ABSTRACT

DOES PROSODIC WORD RECURSION CAUSE PHONETIC INITIAL STRENGTHENING?

The paper is the very first study to address the issue of domain-initial

strengthening in recursive prosodic words. Domain-initial strengthening concerns

the articulatory strength of segments at the left edges of prosodic domains. The

widely-used scale of prosodic positions is the prosodic hierarchy. The current

study employs a different scale, i.e., recursive prosodic words in which smaller

prosodic words are recursively embedded in a larger word. The length of /s/ is

measured when it is placed in the initial positions of 2-, 3- and 4-word Vietnamese

noun compounds in order to investigate whether prosodic word recursion causes

articulatory strengthening. The findings show that there is no significant duration

difference among the domains of recursive prosodic words, which reflects no

strengthening effect of prosodic recursion on segmental articulation. Therefore,

domain-initial strengthening appears to be sensitive to the categories of prosodic

constituents rather than the depth of their embedding.

Key words: domain-initial strengthening, prosodic word recursion

Phuong Hoai DangMay 2013

DOES PROSODIC WORD RECURSION CAUSE PHONETIC

INITIAL STRENGTHENING?

by

Phuong Hoai Dang

A thesis

submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Linguistics

in the College of Arts and Humanities

California State University, Fresno

May 2013

APPROVED

For the Department of Linguistics:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Phuong Hoai Dang Thesis Author

Chris Golston (Chair) Linguistics

Brian Agbayani Linguistics

Sean Fulop Linguistics

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies

AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION

OF MASTER’S THESIS

x I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis

supervisor Chris Golston and committee members Brian Agbayani and Sean Fulop

for their devoted support, invaluable guidance and constructive feedback during

the preparation and completion of the thesis.

I would like to send my special thank to Thuong Bui and Duc Dang for

their indispensable help in the process of data collection.

I also owe a big debt to the participants in the current thesis. I could not

have completed the thesis without their patient and devoted participation.

Last but not least, I am indebted to my family who always give me

encouragement and support towards the completion of the thesis.

TABLE OF CONTENTSPage

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Domain-initial strengthening 1

1.2 Prosodic recursion 3

1.3 The current study 5

CHAPTER 2: NOUN COMPOUNDS IN VIETNAMESE 8

2.1 Description 8

2.2 Prosodic organization 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODS 16

3.1 Prosodic domains 16

3.2 Participants 17

3.3 Materials 17

3.4 Data collection procedures 19

3.5 Data analysis procedures 20

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21

4.1 Results 21

4.2 Discussion 22

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 25

REFERENCES 27

APPENDICES 32

APPENDIX A: VIETNAMESE NOUN COMPOUNDS 33

LIST OF TABLES

..............................................................PageTable 1. Speech materials for the study

................................................................................................................................18

Table 2. Variation across compounds and speakers...............................................23

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1. Prosodic organization of 2-, 3- and 4-noun compounds.........................15

Figure 2. The waveform and spectrogram of the compound mui sɛ ‘car roof’......20

Figure 3. Mean /s/ duration for all speakers...........................................................21

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Domain-initial strengthening

It has been observed that the phonetic properties of segments vary

according to their positions in the prosodic structure of languages thanks to a wide

range of research regarding the interaction between prosody and segmental

articulation. French consonants and vowels have greater amplitude and duration in

stressed syllables than in unstressed syllables. English /s/ seems to have less

aspiration noise in the middle of Word than at the beginning of Word and

Intonational Phrase. There is an increase in the Voice Onset Time of Korean

aspirated consonants from Word-medial positions to Word-initial positions to

Accentual Phrase-initial positions (see Fougeron 1999 for a review). The examples

above are only a few out of different studies on the effect of prosodic positions on

phonetic segments which is called prosodic strengthening. Cho (2005: 3867)

defines prosodic strengthening as “temporal and/ or spatial expansion of

articulation due to accent and/ or prosodic boundaries” and mentions the three so-

called strong prosodic positions are the left edges of prosodic domains, the right

edges of prosodic domains and accented syllables.

One line of prosodic strengthening research is domain-initial strengthening

which concerns “prosodic strengthening associated with left edges of prosodic

domains” (Cho et al. 2007: 211). Trask (1996) defines “strengthening” as “a

phonological process in which some segment becomes stronger.” The widely used

scale of prosodic positions for domain-initial strengthening is the prosodic

hierarchy which is a hierarchically organized structure of prosodic domains such

as Utterance, Intonational Phrase, Phonological Phrase, Word, Syllable, etc.

(Selkirk 1978; Selkirk 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1986; see Selkirk 1995; Selkirk

2

2009 for a review). In general, domain-initial strengthening is a phonological

process in which segments at the left edges of higher prosodic constituents are

articulatorily stronger than those at the left edges of lower prosodic constituents.

The phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening has been investigated in

different languages such as English (Fougeron & Keating 1996; Keating et al.

1999), Taiwanese (Hsu & Jun 1998; Hayashi et al. 1999; Keating et al. 1999),

Korean (Keating et al. 1999; Cho & Keating 2001), French (Keating et al. 1999;

Fougeron 2001), German (Kuzla et al. 2007; Kuzla & Ernestus 2011), and Arabic

(Al Taisan 2011). These studies generally explore two research questions. The first

concerns how the organization of prosodic constituents affects the articulation of

speech segments, and the second examines whether the articulatory variation of

segments at the beginning of prosodic domains can help mark the prosodic

hierarchy of a language.

