{"title":"Regional differences in the evolution of the merger of /ʃ/ and /ç/ in Luxembourgish","authors":"François Conrad","doi":"10.1017/S0025100320000407","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The merger of post-alveolar /ʃ/ and palatal /ç/ into alveolopalatal /ɕ/ has recently gained growing interest in sociophonetic research, especially in the Middle German dialect area. In Luxembourgish, a Continental West Germanic language, the sound change has been linked to age differences, while its origins remain unclear. Two studies with a regional focus are presented in this paper. The first study examines the merger in the Centre and the South of Luxembourg. The acoustic examination of both the spectral peak and the centre of gravity of a spoken data set of five minimal pairs embedded in read and orally translated sentences from 48 speakers (three generations (old generation, 65–91 years; middle generation, 40–64 years; young generation, 20–39 years; each generation, n = 16), men and women) reveals interesting results related to their regional background. In the old generation, the merger is further advanced in the speech of old men from the former mining region in the South compared to their peers in the Centre, the former leading this sound change. On the other hand, young speakers in both regions produce only alveolopalatal /ɕ/, the merger being complete in this generation. The second study presents exploratory data from the East and the North of the country. The analysis of this smaller sample (n = 6 speakers) reveals patterns similar to the central region. Pointing to language contact with Romance in the South as cradle and/or catalyser of the merger, these results not only give further clues as to the development in Luxembourg, but also add to a deeper understanding of sound changes in process in complex sibilant systems.","PeriodicalId":46444,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the International Phonetic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0025100320000407","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the International Phonetic Association","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100320000407","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
The merger of post-alveolar /ʃ/ and palatal /ç/ into alveolopalatal /ɕ/ has recently gained growing interest in sociophonetic research, especially in the Middle German dialect area. In Luxembourgish, a Continental West Germanic language, the sound change has been linked to age differences, while its origins remain unclear. Two studies with a regional focus are presented in this paper. The first study examines the merger in the Centre and the South of Luxembourg. The acoustic examination of both the spectral peak and the centre of gravity of a spoken data set of five minimal pairs embedded in read and orally translated sentences from 48 speakers (three generations (old generation, 65–91 years; middle generation, 40–64 years; young generation, 20–39 years; each generation, n = 16), men and women) reveals interesting results related to their regional background. In the old generation, the merger is further advanced in the speech of old men from the former mining region in the South compared to their peers in the Centre, the former leading this sound change. On the other hand, young speakers in both regions produce only alveolopalatal /ɕ/, the merger being complete in this generation. The second study presents exploratory data from the East and the North of the country. The analysis of this smaller sample (n = 6 speakers) reveals patterns similar to the central region. Pointing to language contact with Romance in the South as cradle and/or catalyser of the merger, these results not only give further clues as to the development in Luxembourg, but also add to a deeper understanding of sound changes in process in complex sibilant systems.
后肺泡音/ h /和腭音/ç/合并为肺泡音/ h /最近在社会语音研究中引起了越来越多的兴趣,特别是在中古德语方言地区。在卢森堡语这种西日耳曼大陆语言中,这种发音变化与年龄差异有关,但其起源尚不清楚。本文介绍了两项以区域为重点的研究。第一项研究考察了卢森堡中部和南部的合并情况。在48位说话者(三代人,老一代,65-91岁;中年人,40-64岁;年轻一代,20-39岁;每一代人(n = 16),男性和女性)都显示出与其地区背景相关的有趣结果。在老一代中,来自南部前采矿区的老人的讲话中,与来自中部的同龄人相比,合并进一步推进,前者引领了这一声音变化。另一方面,两个地区的年轻人只发alveolopalatal / h /,合并在这一代完成。第二项研究提供了来自该国东部和北部的探索性数据。对这个小样本(n = 6个说话者)的分析显示了与中心区域相似的模式。指出与南方罗曼语的语言接触是合并的摇篮和/或催化剂,这些结果不仅为卢森堡的发展提供了进一步的线索,而且还加深了对复杂的声音系统过程中声音变化的理解。
期刊介绍:
The Journal of the International Phonetic Association (JIPA) is a forum for work in the fields of phonetic theory and description. As well as including papers on laboratory phonetics/phonology and related topics, the journal encourages submissions on practical applications of phonetics to areas such as phonetics teaching and speech therapy, as well as the analysis of speech phenomena in relation to computer speech processing. It is especially concerned with the theory behind the International Phonetic Alphabet and discussions of the use of symbols for illustrating the phonetic structures of a wide variety of languages. JIPA now publishes online audio files to supplement written articles Published for the International Phonetic Association