- Email: [email protected]
An acoustic-perceptual study of modern Hebrew ’alef and ’ayin
Journal of Phonetics (1975) 3, 167-174
An acoustic-perceptual study of modern Hebrew 'alef and 'ayin Holly Semiloff-Zelasko Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, U.S.A. Received 21st Apri/1975
Abstract:
In Modern Israeli Hebrew the phonemes f?f and r/, which are both phonetic [?], are often absent in all positions in the worl. In some verb paradigms, [?] is the only mark for the feminine, and when lost,. the masculine and feminine forms are homophonous. The purpose of this study was two-fold: (I) to determine whether [?] was phonetically present in conversational Hebrew, and (2) to determine whether native speakers could tell when a form was masculine or feminine in the absence of [?]. In 11 out of 21 productions of feminine verb forms, [?] was completely absent. In five productions although there was no [?], a period of laryngealization was present, and in five productions [?] was present. The results of the perception test showed high listener agreement as to the gender of the verb. In most cases, absence of [?] resulted in judgments of "masculine". There also appears to be a phonetic process in Hebrew: compensatory shortening of a consonant before [?], a process that sometimes applied even when [?] is absent. Thus, in some cases, even lack of[?] gave responses of "feminine" and where the preceding consonant was intermediate in length, random guessing resulted. A hypothesis is suggested that, in Hebrew, the perception of duration may be related to the manner of articulation of the consonant.
Background The Hebrew consonants, 'alef and 'ayin, were historically realized as the glottal stop [?], and a voiced pharyngeal fricative[<;'], respectively, and they occurred in all positions within the word. In Modern Israeli Hebrew, however, both phonemes are phonetically [?],1 and for many speakers [?]is often completely lost in all positions. In initial and final positions, [?] is never pronounced; in medial position, the determining factors are speed and style of speech, where [?], if it occurs at all, is found in more formal, careful and emphatic pronunciation. Although there appears to be no reason, on phonetic grounds, to insist that Hebrew still retain two phonemes, on phonemic grounds, the distinction must be kept. 2 The presence or absence of 'alef and ayin' poses an interesting problem for several reasons: (I) loss of a phonetic distinction can be the first stage in the loss of a phonemic distinction, and (2) Hebrew speakers have informally reported that they hear a [?]in morphological forms where impressionistically it is not phonetically present. For example [?] 1 Some segments of the population, the "Oriental" Jews, still retain the distinction between [?] and [~]. 2 The reason that the distinction between [?] and [~] is still alive in Hebrew is that different phonological rules apply to each. For example, breaking occurs before final [~]: *yode~ --+ /yodea~/ ' know (masc)', but not before [?]: *kore?--+ /kore?/ 'read (masc)'.
168
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
is never phonetic in the masculine 3 sg of verbs like /kara?j [kara] "he read" and /Jama)/ [Jama] "he heard", but it may or may not be present in the feminine forms: jkar?aj [kar?a] ~ [kara] "she read" and /Jam)aj [Jam?a] ~ [Jama] "she heard". 3 1t is the feminine forms where speakers claim that they "always" hear the [?]. Unfortunately very little instrumental phonetic research has been done on Modern Hebrew; most studies have been largely impressionistic. The purpose of this research was two-fold. First, I was interested in production: is [?] phonetically present in the relaxed, conversational speech of native (or near-native) Hebrew speakers? Second, I was interested in perception: can listeners (also native or near-native) tell when a given verb. is masculine or feminine in those cases where [?] is absent? In other words, I wanted to determine whether there are additional acoustic cues within the word that signal the difference in gender. Method: Production
In order to elicit the morphological minimal pairs such as the /kara?f-/kar?a/ example mentioned above, I used the following technique :4 an adult male native Hebrew speaker recorded 14 verb forms (minimal pairs from seven verbs, see Table I). Table I
Words used in production test
Form /CaCa?f /CaCa<:!j Masculine
/CaC?af /CaC<:!af Feminine
Gloss
/kara?f /maxa?/ /xata?f /kara<:!f /nasa<:!/ /Sarna<:!/ /nata<:!/
/kar?af /max?af /xat?af /kar<:!af /nas<:!aj /Jam<:!af /nat<:!a/
read applauded sinned ripped traveled heard planted
Each verb was in medial position in a sentence, which was printed in Hebrew on index cards. The subject was told to read the sentence silently, except for the underline verb-that verb was to be read aloud. The purpose of this procedure was to insure, as much as possible that the speaker would read the sentence in a natural, casual style, yet at the same time it was important to record only the isolated production of each word. (This is because of the technical difficulty of splicing individual words on a tape out of a sentence context.) The technique seemed to work: the speaker reported that he felt his "mental reading" of the sentence plus the actual reading of the key word was as natural as if he had spoken the entire sentence aloud. The recording was made in an anechoic chamber and recorded on · an Ampex AG-350 tape recorder. There were 14 sentences and the subject recorded the entire group a total of four times. The first reading of the sentences was discounted as a practice since the subject said that in the subsequent repetition of the whole group his reading became more natural and typical of relaxed, conversational Hebrew. 3 The basic form of the Hebrew root in the 3 sg is CVCVC in the masculine and CVCCV for the feminine. 4 1 am grateful to Dr lise Lehiste for suggesting this technique to me.