The common measurements are linguopalatal contact and segment duration.

Some acoustic parameters are also used in the domain-initial strengthening

studies; however, the results concerning them and their correlations with

linguopalatal contact or segment duration are not consistent to reflect the general

picture of domain-initial strengthening. On the one hand, Fougeron and Keating

(1996) do not find any strong correlations between linguopalatal contact and

acoustic measurements like VOT, vowel duration and stop burst energy for the

English nasal /n/; Hsu and Jun (1998) and Hayashi et al. (1999) see that there is no

significant effect of prosodic positions on VOT duration of the investigated stops

in Taiwanese. On the other hand, Cho and Keating (2001) find that the acoustic

measurements like stop closure duration, VOT, Total Voiceless Interval, %

voicing during closure, vowel duration, stop burst energy, nasal duration and nasal

3

energy vary according to the prosodic positions of the four tested Korean stops

and some of them have correlations with linguopalatal contact; Kuzla and Ernestus

(2011) find that /b/, /d/, and /g/ have less glottal vibration and /p/, /t/, /k/ have

shorter VOT duration after higher prosodic boundaries in German.

The general finding is that speech segments in higher prosodic domains

have more linguopalatal contact and/or longer duration than those in lower

domains; and the increase of segmental articulation from the lowest to highest

domain is usually cumulative. The found pattern of domain-initial strengthening,

on the one hand, reflects the effect of prosodic organization on phonetic

articulation, on the other hand, provides articulatory and/or acoustic cues to

distinguish prosodic boundaries. Note that the findings of domain-initial

strengthening show certain variation across languages, segments, speakers, and

prosodic domains. For instance, Cho and Keating (2001:185) observe that Korean

has a clearer and more consistent picture of domain-initial strengthening than

English, French, and Taiwanese. Regarding the variation across segments,

Fougeron (2001:119) sees that “/s/ is less systematically affected by prosodic

position compared to the other consonants studied like stops and /l/.” Furthermore,

it is observed that not all speakers distinguish all prosodic domains. Fougeron and

Keating (1996) report two speakers make distinction among three levels while the

other speaker distinguishes only two. In the study which compares domain-initial

strengthening in four languages, Keating et al. (1999) also discuss that all speakers

make at least two domains distinct, which is robust in the findings.

1.2 Prosodic recursion

In the discussion of prosodic recursion, it is crucial to mention the Prosodic

Hierarchy Theory proposed by Selkirk (1978) and developed by Selkirk (1984)

4

and Nespor and Vogel (1986) (see Selkirk 1995; Selkirk 2009 for a review). The

theory claims that a string of speech in a language can be exhaustively parsed into

different prosodic constituents in which higher domains contain lower ones.

(1) The Prosodic Hierarchy (Selkirk 1995: 5)

Utt Utterance

IP Intonational Phrase

PhP Phonological Phrase

PWd Prosodic Word

Ft Foot

σ Syllable

There is a set of constraints on prosodic domination which characterizes the

features of the prosodic hierarchy. Specifically, the two constraints of Layeredness

and Headedness claim that speech in every language is hierarchically organized in

prosodic constituents; higher-ranked constituents dominate lower-ranked

constituents. In a stricter sense, the constraints of Exhaustivity and Non-recursivity

require that every higher domain must dominate or must be completely parsed into

immediate lower domains, which means that there is no level skipping or

repetition at any prosodic domain. The first two constraints are inviolable and

undominated thanks to the observation that every language has several prosodic

levels. On the other hand, it has been argued that Exhaustivity and Non-recursivity

are violable and low-ranked because certain prosodic levels are found to be

skipped or recurred in a number of languages (Selkirk 1995; Ito & Mester 2009).

In sum, the violability and low ranking of Exhaustivity and Non-recursivity result

in prosodic skipping and recursion.

5

Prosodic recursion refers to the repetition of prosodic domains at a certain

level of the prosodic structure. Specifically, prosodic recursion involves the

embedding of a prosodic domain of a certain level in another prosodic domain of

the same level; the larger domains contain the smaller ones (Inkelas 1990; Selkirk

1995; Ito & Mester 2008; Ito & Mester 2009; Kabak & Revithiadou 2009; Selkirk

2009; Féry 2010). Furthermore, it is observed that compound structures are

frequently exemplified as prosodic recursion thanks to the notion that the

compound structures as well as their components belong to the same category and

the compounds are larger constituents containing their smaller components (Ladd

1990; Ladd 1996; Inkelas 1990; Green 2007; Kabak & Revithiadou 2009).

1.3 The current study

As mentioned above, domain-initial strengthening, a type of prosodic

strengthening concerning the articulatory strength of segments at the left edges of

prosodic constituents has been explored in a wide range of research in which the

currently-employed scale of prosodic positions is the prosodic hierarchy of

languages. It is interesting to revisit this phenomenon with a different prosodic

scale. Particularly, the current study investigates the articulation of phonetic

segments in the initial positions of prosodic domains of the same level called

recursive prosodic words. The study is the first to examine the interaction between

prosodic recursion and segmental articulation.

