Uncovering the acoustic vowel space of a previously undescribed language: The vowels of Nambo

Eri Kashima, Daniel Williams, T. Mark Ellison, Dineke Schokkin, Paola Escudero

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    5 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This study presents the first acoustic description of the vowel space of a Papuan language - Nambo, spoken in southern Papua New Guinea - based on duration and first and second formant measurements from 19 adult male and female speakers across three age groups (young, middle-aged, senior). Phonemically, Nambo has six full vowels /i, e, æ, o, u/ and a reduced vowel tentatively labeled //. Unlike the full vowels, the quality of // showed great variation: seniors' and young females' realizations tended to be more open and retracted than those by young males, while middle-aged speakers' productions fell between these two variants.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)EL252-EL256
    JournalJournal of the Acoustical Society of America
    Volume139
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2016

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