Year of Award
2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Master of Arts (MA)
Degree Name
Linguistics
Department or School/College
Linguistics Program
Committee Chair
Mizuki Miyashita
Commitee Members
Leora Bar-el, Jeanie Castillo, Heather Bliss
Keywords
phonetics, phonology, connected speech, discourse, intonation unit, indigenous language
Subject Categories
Applied Linguistics | Discourse and Text Linguistics | Language Description and Documentation | Linguistics | Modern Languages | Morphology | Other Linguistics | Phonetics and Phonology | Typological Linguistics and Linguistic Diversity
Abstract
This thesis presents a study of final vowel devoicing in Blackfoot, an indigenous language of Montana and Alberta. Previous research on final vowel devoicing in Blackfoot variously suggests word-final, phrase-final, and utterance-final vowel devoicing processes (e.g. Taylor 1965, Bliss & Gick 2009, Frantz 2017), though, the conditioning environment for this phenomenon had not been a research focus prior to this study. The present study investigates intonation units (IUs) as the conditioning domain for final vowel devoicing in Blackfoot.
Final vowel devoicing in Blackfoot is investigated here by examining the common word-final suffixes –wa (3SG.AN) and –yi (4SG) in two recordings of connected speech. Each recording features a different native speaker of Blackfoot. Speakers were asked to generate a narrative to go along with illustrations in a picture book.
These recordings are interlinearized using ELAN annotation software. Next, tokens of –wa and –yi are analyzed acoustically using Praat phonetic software. Then, –wa and –yi tokens are analyzed in terms of their position within the intonation unit (IU-medial or IU-final). Finally, the data are collated, giving the frequencies of different phonetic variants as well as the distribution of phonetic variants across IU-medial and IU-final environments.
The findings of this study are that fully-audible variants of –wa and –yi almost always occur IU-medially, while devoiced variants are most frequently found in IU-final position. Based on these findings, this thesis proposes an IU-final vowel devoicing rule to describe the phonetic variation and distribution of –wa and –yi in connected speech.
The analysis put forth in this thesis has implications for the theoretical classification of vowel devoicing phenomena, for linguistic research methodologies, and for the typology of intonation units cross-linguistically. Furthermore, the findings of this work bear on language documentation, revitalization, and pedagogy.
Recommended Citation
Prins, Samantha Leigh, "Final Vowel Devoicing in Blackfoot" (2019). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 11363.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/11363
Included in
Applied Linguistics Commons, Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, Language Description and Documentation Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Morphology Commons, Other Linguistics Commons, Phonetics and Phonology Commons, Typological Linguistics and Linguistic Diversity Commons
© Copyright 2019 Samantha Leigh Prins