More specifically, the paper addresses the issue of domain-initial

strengthening in recursive prosodic words. Prosodic recursion involves the

containment of smaller constituents inside a larger constituent of the same

category; therefore, the formation of recursive prosodic words concerns the

embedding of smaller prosodic words in a larger prosodic word. Compounds in

6

languages are argued to be recursive prosodic words (Inkelas 1990; Green 2007;

Kabak & Revithiadou 2009).

The studied case is Vietnamese noun compounds. Vietnamese is a tonal

monosyllabic language in which syllables are argued to be the smallest units of

phonological and morphological analysis (Ngo 1984; Nguyen 2011). Particularly,

Ngo (1984) proposes the notion of “syllabeme” is the minimal grammatical unit in

Vietnamese; it can function as a syllable, a morpheme and a word. Nguyen (2011)

argues that a word in Vietnamese is a minimal meaningful unit whose spoken

form is a syllable and written form is a separate group of letters. A compound in

Vietnamese can be comprised of two or more elements; each is a one-syllable

word; and the compounding of these monosyllabic elements creates a new lexical

item. Therefore, Vietnamese compounds are appropriate candidates for the notion

of recursive prosodic words thanks to the fact that the whole compounds are larger

prosodic words which are constituted by smaller prosodic words.

In order to investigate the articulatory variation across initial positions of

recursive prosodic words, the duration of the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ is

measured when it is at the beginning of each monosyllabic word of 2-, 3-, and 4-

word noun compounds. The two possibilities are hypothesized towards the

findings of the study. First, there is a cumulative increase of segmental length from

the smallest to the largest constituent-initial positions, which reflects the

significant role of the embedding of smaller prosodic words in larger prosodic

words. Second, there is no strong distinction among the domains of recursive

prosodic words, which implies the effect of prosodic categories on domain-initial

strengthening.

7

Generally speaking, the study aims at exploring the phenomenon of

domain-initial strengthening with the scale of recursive prosodic words. /s/ is

placed in the initial positions of 2-, 3-, and 4-word compounds and its duration is

measured to examine whether prosodic word recursion causes articulatory

strengthening.

8

CHAPTER 2: NOUN COMPOUNDS IN VIETNAMESE

2.1 Description 1

Compounding is the word formation process which involves the

combination of existing words to build new lexical items. Vietnamese compounds

are formed under such the process; two or more monosyllabic words are combined

to generate a single category. There are three word types of compounds in

Vietnamese: compound nouns, verbs and adjectives; each of them is classified into

two subtypes including coordinate and subordinate compounds.

Coordinate compounds involve the compounding of two or more words in

which “each constituent is a center” and “occurs in juxtaposition” (Nguyen

1997:66). Semantically, they are called generalizing compounds because the

meanings of the two centers are combined to form a more general lexical item.

These centers belong to the same category or are synonyms or antonyms.

(1) a. bàn ɣé

table chair

‘furniture’

b. muə bán

buy sell

‘buy and sell’

c. cɑi cuot

brush polish

‘be meticulous’

Subordinate compounds concern the combination of the words with the

head-complement order. The heads are more general lexical items or concepts and

1 See more examples of Vietnamese noun compounds in Appendix A.

9

the complements modify and narrow the meanings of the heads. Subordinate

compounds refer to more specific lexical items and then are called specializing

compounds.

(2) a. nɯɤk dɑ

water ice

‘ice’

b. làm ruọŋ

do rice field

‘do farming’

c. sɛ lɯə

vehicle fire

‘train’

More specifically, coordinate noun compounds involve the combination of

nouns and their meanings reflect the generic category of the constituent nouns.

The examples in (3), (4) and (5) exemplify the 2-word, 3-word and 4-word noun

coordinate compounds respectively. Note that 3-word coordinate compounds are

not as popular as the other two.

(3) a. cim muoŋ

bird beast

‘animals’

b. rau kɔ

vegetable grass

‘veggies’

c. ruoŋ nɯɤŋ

wet field dry field

‘cultivated fields’

10

d. ruòi muõi

fly mosquito

‘flies/ bugs’

e. kwʌn Ɂɑu

pant coat

‘clothes’

(4) a. vɯɤn Ɂɑu cuòŋ

garden pond shed

‘traditional Vietnamese farm’

b. Ɂaɲ cị Ɂɛm

brother sister younger sibling

‘brothers and sisters’

c. ræŋ hàm mæt

tooth jaw face

‘the medical study of teeth, jaws and face’

d. tai mũi hɔŋ

ear nose throat

‘the medical study of ears, noses and throats’

(5) a. bɑ kɔn ko bák

grandmother child aunt uncle

‘relatives’

b. sɤn hɑ sɑ tæk

mountain river village principle

‘country’

c. soŋ núi nɯɤk nɔn

river mountain water mountain

11

‘country’

d. zɯɤŋ tủ bàn ɣé

bed wardrobe table chair

‘furniture’

e. maj lan kúk ʈúk

apricot orchid chrysanthemum bamboo

‘set of four symbolic flowers and plants’

Subordinate noun compounds involve the combination of heads and

complements in which the complements follow and modify the heads. Regarding

2-word subordinate compounds, Nguyen (1997) observes that there are the three

combinations; the heads are always nouns whereas the complements can be nouns,

verbs and adjectives. The examples in (6) exemplify the 2-word subordinate

compounds which involve the three types of noun compounding such as a noun

and a noun (6a-b), a noun and a verb (6c-d) as well as a noun and an adjective (6e-

f).

