Vowel Deletion as Grammatically Controlled Gestural Overlap in Uspanteko

Bibliographic Data

ID2987607
AuthorsR Bennett (0000-0001-6160-7007, University of California, Santa Cruz), Robert Henderson (0009-0007-9492-8975, University of California, Santa Cruz), Meg Harvey (0009-0002-6693-1118, University of California, Santa Cruz)
Year2023
Volume99
Issue3
Pages399-456
Publication date2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/lan.2023.a907008
OpenAlexW4386847350
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited105

Uspanteko is an endangered Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. Unstressed vowels in Uspanteko often delete, though deletion is variable within and across speakers. Deletion appears to be phonological: it is sensitive to foot structure, morphology, and certain phonotactics, and it occurs in slow, careful speech. But deletion also has characteristics more typical of a phonetic process: it is intertwined with a pattern of gradient vowel reduction and is insensitive to most phonotactics. Electroglottography data shows that even 'deleted' vowels may contribute voicing to [inline-graphic 01] intervals when flanked by voiceless consonants. This suggests that 'deleted' vowels are represented in the input to speech production, even when they are acoustically masked by articulatory overlap with adjacent segments. We conclude that vowel deletion is grammatically controlled gestural overlap, consistent with the claim that phonological representations encode information about the relative timing and coordination of articulatory gestures (e.g. Browman & Goldstein 1986, Gafos 2002). At a minimum, language-specific phonetic processes must have access to more fine-grained, abstract grammatical information than is usually assumed

Coarticulation · Gesture · Linguistics · Phonology · Phonotactics · Speech production · Speech recognition · Voice · Vowel · Computer Science · Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Artificial Intelligence