Acoustic-perceptuai study of Modern Hebrew
169
Results and Discussion Spectrograms were made on a Voiceprint 700 Series spectrograph of the second, third, and fourth productions of the 14 words. Of interest are the-feminine forms since, as expected, none of the masculines exhibit the [?]. Table II lists the results for the feminines. 5 Table II Presence or absence of [?] in feminine forms and length in ms of [?] and laryngealization 5 Word
Second production
Third production
Fourth production L
/kar?a/
100 L
;max?a/
60 ;xat?a;
+
/kar'ia/
+
75 60
L
70
+
/nas'ia/
75 L
/Jam'ia/
75 /nat'ia/
+
90
+
85
L
115
+=
[?] is present. - = (?] is absent. L =presence of laryngealization.
The phonetic nature of a glottal stop is that the vocal folds are tightly closed for a short period of time, during which no air is allowed to pass into the supraglottal tract. On a spectrogram this shows up as a period of complete silence, in these examples ranging in duration from 60 to 90 ms. Although phonemically present in all 21 productions of the feminine verb form (seven verbs produced three times each), the [?] was phonetically present in only five productions. When there is no (?] after the medial consonant, the onset of the second vowel begins immediately. In 11 of the 21 productions no [?] was present. Although, as the results of the perception experiment will show, listeners judged all words as though the [?] were either present or absent, in fact there is a third possibility. There is a type of phonation known as laryngealization, or creaky voice. In this mode the vocal folds are vibrating at a slow but irregular rate. They are tightly closed at the posterior end, but vibrating along a small portion of the anterior end (Ladefoged, 1971). On a spectrogram this is seen as a series of irregularly spaced vertical lines, in these examples ranging from 60 to 115 ms in duration (see Fig. 1). In languages that do not have laryngealized consonants as phonemes, as Hebrew does not, laryngealization is one allophonic realization of the glottal stop. In five of the 21 productions laryngealization was present. The results of the production experiment show that in the feminine verbs with a phonemic glottal stop as the 3rd consonant of the root, 11 out of21 productions did not contain any phonetic realization of[?] . The remaining 10 5 Measurements of segment length were made by measuring in millimeters and converting to milliseconds. Ten mm = 76 ms. Because accuracy to the nearest millisecond is difficult to determine, figures were rounded off to the nearest 5 ms. For methods of segmentation in determ ining boundaries of consonants, see Peterson & Lehiste (1960).
170
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
5
4
3 2
0
o
o-1
o -2
0·3
0·4
·o ·5
0 ·6
o -:t
o-a
0 :9
Time ( s)
Figure 1
Spectrograms of three productions of /kar?af showing the (J) absence of glottal stop, (2) presence of glottal stop, and (3) laryngealization .
Acoustic-perceptual study of Modern Hebrew
171
productions showed either a fully articulated [?] or the "in between" mode of phonation, laryngealization. Method: Perception , In order to test whether Hebrew speakers can tell if a verb form is masculine or feminine in the absence of(?) as a feminine marker, I made .a tape of isolated productions from the earlier experiment, and presented it to 15 Hebrew speakers (having lived all or most of their lives in Israel) in the form of a perception test. I chose two productions of each word, for a total of28 words, and then copied these words on to another tape in order to have two repetitions of each production. The words were randomized, and spliced together with 5 s intervals of silence, so that the final tape presented to the subjects contained 56 items. Subjects were given the listening test either individually or in pairs. They were given an answer sheet where, next to each number, they were to check off one of two sentence frames depending on which one the verb would fit, for example, He-the book or She-the book. Results and Discussion The results of the perception test are shown in Table III. Clearly there was high listener agreement on whether a form was masculine or feminine. In most cases the overriding Table III Results of perception test (identical tokens of each word are combined)
Word 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.
17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.