(13) a. bɔ kɔn

cow/ox child

‘calf’

b. kɤm ɣɑ

rice chicken

‘chicken rice’

c. sɛ dạp

vehicle to pedal

‘bike’

d. kɤm næm

rice to wisp

12

‘rice ball’

e. bɔ dɯk

cow/ox male

‘ox’

f. bɔ kái

cow/ox female

‘cow’

The examples in (7) and (8) are 3-word and 4-word compounds in which

the heads are left-edged.

(7) a. dɯɤŋ cʌn ʈɤi

line foot sky

‘horizon’

b. báɲ sɛ bɔ

wheel vehicle cow/ox

‘cow/ox cart wheel’

c. bụi than dɑ

dust coal stone

‘coal dust’

d. vụn báɲ mì

crust cake wheat

‘bread crust’

e. kỏ Ɂɑu vét

neck blouse suit

‘suit collar’

(8) a. vɔ thʌn kʌi dɑ

bark body tree banyan

‘banyan tree bark’

b. duoi kɑ nɯɤk mæn

tail fish water salty

‘sea water fish tail’

c. thʌn kʌi kɑ cuə

body tree eggplant sour

‘tomato tree body’

d. vɔ báɲ sɛ bɔ

tire wheel vehicle cow/ox

‘cow/ox cart wheel tire’

e. kiẻu kỏ Ɂɑu vét

model collar blouse suit

‘suit collar model’

Another type of 4-word subordinate compounds is also found to be popular

in Vietnamese; they involve the combination of two 2-word subordinate

compounds, as seen in (9).

(9) a. bén sɛ mien doŋ

station car region east

‘Eastern station’

b. bɯk tɯɤŋ Ɂʌm thaɲ

piece wall audio sound

‘sound wall’

c. bài thɤ tìɲ Ɂieu

piece poem sentiment love

‘love poem’

d. vɔi nɯɤk bòn tæm

faucet water tub bath

‘bathtub tap’

e. Ɂoŋ bɤm sɛ dạp

pipe pump vehicle bike

‘bike pump’

2.2 Prosodic organization

Vietnamese noun compounds are recursive prosodic words; the whole

compounds are the largest word constituents which contain smaller word

constituents. In the current study, 2-, 3- and 4-word coordinate and subordinate

compounds are investigated. The prosodic organizations of these compounds are

presented in (10). Coordinate and subordinate compounds are abbreviated as ‘CC’

and ‘SC’, respectively.

(10) Prosodic organizations of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds

2-word SC (word (word))

2-word CC (word (word))

3-word SC (word (word (word)))

4-word SC with left-edged heads (word (word (word (word)))

4-word SC of two 2-word SCs (word (word)) (word (word))

4-word CC (word (word)) (word (word))

The diagrams in Figure 1 provide a clearer picture of the prosodic

organizations of the compounds. The arrows below the transcriptions display the

meaning relation among the words; the single arrows refer to the head-

14 1

4

complement relation and the double arrows refer to the equal relation between two

words.

Figure 1. Prosodic organization of 2-, 3- and 4-word noun compounds

15 1

5

2-word SC 2-word CC 3-word SC

4-word SC with left-edged heads

4-word SC of two 2-word SCs

4-word CC

CHAPTER 3: METHODS

3.1 Prosodic domains

The paper addresses the issue of domain-initial strengthening in recursive

prosodic words. The studied case is the length variation of /s/ in the initial

positions of each word of Vietnamese noun compounds which are recursive

prosodic words in which the whole compounds are larger word constituents and

component words are recursively embedded smaller constituents. 2-, 3- and 4-

word noun compounds are speech materials; therefore, the tested domains are the

left edges of each word of these compounds. They are coded as W1i, W2i, W3i

and W4i which refer to the initial positions of the words in the compounds; for

instance, W1i corresponds to the initial position of the first word in the

compounds.

Recalling the prosodic organization of these compounds in Section 2.2, for

all compounds, the leftmost edge is the largest word boundary where the edge of

the whole compounds coincides with that of the first word; the smaller boundaries

are those of component words embedded inside the compounds; and the smallest

is the left edge of the last word. Particularly, in 2-word compounds, the W1i

position is the largest word boundary; and the W2i the smallest. In 3-word

compounds, the W1i position is the largest; the W2i the second largest; and the

W3i the smallest. In 4-word subordinate compounds with left-edged heads, the

word boundaries progressively decrease from the W1i position to the W4i

position. In 4-word subordinate compounds of two 2-word subordinate

compounds, the W1i position is the largest, the W3i the second largest, the W2i

the third largest, and the W4i the smallest. In 4-word coordinate compounds, the

W1i position is the largest, the W3i the second largest, and the W2i and W4i the

smallest. 3.2 Participants

Ten speakers, five males and five females, participate in the study. These

participants are native speakers of Vietnamese; they all speak the Southern dialect.

