Tone is usually described by starting height and direction of movement, but in languages with a crowded tonal space, multiple tones can have similar contours. Even in languages with few tones, details of contour shape may be used by listeners for tone identification. This study examines the effectiveness of using coefficients from polynomial equations to explore small differences in pitch contour shape and to convey this information for statistical analysis. Pitch contours for three tones from Green Mong are used as test cases. All three tones have low falling contours, but each has a distinctive phonation type. Using coefficients, large numbers of tokens can be compared to find consistencies in contour shape within tone categories and differences across categories. Discriminant analyses using the coefficients as predictor variables show that all three tones can be identified at levels well above chance using pitch contour shape alone. Quadratic coefficients improve classification rates over linear coefficients. The results also suggest that phonation type plays the largest role in identifying creaky tones in Green Mong. This technique should prove useful for analysis and synthesis of pitch contours. It seems particularly useful for examining details of contour shape in languages with a crowded tonal space.

This study investigates articulatory characteristics of /s, z, ∫, t∫, d[zcy ]/ in disyllabic nonsense words of the form [biCib], [buCub] and [baCab], where C represents the consonants listed above. The words were produced in a carrier sentence. Using the technique of electropalatography, quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from a speaker of Hindi. The results showed that the area of tongue-palate contact was significantly greater for the voiced fricative [z] than for the voiceless fricative [s]. In affricates, however, the contact area was significantly greater for the stop part of the voiceless affricate [t∫] than for the stop part of the voiced affricate [d[zcy ]]. On the other hand, the area of contact for the fricative part of [t∫] and [d[zcy ]] and the fricative [∫] was about the same. The area of contact for [s] and [z] was also significantly greater than for [∫] and the fricative part of [t∫] and [d[zcy ]]. The place of articulation for [∫] was significantly more posterior than for [s] and [z]. The place of articulation for the stop and fricative parts of [t∫] and [d[zcy ]] partly overlapped, but did not coincide. The width of the groove for [∫] and the fricative part of [t∫] and [d[zcy ]] was significantly greater than for [s] and [z]; however, the length of the groove for these segments was about the same. Numerical and electropalatographic data are presented and discussed in the light of the published numerical, palatographic and/or x-ray data on the fricatives and affricates. Coarticulatory effects of vocalic context on articulatory parameters of the investigated consonants are also discussed.

This paper presents parts of the results of the first stage in the phonetic documentation of Fering, a dialect of North Frisian. Descriptions of Fering indicate that it has a large vowel inventory (15 monophthongs, 7 diphthongs, and 3 triphthongs). Ten older male native speakers were recorded, producing the vowel and consonant inventory at different speaking rates, in different phonetic contexts, and in different speaking styles. The results of the acoustic analyses of the vowels of Fering throw light on the questions of a) how the vowel space is exploited in Fering, b) how Fering differentiates its large vowel inventory, c) to what extent consonant–vowel coarticulation affects the acoustic differentiation of vowel categories, and d) to what extent the implementation of the long–short vowel contrasts is affected by speaking rate. The results also provide a more accurate description of the vowel system of an endangered language than do previous auditory accounts.

Traditionally, phonological theory has held that the CV syllable is the basic syllable type across the world's languages. Recently however, Breen & Pensalfini (1999) have challenged the primacy of the CV syllable in phonological theory with data from Arrernte, an Aboriginal language spoken in central Australia. In this study, we set out to see if there is any acoustic phonetic basis to Breen & Pensalfini's claim. We examine real-word data from one speaker of Arrernte, five speakers of English, and three speakers each of Yanyuwa and Yindjibarndi (these are two other Aboriginal languages). Using F2 and F3 measures of the consonant, and locus equation measures, we find that CV does show more stability than VC in the English speakers' data, but that for the Aboriginal language speakers' data, there is a parity between the CV and VC measures. We suggest that this greater parity may be a necessary constraint on languages which have multiple places of articulation (six in the case of the Aboriginal languages studied here). We propose an alternative view of suprasegmental organization, and we suggest that more work is needed in order to understand the phonetic bases of suprasegmental structure.

The aim of this paper is to show that the approximant feature refers to a phonetic class which includes other subcategories of sounds, such as semi-vowels, rhotics, laterals and a subset of consonants. The consonants – due to the lack of articulatory precision – keep neither the obligatory closure for stops nor the aerodynamic characteristics required to produce a turbulent airstream, as is characteristic of fricatives. I am referring to these sounds as [[Voiced bilabial fricative] [Voiced dental fricative] [Voiced palatal fricative] [Voiced velar fricative]]. Moreover, I suggest a new definition of the approximant feature, which points out that the outflow of non-turbulent airstream is caused by either the opening of the organs or the lack of articulatory precision, or even both phenomena together.

Battaner-Moro (2003), a paper presented at the 15th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, advances several erroneous claims concerning J. R. Firth's contributions to prosodic phonology. In this note, I show that the central aspects of Firth's phonological thinking were already manifest in his publications from the 1930s.

Portuguese, a language of the Ibero-Romance subgroup of the Romance languages, has a variety which is spoken in Brazil, a country with circa 170 million inhabitants, of whom about 161 million speak Portuguese and 138 million live in cities. For this illustration of Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP), we have recorded a speaker whose choice was guided by two demographic criteria, namely, to represent the most populous dialectal region, that of São Paulo, and the most frequent age range (15–29 years, corresponding to 28% of the Brazilian population. Source: IBGE, Demographic census 2000). The speaker was a female undergraduate student at the University of Campinas at age 21 at the time of the recording. She was born in the city of São Paulo, where she lived up to age 10. From then on she has been living in Valinhos, a city on the outskirts of Campinas.

Mono is a Banda language spoken in the northwestern corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is part of the larger Adamawa-Ubangi language family. The following description is based on the variety of the language spoken in Bili, Bosobolo Zone, DRC. Mono speakers consider this to be the most prestigious variety of the language. The sound inventory is relatively homogenous in Bili and the surrounding area. The orthography given here was approved by the Mono volunteer language development committee in 1994. Previous studies of Mono include Olson & Schrag (2000), Olson (2001) and Kamanda-Kola (2003).

The accent described here is the present-day version of the accent that has been used as the standard in phoneticians' description of the pronunciation of British English for centuries. The definition of this accent is a matter of heated debate and frequent controversy: the arguments will not be rehearsed here, but the interested reader is recommended to look at Jones (1917 and subsequent) and Wells (2000). The most important aspects of this accent should, however, be made clear.

a. The number of native speakers of this accent who originate in Ireland, Scotland and Wales is very small and probably diminishing, and it is therefore a misnomer to call it an accent of BRITISH English. It is an accent spoken by some English people.

b. The great majority of native speakers of this accent are of middle-class or upper-class origin, educated at private schools and (if of appropriate age) university. This does not mean that the accent cannot be acquired by others: the present author (who attended a state school in the Midlands) originally spoke with an accent with noticeable regional features, but has over many years of teaching the phonetics of English acquired an accent not far from the standard one described here.

c. The majority of speakers of this accent live in, or originate from, the south-east of England.

d. The accent is most familiar as that used by most ‘official’ BBC speakers of English origin (newsreaders and announcers on Radio 4 and Radio 3, and most television channels). It is also frequently heard on the BBC World Service, though that service appears to have adopted the policy of sometimes using newsreaders and announcers with noticeable foreign accents. It is clear that this accent will eventually lose its pre-eminent status in broadcasting as a result of the wish to broaden the social base of broadcast speech, but it will take a long time for this to happen.