, Mario. (2005) "Assibilation in Blackfoot" LING

431/531 Field Methods, UBC

Derrick, Donald (2005) “Blackfoot Geminates.” LING 531, Field Methods, UBC

Derrick, Donald (2006) "Blackfoot phonotactics." NWLC 22, SFU, Burnaby, BC, Canada

Emily Elfner (2004) The Role of Sonority in Blackfoot Phonotactics. Honours thesis,

University of Calgary

Frantz , Donald G. (1991) Blackfoot Grammar. University of Toronto Press

Frantz, Donald G. & Norma Jean Russell. (1995) Blackfoot dictionary of stems, roots, and

affixes (second edition). University of Toronto Pres

Special thanks to Beatrice Bullshields who provided all the elicitations for any data marked

(BB date). Frantz's dictionary provided source material for all such elicitations, but

Beatrice Bullshields's productions are used in favor of any dictionary entries.