Among the ten speakers, four live in Ben Tre City and six live in Ho Chi Minh

City; these two cities locate in South Vietnam where the Southern dialect is

mainly spoken. The age of the participants ranges from 18 to 53. All of the

speakers are literate and have no speech problems.

3.3 Materials

The investigated speech segment is /s/, which is chosen thanks to the ease

of recognition and measurement. It is placed in the initial position of each word

noun compounds. It is surrounded by sonorants like nasals and vowels. Also, the

carrier word of the segment is kept the same for each set of the target compounds

so as to avoid the impact of other sounds on the segment if any.

The tested environments are coordinate and subordinate noun compounds.

Regarding coordinate compounds, 2- and 4-word compounds are under

investigation due to the fact that the small number of the 3-word compounds in the

language does not provide sufficient environments containing the target speech

segment. In addition to 2-, 3- and 4-word left-headed compounds, 4-word

compounds composed of two 2-word subordinate compounds are also employed.

All of the investigated positions are at the word domain of the prosodic

hierarchy but in different word constituents of recursive PWs from the largest to

the smallest. /s/ is placed in the initial positions of the first and second words in 2-

word compounds, in those of the first, second and third words in 3-word

compounds or in those of the first, second, third and fourth words in 4-word

17

compounds. Then the compounds are embedded in the same carrier sentence (e.g.

læp lai sɛ hɤi bɑ lʌn ‘Repeat car three times’).

Table 1 below presents the speech materials used in the study and illustrates

the descriptions concerning the speech segment /s/, the tested environments of

Vietnamese noun compounds and the investigated domains of recursive prosodic

words.

Table 1. Speech materials for the study

Subordinate compounds Coordinate compounds

2-word

compounds

sɛ hɤi

vehicle car

‘car’

mui sɛ

roof vehicle

‘car roof’

soŋ núi

river mountain

‘the whole country’

núi soŋ

mountain river

‘the whole country

3-word

compounds

sɛ bɑ báɲ

vehicle three wheel

‘three-wheeled cart’

mui sɛ hɤi

roof vehicle gas

‘car roof’

vɔ báɲ sɛ

tire wheel vehicle

‘bike/motorbike/car tire’

4-word

compounds with

left-edged heads

sɛ hòŋ thʌp tɯ

vehicle red cross word

‘ambulance’

mui sɛ Ɂo to

18

roof vehicle auto

‘car roof’

vɔ báɲ sɛ hɤi

tire wheel vehicle gas

‘car tire’

màu vɔ báɲ sɛ

color tire wheel vehicle

‘vehicle tire color’

4-word

compounds of two

2-word

compounds

sɛ hɤi dò cɤi

vehicle gas thing play

‘toy car’

vɔ sɛ dò cɤi

tire vehicle thing play

‘toy car tire’

kʌu cwien sɛ dạp

fish story vehicle bike

‘bike story’

kʌu cwien vɔ sɛ

fish story tire vehicle

‘tire story’

soŋ núi bɤ kɔi

river mountain bank region

‘the whole country’

nɔn soŋ dʌt nɯɤk

mountain river earth water

‘the whole country’

bɤ kɔi soŋ núi

bank region river mountain

‘the whole country’

bɤ kɔi núi soŋ

bank region mountain river

‘the whole country’

3.4 Data collection procedures

The speakers were given the list of 19 Vietnamese noun compounds like

those in Table 1 above. They were asked to read through these compounds and

explained that they were going to read them aloud as naturally as possible, each

compound was repeated three times, and their speech was recorded individually.

570 speech tokens (19 compounds x 3 repetitions x 10 speakers) were recorded

and analyzed in the study.

19

3.5 Data analysis procedures

Two criteria are used to define the segment length. First, /s/ is a fricative,

which means that its large acoustic energy is distributed at a high frequency. The

view range of the spectrograms is adjusted to be as high as 10000 Hz in order that

such energy is clearly observed. Second, /s/ is a voiceless sound and, as mentioned

in Section 3.3, it is surrounded by nasals and vowels, which implies the absence of

the pitch line on the spectrograms. Figure 2 below presents the waveform and

spectrogram of the compound mui sɛ ‘car roof’. It is seen that the target duration

of /s/ is the shaded part on the waveform and the high frequency section between

the pitch lines on the spectrogram.

Figure 2. The waveform and spectrogram of the compound mui sɛ ‘car roof’

The t-test for independent samples is used to investigate the difference of

segment durations in each set of compounds. The p-values are expected to be

smaller than 5% in order that the mean scores of the two investigated values

achieve a significant difference.

20

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Results

Figure 3 below presents the findings regarding the duration of /s/ in each

word domain of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds measured for all of the ten speakers.

Coordinate compounds are abbreviated as ‘CC’; and subordinate compounds ‘SC’.

Figure 3. Mean /s/ duration for all speakers

Paired-samples t-tests were run to investigate statistically significant

contrasts in each pair of word constituents in the compounds for all speakers and

for each speaker. The null hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the

mean durations of /s/ in each pair of domains is rejected with p < .05.

