Languages can make use of phonetic duration to signal two kinds of meanings. The first is a lexical, phonological contrast. For example, in Japanese [kata] with a short [t] means ‘frame’ and [katta] with a long [tt] means ‘bought’. This sort of contrast is usually limited to a binary distinction, and its phonetic properties have been well studied for many diverse languages. The other use of phonetic duration is to express pragmatic emphasis. Speakers of some languages can use lengthening to express emphasis, as in the English example Thank you sooooooo much. This lengthening can employ multiple degrees of duration, beyond the more standard binary contrast. This second use of duration has been understudied, and this paper attempts to fill that gap. To that end, this paper reports the first experimental documentation of the consonant lengthening pattern in Japanese, which expresses pragmatic emphasis. The results show that at least some speakers show six levels of durational distinctions, while other speakers show less clear-cut distinctions among different levels of emphatically lengthened consonants. Nevertheless, all but one speaker showed a linear correlation between duration and level of emphasis.

The present study investigates the articulatory and acoustic properties of the unique apical segments in Mandarin Chinese that occur after dental and retroflex sibilants instead of the high front vowel [i]. An ultrasound study showed that the segments are homorganic with the preceding dental and retroflex sibilants. However, an acoustic study showed that they have a periodic waveform and clear formant structures with no inherent frication noise, indicating that they are not ‘voiced fricatives’. The results also suggest that the observed F2 pattern can only be explained with an acoustic model of a sonorant consonant, wherein F2 is attributed to the cavity behind the apical constriction. Based on this, it is argued that the segments can be best seen as ‘dental approximant [ ]’ and ‘retroflex approximant [ɻ]’. A phonological implication of the pattern is also discussed: the co-occurrence restriction with the high front vowel eliminates a potential chance of palatalization of the dental and retroflex sibilants that may lead to neutralization of the place contrast. The tongue front gesture in the following approximants seems to provide an additional cue to the place of the preceding consonants; the low F3 of [ɻ], for example, enhances cues to the place of the preceding retroflex sibilant.

The autocorrelation function, a measure of regularity in the speech signal, is applied in demarcating the seemingly diffuse intervals of glottalization which accompany or replace voiceless oral stops in elicited recordings from 22 young speakers of Southern British English. It is shown that a local minimum in autocorrelation characterizes almost all instances heard as intervocalic glottal stops; an annotation procedure is developed and used to gather data on glottalization gestures, including duration, f0, energy and autocorrelation. The same measure is used to assess regularity of vocal fold vibration in an interval just prior to the formation of the total closure for instances of syllable-final /t/, and confirms significantly lower autocorrelation in a group auditorily judged ‘pre-glottalized’. Implications are considered both for normal speech perception and for expert phonetic judgments.

Cicipu ([tʃìtʃípù], ISO 639–3 code awc) is spoken by approximately 20,000 people in northwest Nigeria, with the main language area straddling the boundary between Kebbi and Niger states. The language belongs to the Kambari subgroup (not Kamuku as stated by Lewis, Simons & Fennig 2013) of Kainji (Benue-Congo), although it is heavily influenced by the lingua franca Hausa, in which almost all speakers are fluent. There are several identifiable dialects, with native speakers of Cicipu generally listing seven. Of these, Tirisino is the most prestigious and least endangered dialect, and this is the one presented here. Tikumbasi is the most divergent of the dialects, with the /o/ vowel in the other dialects consistently corresponding to /e/ in Tikumbasi (for example /póːpò/ ‘hello’ ~ /péːpè/, /tʃìkóːtò/ ‘drum’ ~ /tʃìkʷéːtè/). The distinction between /o/ and /ɔ/ has been lost in Tikumbasi.

Sahaptin is a Sahaptian language spoken in Washington and Oregon, U.S.A. Rigsby & Rude (1996) divide Sahaptin into three broad dialect areas: Northwest, Northeast, and Columbia River. This Illustration of the IPA reflects the Yakama (also spelled Yakima) subdialect (ykm) of Northwest Sahaptin. Sahaptin has fifty or fewer native speakers (Beavert & Jansen 2012). The second author is a native speaker of this dialect. Her voice is on the accompanying recordings.

The region of Béarn denotes the historically Romance-speaking part of the modern-day Pyrénées-Atlantiques département in south-western France. The langue d’oc or southern Gallo-Romance variety historically spoken in Béarn, commonly referred to as ‘Béarnais’, is a dialect of Gascon. This variety may also be referred to by its autoglossonym ‘Biarnés’ though the French term is the most widely used designation for the regional language. The number of Gascon speakers in south-western France increases steadily from north (Bordeaux) to south (the Pyrenees) and because Béarn is the area of linguistic Gascony with the highest recorded number of Gascon speakers (Moreux 2004), Béarnais may be considered the principal surviving dialect of Gascon, though other surviving dialects, such as ‘Gascon de Chalosse’, and ‘Landais’, are still spoken and written.

IPA members will benefit from a reduced registration fee for the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, to be held in Glasgow in August 2015. The fee reduction will be 30 GBP for Full/Life members, and 20 GBP for Student members. Only members whose 2015 IPA membership is current (fully paid) by 1 February 2015 will receive this benefit. IPA membership rates for 2015 will be unchanged: €45 for full members, and €22.50 for student members. To join or to renew, please visit the Subscriptions/Memberships page on the IPA website, currently http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/subs.html.

Regent Exeter (9 October 1959 – 26 March 2014), Shropshire, UK (Life member).

Prof. D. Dudley Knight (1 July 1939 – 25 June 2013), Professor Emeritus of Drama at the University of California, Irvine; actor and voice/dialect coach who taught the IPA to actors.

Prof. Dr. Horst Weinstock (25 June 1931 – 8 May 2013), Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Romanistik, Aachen University (Life member).

Annie (‘Nan’) Anthony died on 1 May 2014 after a short illness. Born Annie Rodger in Dysart in 1933, she gained her MA in Modern Languages in 1955 from the University of Edinburgh, and worked on the Linguistic Survey of Scotland 1956–1958. In 1957 she married James (`Tony') Anthony, who had charge of the Edinburgh phonetics lab. While their children Jo and Chris were young, she worked as a part-time lecturer in the Edinburgh Phonetics Department, and the family spent the academic year 1963–64 in the USA, Tony researching in Peter Ladefoged's new laboratory at UCLA. From 1966 Nan was Research Phonetician in the Department of Child Life and Health at Edinburgh, a period of work which led to The Edinburgh Articulation Test (Anthony et al. 1971), a significant clinical assessment tool. In 1971 she moved to Moray House College of Education, where she remained for the rest of her career, becoming Head of the Department of Speech there in 1982.