Planting the seed for sound change: Evidence from real-time MRI of velum kinematics in German

Christopher Carignan; Stefano Coretta; Jens Frahm; Jonathan Harrington; Phil Hoole; Arun Joseph; Esther Kunay; Dirk Voit

doi:10.1353/lan.2021.0020

Planting the seed for sound change: Evidence from real-time MRI of velum kinematics in German

Christopher Carignan, Stefano Coretta, Jens Frahm, Jonathan Harrington, Phil Hoole, Arun Joseph, Esther Kunay, Dirk Voit

School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract / Description of output

Velum movement signals generated from real-time magnetic resonance imaging videos of thirty-five German speakers were used to investigate the physiological conditions that might promote sound change involving the development of contrastive vowel nasality. The results suggest that, in comparison to when a nasal consonant precedes a voiced obstruent, the velum gesture associated with a nasal consonant preceding a voiceless obstruent undergoes gestural rescaling and temporal rephasing. This further suggests that the diachronic development of contrastive vowel nasality comprises two stages: the first stage involves gestural shortening and realignment, while the second stage involves a trading relationship between source and effect.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	333-364
Journal	Language
Volume	97
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2021.0020
Publication status	Published - 30 Jun 2021

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

real-time MRI
vowel nasalization
sound change
actuation
speech gestures
German

Access to Document

10.1353/lan.2021.0020

Cite this

@article{2a0a560f54db4e888efd2fef116cbb6c,

title = "Planting the seed for sound change: Evidence from real-time MRI of velum kinematics in German",

abstract = "Velum movement signals generated from real-time magnetic resonance imaging videos of thirty-five German speakers were used to investigate the physiological conditions that might promote sound change involving the development of contrastive vowel nasality. The results suggest that, in comparison to when a nasal consonant precedes a voiced obstruent, the velum gesture associated with a nasal consonant preceding a voiceless obstruent undergoes gestural rescaling and temporal rephasing. This further suggests that the diachronic development of contrastive vowel nasality comprises two stages: the first stage involves gestural shortening and realignment, while the second stage involves a trading relationship between source and effect.",

keywords = "real-time MRI, vowel nasalization, sound change, actuation, speech gestures, German",

author = "Christopher Carignan and Stefano Coretta and Jens Frahm and Jonathan Harrington and Phil Hoole and Arun Joseph and Esther Kunay and Dirk Voit",

note = "Acknowledgements: This research was funded by DFG (German Research Foundation) grant HA 3512/15-1 {\textquoteleft}Nasal coarticulation and sound change: A real-time MRI study{\textquoteright} (J. Harrington & J. Frahm) and supported also by European Research Council Advanced Grant 742289 {\textquoteleft}Human interaction and the evolution of spoken accent{\textquoteright} (J. Harrington). The authors are grateful for comments from audience members at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) 2019 (Melbourne, August 2019), where portions of this work were presented.",

year = "2021",

month = jun,

day = "30",

doi = "10.1353/lan.2021.0020",

language = "English",

volume = "97",

pages = "333--364",

journal = "Language",

issn = "0097-8507",

publisher = "Linguistic Society of America",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Planting the seed for sound change

T2 - Evidence from real-time MRI of velum kinematics in German

AU - Carignan, Christopher

AU - Coretta, Stefano

AU - Frahm, Jens

AU - Harrington, Jonathan

AU - Hoole, Phil

AU - Joseph, Arun

AU - Kunay, Esther

AU - Voit, Dirk

N1 - Acknowledgements: This research was funded by DFG (German Research Foundation) grant HA 3512/15-1 ‘Nasal coarticulation and sound change: A real-time MRI study’ (J. Harrington & J. Frahm) and supported also by European Research Council Advanced Grant 742289 ‘Human interaction and the evolution of spoken accent’ (J. Harrington). The authors are grateful for comments from audience members at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) 2019 (Melbourne, August 2019), where portions of this work were presented.

PY - 2021/6/30

Y1 - 2021/6/30

N2 - Velum movement signals generated from real-time magnetic resonance imaging videos of thirty-five German speakers were used to investigate the physiological conditions that might promote sound change involving the development of contrastive vowel nasality. The results suggest that, in comparison to when a nasal consonant precedes a voiced obstruent, the velum gesture associated with a nasal consonant preceding a voiceless obstruent undergoes gestural rescaling and temporal rephasing. This further suggests that the diachronic development of contrastive vowel nasality comprises two stages: the first stage involves gestural shortening and realignment, while the second stage involves a trading relationship between source and effect.

AB - Velum movement signals generated from real-time magnetic resonance imaging videos of thirty-five German speakers were used to investigate the physiological conditions that might promote sound change involving the development of contrastive vowel nasality. The results suggest that, in comparison to when a nasal consonant precedes a voiced obstruent, the velum gesture associated with a nasal consonant preceding a voiceless obstruent undergoes gestural rescaling and temporal rephasing. This further suggests that the diachronic development of contrastive vowel nasality comprises two stages: the first stage involves gestural shortening and realignment, while the second stage involves a trading relationship between source and effect.

KW - real-time MRI

KW - vowel nasalization

KW - sound change

KW - actuation

KW - speech gestures

KW - German

UR - https://muse.jhu.edu/article/796568

U2 - 10.1353/lan.2021.0020

DO - 10.1353/lan.2021.0020

M3 - Article

SN - 0097-8507

VL - 97

SP - 333

EP - 364

JO - Language

JF - Language

IS - 2

ER -

Planting the seed for sound change: Evidence from real-time MRI of velum kinematics in German

Abstract / Description of output

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

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