The results of the t-tests appear to support the null hypothesis thanks to the

findings that the speakers make very few significant distinctions among the

domains of the compounds. Besides, it is observed from the chart that there are

uniformly very small differences in either of the two directions that segments in

larger words are longer or shorter than those in smaller words. Therefore, despite

the statistical significance, these differences seem to have no linguistically

meaningful value in the whole picture of the effect of recursive prosodic words on

segmental duration investigated in the study. Instead, they are likely to behave in a

random manner, which may be due to the variation in the speakers’ speech

production. Generally speaking, there is no significant difference among the word

domains of the investigated compounds; that is, prosodic word recursion does not

cause any domain-initial strengthening.

4.2 Discussion

This paper addresses the issue of domain-initial strengthening in recursive

prosodic words; specifically it investigates the question whether prosodic word

recursion causes articulatory strengthening to segments at the left edges of

recursively embedded word constituents.

The results show that there are few statistically significant distinctions

among the word domains of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds investigated in the

current study. These distinctions are relatively small, which is consistent across the

compounds for all speakers and for each speaker. Therefore, their effects as well

as their direction of difference are not likely to play any crucial role in deciding

whether prosodic word recursion causes articulatory variation. On the other hand,

the much larger and more uniform part of the findings show that the speakers

participating in the study do not distinguish the word constituents of the tested

compounds, which strongly supports the conclusion that there is no effect of

prosodic word recursion on segmental articulation.

Domain-initial strengthening concerns the articulatory strength of phonetic

segments at the left boundaries of prosodic constituents; those in higher prosodic

domains are expected to be temporally and/or spatially stronger than those in

lower prosodic domains. The prosodic structure of languages is currently

employed as the scale of prosodic positions in the studies of domain-initial

22 2

2

strengthening. In such the scale, the prosodic constituents of different categories

are hierarchically embedded in the way that the higher ones contain the lower

ones; that is, the labeling of prosodic domains is subject to the depth of their

embedding. Thus the phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening found in the

studies with the use of this scale reflects the effect of the depth of the structural

embedding; segments in higher-embedded levels are found to have more

linguopalatal contact and/or longer duration than those in lower embedded levels

(Fougeron & Keating 1996; Hsu & Jun 1998; Hayashi et al. 1999; Keating et al.

1999; Cho & Keating 2001; Fougeron 2001; and others). At the same time,

domain-initial strengthening informs the categories of the prosodic domains. The

more strongly articulated segments mark the higher prosodic boundaries in the

prosodic structure. The strengthening details provide prosodic cues for listeners to

recognize the prosodic hierarchy of languages (Keating et al. 1999; Cho & Keating

2001; Cho et al, 2007).

In the current study, the employment of a different scale of prosodic

positions, i.e., recursive prosodic words challenges the role of the embedding and

labeling of prosodic domains in the issue of domain-initial strengthening. The

question is which of them does matter in the strengthening of speech segments.

The first hypothesis is that the depth of prosodic embedding causes articulatory

variation; that is, segments at the left edges of larger constituents are stronger than

those at the left edges of smaller constituents. The second hypothesis is that no

strengthening effect is found; there is no significant articulatory variation of

segments in the initial positions of recursive prosodic words. The findings of the

study support the second hypothesis. There is no significant difference among the

word domains of 2-, 3- and 4-word compounds. Therefore, it may be concluded

that prosodic word recursion does not cause any articulatory strengthening to

23 2

3

segments at the left edges of recursively constructed words; therefore, the

phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening is sensitive to the type or category of

prosodic constituents rather than the depth of prosodic embedding.

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4

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

The paper addresses the issue of domain-initial strengthening in recursive

prosodic words. Domain-initial strengthening concerns the effect of prosody on

articulation of segments at the left edges of prosodic domains. It has been

investigated in different studies with the use of the prosodic hierarchy as the scale

of prosodic positions. The prosodic hierarchy is a hierarchically organized

structure of prosodic constituents; the higher ones dominate and contain lower

ones. Therefore, the pattern of domain-initial strengthening is that segments in

higher prosodic levels are more strongly articulated than those in lower levels. The

current study employs a different scale, that is, recursive prosodic words in which

larger word constituents contain smaller word constituents.

The duration of the voiceless fricative /s/ is measured when it is in the

initial positions of each word of 2-, 3- and 4-word Vietnamese noun compounds in

order to investigate the effect of prosodic recursion on segmental articulation. The

findings show that the speakers make few distinctions among the word domains of

the tested compounds. This reflects that prosodic recursion has no strengthening

effect on the articulation of speech segments. Furthermore, it shows that the types

or categories of prosodic constituents matter in the phenomenon of domain-initial

strengthening. The speakers somehow acknowledge that recursively embedded

domains belong to the same categories.

The paper is the very first study concerning the issue of domain-initial

strengthening in recursively embedded structures. It explores a new angle in a

well-researched issue of domain-initial strengthening. Therefore, it is expected to

attract more research on the effect of prosodic recursion and segmental

strengthening which can be extended to different languages, different recursive

word patterns and different recursive domains.

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REFERENCES

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Cho, Taehong, and Patricia Keating. 2001. Articulatory and acoustic studies of domain-initial strengthening in Korean. Journal of Phonetics 29. 155–190.

