assimilation of final low back vowel in eghlidian dialect

Assimilation of Final Low Back Vowel in Eghlidian Dialect

In this article, the low back vowel /A/ in word-final positions in Eghlidian dialect, one of Persian dialects, is studied. This vowel is represented phonetically as [A], [o] and [@] in different phonetic environments. Therefore many words were collected via interviewing ten native speakers so that these different alternant forms can be accounted for appropriately. Since one of the authors of th...

Low Vowel Raising in Sinitic Languages: Assimilation, Reduction, or Both?

Many Sinitic languages respect low vowel raising (LVR) whereby the low vowel /a/ is raised to /e/ only when flanked by a palatal glide and a coronal coda. In this article, I show that LVR in Sinitic languages is a genuine process of grammar because low-level phonetic coarticulatory effects alone cannot account for crosslinguistic/dialectal variation. Specifically, my survey reveals that vowel d...

An ultrasound analysis of low back vowel fronting in the Northern Cities Vowel Shift

While the acoustic characteristics of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCVS) are well documented, research on the articulatory components of this shift is comparatively limited. This study combines acoustic, video, and ultrasound analysis to examine the productions of seven Metro Detroit speakers and determine the relative contributions of lip configuration and tongue position to the production...

Correlation of the Low-Back Vowel Merger and TRAP-Retraction

The combination of the retraction of TRAP and the merger of LOT and THOUGHT can be found in a number of English dialects. Gordon (2005) has suggested that the merger of LOT and THOUGHT creates a margin of security in which TRAP may retract, and that TRAP-retraction might therefore be expected to be found anywhere the low-back vowel merger exists. This work presents data showing the combination ...

Path of Vowel Raising in Chengdu Dialect of Mandarin

He and Rao (2013) reported a raising phenomenon of /a/ in /Xan/ (X being a consonant or a vowel) in Chengdu dialect of Mandarin, i.e. /a/ is realized as [ɛ] for young speakers but [æ] for older speakers, but they offered no acoustic analysis. We designed an acoustic study that examined the realization of /Xan/ in speakers of different age (old vs. young) and gender (male vs. female) groups, whe...

Vowel Harmony in the Armenian Dialect of Karchevan