In this paper, we examine the acoustics of vowels in the Imilike [ìmìlìkè] dialect of Igbo (Igboid, Niger-Congo), which has not previously been done. While Standard Igbo has eight vowels, previous auditorily-based research has identified eleven vowels in Imilike. Like Standard Igbo, Imilike contrasts vowels in Advanced/Retracted Tongue Root (ATR vs. RTR). We find that there are eleven vowels, distinguished most reliably by F1, B1, energy (dB) of voiced sound below 500Hz and duration. The results of this study also suggest that RTR vowels in Imilike might involve the laryngeal constriction and movement that accompany pharyngealization. The ATR and RTR schwas have similar phonological distribution and acoustic patterns as the other ATR and RTR vowels in the language.

Optimality Theory predicts that harmonic scales can be encoded in grammar in one of two ways: either as markedeness hierarchies or else as faithfulness hierarchies. Although most current researchers assume that harmony is encoded as markedness, many investigators have argued that some harmonic relations are better captured as faithfulness hierarchies that prevent the deletion or insertion of less harmonic elements. We demonstrate that at least two perceptually-motivated harmonic scales — notably relative vowel height as well as consonant glottalisation — need to be encoded in the grammar as faithfulness hierarchies which require that more harmonic elements, which are also more perceptible, are more faithfully adhered to. Our harmony-as-faithfulness analysis captures the fact that the same elements which undergo deletion also undergo insertion.

Patterns of vowel harmony are frequently interrupted by the presence of neutral segments, segments that are obligatorily realised with only one of the harmonic values. Peripherally, neutral segments appear in two patterns, referred to as relative and absolute alignment. Medially, such neutral segments may be opaque, interrupting the transmission of harmony, or they may be transparent, skipped over by harmony. It is argued that the properties of neutrality result from the interaction of three independently motivated families of constraints: faithfulness, alignment, and grounding. No process-specific constraints distinguishing between the types of alignment or between opacity and transparency are required under the proposed account.

This paper examines the articulation of harmonically distinct classes of vowels in Standard Yoruba. There has been considerable disagreement as to whether the distinction between [e o] and [∊ ɔ] is one of vowel height or tongue-root advancement/retraction. This paper reports on an ultrasound investigation of Yoruba vowels. Results are consistent with harmonic classes distinguished by a tongue-root advancement/retraction feature, not by vowel height. We also investigate the relation between articulations of the tongue root and its neutral position between utterances, the inter-speech posture (ISP). We find more variability in ISP-to-articulation mapping than previous studies, but our results are still partially compatible with a postulated correlation between phonologically ‘active’ feature values and articulatory displacement from ISP. Overall, our results support an analysis of Yoruba vowels in terms of a tongue-root feature, and provide insight into the mapping between phonetics and phonology.

The major issue with regard to underspecification theory is whether all types of redundant information should be excluded from underlying representations, or if not, then what the principles are that determine the inclusion or exclusion of particular types of information. The vowel system of Tiv, a Niger-Congo language of Nigeria, is particularly interesting in this regard since the representation of individual vowels in verbal roots requires a type of radical underspecification: no features are actually assigned to vowels underlyingly; surface forms result from the interaction of morpheme-level specifications with rules of spreading and redundancy.

This paper addresses theoretical issues confronting cross-height harmony systems through an experimental study of Kinande, a Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Using a combination of acoustic analysis and lingual ultrasound imaging, we evaluate previous proposals concerning the phonetic correlates of the harmonic vowel feature and the transparency of low vowels. Results indicate that (i) although a multivalued scalar acoustic feature in F1/F2 space is not adequate to distinguish all vowel categories in Kinande, the cross-height feature does correlate acoustically with F1, (ii) the cross-height feature of Kinande involves systematic tongue-root articulations and (iii) low vowels in Kinande are not neutral to harmony in the way reported in earlier work, but exhibit significant and systematic tongue-root advancement and retraction according to the dictates of harmony.

It is well established that the tonal system of Yoruba involves the asymmetric marking or retention of certain tones and the absence or loss of others. The behaviour of Yoruba's three tones is scalar but non-linear, with H tones being the most stable and M tones being the most unstable. In this note, it is shown that previous accounts of the asymmetries in terms of underspecification are problematic, arguing instead for the incorporation of tonal markedness directly into the formulation of faithfulness constraints.

The canonical image of vowel harmony is of a particular feature distributed throughout a word, leading to symmetric constraints like AGREE or SPREAD. Examination of the distribution of tongue-root advancement in Kinande demonstrates that harmonic feature distribution is asymmetric. The data argue that a formal (yet asymmetric) constraint (like ALIGN) is exactly half right: such a constraint correctly characterises the left edge of the harmonic domain. By contrast, the right edge is necessarily characterised by phonetically grounded restrictions on feature co-occurrence. Of further interest is the role of morphological domains: the interaction between domain restrictions on specific constraints and unrestricted constraints suggests a formal means of characterising the overwhelming similarity between constraint hierarchies at different morphological levels while at the same time characterising the distinctions between levels.

Through an investigation of glottalisation in several languages of North America, this article examines the role of perception in the grammatical distribution of segments. Specifically, we consider the hypothesis that perceptual factors on the timing of glottalisation in consonants determine the arrangement of such consonants phonologically. Our conclusion is in the negative. In the cases we study, the distribution of glottalisation appears to be governed by syllable structure, not by glottal timing. We interpret the patterns presented as evidence for a modular theory of phonetics and phonology rather than a theory where properties of articulator timing are directly referenced by phonological constraints. Patterns of glottalisation result from the interaction of phonological submodules that are largely independent of each other, though properties of particular modules may be influenced by phonetic factors.