Cho, Taehong. 2005. Prosodic strengthening and featural enhancement: evidence from acoustic and articulatory realizations of /ɑ, i/ in English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 117(6). 3867–3878.

Cho, Taehong, and James M. McQueen. 2005. Prosodic influences on consonant production in Dutch: Effects of prosodic boundaries, plural accent and lexical stress. Journal of Phonetics 33 (2005). 121 – 157.

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Fougeron, Cécile, and Patricia Keating. 1996. Articulatory strengthening in prosodic domain-initial position. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 92. 61–87.

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Fougeron, Cécile. 1999. Prosodically conditioned articulatory variations: A review. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 97. 1–73.

29Fougeron, Cécile. 2001. Articulatory properties of initial segments in several

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Ingram, John, and Thu Nguyen. 2006. Stress, tone and word prosody in Vietnamese compounds. Proceedings of the 11th Australian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology, ed. Paul Warren & Catherine I. Watson. ISBN 0958194629. University of Auckland, New Zealand, December 6 – 8, 2006.

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Ito, Junko, and Armin Mester. 2008. The extended prosodic word. In Grijenhout & Kabak, 135–194.

Ito, Junko, and Armin Mester. 2009. Recursive prosodic phrasing in Japanese. Prosody Matters: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Selkirk, ed. by T. Borowsky, S. Kawahara, T. Shinya and M. Sugahara. London: Equinox Publishers.

Kabak, Bariș, and Anthi Revithiadou. 2009. An interface approach to prosodic word recursion. In Grijenhout & Kabak, 105–134.

Keating, Patricia; Taehong Chong; Cécile Fougeron; and Chai–Shune Hsu. 1999. Domain-initial articulatory strengthening in four languages. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 97. 139–151.

Kirby, James P. 2011. Vietnamese. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 41/3. 381–392.

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30Kuzla, Claudia; Taehong Cho; and Mirjam Ernestus. 2007. Prosodic strengthening

of German fricatives in duration and assimilatory devoicing. Journal of Phonetics 35. 301–320.

Kuzla, Claudia, and Mirjam Ernestus. 2011. Prosodic conditioning of phonetic detail in German plosives. Journal of Phonetics 39 (2011). 143 – 155.

Ladefoged, Peter, and Keith Johnson. 2011. A course in Phonetics (6th ed.). The USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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Nguyen, Dinh Hoa. 1997. Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt không son phấn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Nguyen, Thi Anh Thu. 2010. Rhythmic pattern and corrective focus in Vietnamese polysyllabic words. Mon – Khmer Studies 39. 1–28.

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31Thompson, Laurence E. 1987. A Vietnamese reference grammar. Honolulu:

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: VIETNAMESE NOUN COMPOUNDS

(1) 2-word coordinate compounds

a. sác vɤ

book notebook

‘books’

b. bàn ɣé

table chair

‘furniture’

c. bát jĩə

bowl plate

‘dishes/ dinnerware’

d. cùə cien

pagoda temple

‘temples/ pagodas’

e. kɔn cáu

child grandchild

‘offspring/ descendants’

f. Ɂéc ɲái

frog tree toad

‘batrachians’

g. zʌi bút

paper pen

‘desk supplies’

h. mɯə zɔ

rain wind

‘inclement weather’

i. fo fɯɤŋ

street guild

‘streets’

j. thɔk lúə

paddy rice

‘rice’

k. kʌi kɔ

tree grass

‘vegetation’

l. thwien bɛ

boat raft

‘boats’

m. soŋ núi

river mountain

‘country’

n. ɲɑ kɯə

house door

‘houses’

o. ʈʌu bɔ

buffalo ox/cow

‘livestock’

(2) 4-word coordinate compounds

a. lɔŋ lʌn kwi fụŋ

dragon unicorn turtle phoenix

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‘set of four symbolic animals’

b. doŋ tʌi nam bæk

east west south north

‘directions’

c. kɤm Ɂɑu ɣɑu tien

rice blouse rice money

‘daily earnings’

d. ŋeu sɔ Ɂok hén

shell oyster snail mussel

‘a drama title’

e. hỉ nọ Ɂái Ɂo

happiness anger love disgrace

‘emotions’

f. sáŋ ʈɯə ciew toi

morning afternoon evening night

‘different times of a day’

g. koŋ juŋ ŋon hạɲ

labor beauty speech behavior

‘four female virtues’

h. dʌt dai ruọŋ vɯɤn

earth land field garden

‘lands and farms’

i. ʈɤi ʈæŋ mʌi zɔ

sky moon cloud wind

‘weather’

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j. nɔn soŋ dʌt nɯɤk

mountain river earth water

‘country’

k. soŋ núi bɤ kɔi

river mountain river bank region

‘country’

l. bɤ kɔi núi soŋ

river bank region mountain river

‘country’

m. Ɂoŋ bɑ cɑ mɛ

grandfather grandmother father mother

‘grandparents and parents’

n. ko jì cú bák

aunt aunt uncle uncle

‘aunts and uncles’

o. vɤ còŋ kɔn kái

wife husband child child

‘parents and children’

