Acoustics of Kalasha Laterals
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Issue Date
2020
Authors
Kochetov, Alexei, 1967-
HeegĂĄrd Petersen, Jan
Arsenault, Paul
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Type
Article
Keywords
Lateral approximants
Lateral articulations
Articulation
Velarization
Palatalization
Phonetic
Acoustic analysis
Retroflex—Pakistan—Kalasha
Kalasha language
Indo-Aryan languages--Pakistan
Lateral articulations
Articulation
Velarization
Palatalization
Phonetic
Acoustic analysis
Retroflex—Pakistan—Kalasha
Kalasha language
Indo-Aryan languages--Pakistan
Citation
Kochetov, Alexei, Petersen, Jan Heegård, and Arsenault, Paul. “Acoustics of Kalasha Laterals” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 147, no. 4 (2020): 3012-3027. DOI: 10.1121/10.0001013
Abstract
Kalasha, a Northwestern Indo-Aryan language spoken in a remote mountainous region of Pakistan, is relatively unusual among languages of the region as it has lateral approximants contrasting in secondary articulation—velarization and palatalization (/_/ vs /lj/). Given the paucity of previous phonetic work on the language and some discrepancies between descriptive accounts, the nature of the Kalasha lateral contrast remains poorly understood. This paper presents an analysis of fieldwork recordings with laterals produced by 14 Kalasha speakers in a variety of lexical items and phonetic contexts. Acoustic analysis of formants measured during the lateral closure revealed that the contrast was most clearly distinguished by F2 (as well as by F2-F1 difference), which was considerably higher for /lj/ than for /_/. This confirms that the two laterals are primarily distinguished by secondary articulation and not by retroflexion, which is otherwise robustly represented in the language inventory. The laterals showed no positional differences but did show considerable fronting (higher F2) next to front vowels. Some inter-speaker variation was observed in the realization of /_/, which was produced with little or no velarization by older speakers. This is indicative of a change in progress, resulting in an overall enhancement of an otherwise auditorily vulnerable contrast
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American Institute of Physics for the Acoustical Society of America
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Copyright, American Institute of Physics for the Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
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