(3) 2-word subordinate compounds

a. sɛ bɔ

vehicle cow/ox

‘cow/ox cart’

b. fɔŋ xác

room guest

‘living room’

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7

c. sɛ ŋɯə

vehicle horse

‘horse cart

d. cʌn zɯɤŋ

leg bed

‘bed leg’

e. súŋ mái

gun machine

‘machine gun’

f. bɔŋ dɑ

ball to kick

‘football’

g. ŋɯɤi Ɂɤ

person to reside

‘servant’

h. ŋɯɤi làm

person to do

‘servant’

i. bàn ủi

table to iron

‘iron’

j. bɔŋ cwien

ball to pass

‘volley ball’

k. kɑ cuə

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8

eggplant sour

‘tomato’

l. dɯɤng kɑi

road main

‘main road’

m. dũə kɑ

chopstick big

‘stirring chopstick’

n. tiéŋ fáp

language French

‘French’

o. báɲ ŋɔt

cake sweet

‘cake’

(4) 3-word subordinate compounds with left-edged heads

a. búə thɤ ren

hammer worker smith

‘sledgehammer’

b. kwán kɤm ɣɑ

store rice chicken

‘chicken rice store’

c. Ɂien sɛ ŋɯə

saddle vehicle horse

‘horse cart saddle’

d. bọt xwai mì

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flour potato wheat

‘cassava flour’

e. kʌi kɑ cuə

tree eggplant sour

‘tomato tree’

f. dạn súŋ mái

bullet gun machine

‘machine gun bullet’

g. bɤm sɛ dạp

pump vehicle bike

‘bike pump’

h. thʌn kʌi kaw

body tree areca

‘areca tree body’

i. næp cai sɯə

lid bottle milk

‘milk bottle lid’

j. kɑ nɯɤk ŋɔt

fish water sweet

‘fresh water fish’

k. vɔ ʈɯŋ vịt

shell egg duck

‘duck eggshell’

l. ɲãn cai rɯɤu

label bottle wine

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0

‘wine bottle label’

m. cuoŋ ɲɑ thɤ

bell house worship

‘church bell’

n. xuŋ kɯə sỏ

frame door book

‘window frame’

o. kàŋ kuə dòŋ

claw crab field

‘fresh water crab claw’

p. sɛ bɑ báɲ

vehicle three wheel

‘three-wheel cart’

(5) 4-word subordinate compounds with left-edged heads

a. ʈɯɤŋ dọi bɔŋ dɑ

captain team ball kick

‘football team captain’

b. næm kɯə fɔŋ xác

wisp door room guest

‘living room door knob’

c. củ kwán kɤm ɣɑ

owner store rice chicken

‘chicken rice store owner’

d. màu vɔ sɛ dạp

color tire vehicle bike

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1

‘bike tire color’

e. tiéŋ cuoŋ ɲɑ thɤ

sound bell house worship

‘church bell sound’

f. kɤ næp cai sɯə

size lid bottle milk

‘milk bottle lid size’

g. ʈɯɤŋ dọi bɔŋ cwien

captain team ball pass

‘volleyball team captain’

h. màu Ɂien sɛ ŋɯə

color saddle vehicle horse

‘horse cart saddle color’

i. vien xuŋ kɯə sỏ

border frame door book

‘window frame border’

j. vɔ dạn súŋ mái

case bullet gun machine

‘machine gun bullet case’

k. vʌi kɑ nɯɤk ŋɔt

fin fish water sweet

‘fresh water fish fin’

l. màu ɲãn cai rɯɤu

color label bottle wine

‘wine bottle label color’

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m. næp họp kɤm næm

lid box rice wisp

‘rice ball box lid’

n. vʌi duoi kɑ biẻn

fin tail fish sea

‘sea fish tail fin’

o. duoi kɑ nɯɤk ŋɔt

tail fish water sweet

‘fresh water fish tail’

(6) 4-word subordinate compounds of two 2-word subordinate compounds

a. bɯk tɯɤŋ tìɲ Ɂieu

piece wall sentiment love

‘love wall’

b. bài hát tìɲ Ɂieu

piece sing sentiment love

‘love song’

c. ŋɯɤi cɤi bɔŋ cwien

person play ball pass

‘volley ball player’

d. áɲ sáŋ dɛn dien

reflection bright light electricity

‘electric light’

e. bản dò ɲɑ mɑi

piece draw house machine

‘factory map’

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3

f. sɯ tíc kɑ vɔi

thing legend fish elephant

‘whale legend’

g. sɛ hɤi dò cɤi

vehicle car thing play

‘toy car’

h. mɑi tíɲ sác tɑi

machine calculator carry hand

‘laptop’

i. sɛ lɤə hɤi nɯɤk

vehicle fire gas water

‘steam train’

j. mɑi bɑi sieu thaɲ

machine fly super sound

‘supersonic plane’

k. ŋɯɤi sɛm ʈwien hìɲ

person watch transmit image

‘television audience’

l. sɛ dạp dò cɤi

vehicle bike thing play

‘toy bike’

m. de thi tiéŋ aɲ

text exam language English

‘English test’

n. sɯ tíc jɯə hʌu

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4

thing legend melon name of a melon

‘watermelon legend’

o. bản mʌu de thi

piece sample text exam

‘test sample’

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5