/xata?f fxat?a/ fmaxa?f /kar?af fnasa'i/ /Jama'i/ /kara'i/ /nas'ia/ /Jama'i/ /kar?af /maxa?f /nas'ia/ /kara?f /xat?af /nata'i/ /kar'ia/ /nasa'i/ /Jam'ia/ /nata'i/ /xata?/ /Jam'ia/ fmax?a/ /kara?f /nat'ia/ . /nat'ia/ /max'ia/ /kara'i/ /kar'ia/
Correct answer M
F M
F M M M
F M
F M
F M
F M
F M
F M M
F F M
F F F M
F
Number of responses: feminine
Number of responses: masculine
4 3 1 3 2 4 2 30 3 30 1 25 3 30 0 30 7 30 1 1 12 30 2 30 30 2 4 27
26 27 29 27 28 26 28 0 27 0 29 5 27 0 30 0 23 0 29 29 18 0 28 0 0 28 26 3
172
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
factor was in fact the presence or absence of[?]. For example, no. 2, jxat?aj, no. 4, /kar?aj, and no. 26, /max?aj, all feminine, received 89, 89 and 92 % agreement as the masculine form, and none of these was produced with any trace of a glottal stop. Also all five feminine verbs produced with laryngealization, nos 10, 16, 18, 22, and 24 were unanimously perceived as feminine forms, supporting the argument that when laryngealization is present, it is perceived exactly as is the glottal stop. Some results however, were considerably more interesting, and indicate that the presence of[?] is in fact not the sole acoustic cue in the identification of these minimal pairs. The first significant finding was that no. 12, jnas'ia/, did not contain a phonetic[?] and yet 83 % of the responses indicated that the form was feminine, which it is. The question ishow did listeners·known this form was feminine? The second interesting case was no. 21 , /Jam'ia/, also produced with no phonetic [?]. To this item responses were nearly random: 40 % said feminine and 60 % said masculine. The question here is: What accounts for these near random responses, when for every other item on the test there was at least 78% agreement among listeners? The answer to both of these questions has to do with the duration of the medial consonant of the root. Table IV lists these durations. In almost every case, verbs produced with either a [?] or laryngealization have medial consonants which are Table IV Duration of medial consonants
Group
Number
Word
A
1 20 2 14 3
fxata?f fxata?/ fxat?a/ /xat?af /maxa?f /maxa?/ /max?af /max?af /kara?/ /kara?f /kar?a/ fkar?a/
B
11
26 22
c
13
23 4 10
D
E
F
G
6 9 21 18
/Jama~/ /Jama~/ /Jam~a/
5
/nasa~/
17 12 8 7 27 16 28 15 19 24 25
/nasa'if
/Jam'ia/
Presence of glottal stop
145 150 105
+
60 135
L
L
160 160 105 85 90 75 70 130 130 115
L
/nas~a/
/nas'ia/ /kara'i/ fkara'i/
Duration of medial consonant (ms)
+
90 150 150 120 120 85 70
/kar~a/
L
55
fkar'ia/ /nata'i/ fnata'i/
+
60 145 145
/nat~a/
L
105
/nat'ia/
+
100
Acoustic-perceptual study of Modern Hebrew
173
shorter in duration than the corresponding form (masculine or feminine) without the [?]. For example, in no. 22, jmax?aj, produced with laryngealization, [x] is 105 ms. Number 26, jmaz?aj, with neither laryngealization nor [?]has a [x] of 160 ms, and the two masculine productions, nos 3 and 11, show [x] at 135 and 160 ms, respectively. It appears that there is a compensatory process at work in Hebrew: Shortening of a consonant before a glottal stop when a syllable boundary intervenes. Although I have not tested this experimentally, the process is possibly more general: shortening of a consonant in syllable-final position before any syllable-initial consonant. While there is some indication that syllable structure constraints are changing in Modern Hebrew (Marbe, 1972) the basic syllable structure of morphemes is CV.CV(C) and CVC.CV. An alternative explanation to Shortening in CVC.CV would be to say that there is a phonetic Lengthening in CV.CVC words. That is, one might argue that [t] in jxata? j is lengthened to 150 ms instead of shortened to 60 ms in jxat?aj. But there is no phonetic motivation for lengthening in this environment. Consonants in the offset of a syllable are known to be more prone to phonetic modification and Joss than consonants in the onset of a syllable. So we would expect that C2 would be shortened in CVC.CV and not lengthened in CV.CVC. With respect to compensatory shortening in the identification of the verbs in this study, if the process applies when there is no [?]present, (see jnas'iaj below) then the relative length of the medial consonant can serve as an acoustic cue in the identification of the verb. To return to the two interesting cases, no. 12, /nas'ia/ and no. 21, /Jam'ia/, in both forms compensatory shortening plays a role. In jnas'ia/ the shortening of [s] occurs even though [?] is absent. Thus although lack of[?] should be perceived as a masculine, the duration of [s], which is identical to [s] when [?] is present, as in no. 8, is responsible for the 83% identification of no. 12 as feminine. In other words, duration of [s] overrides the absence of [?]. In no. 21, /Jam'ia/, the compensatory shortening only partially applies, and this accounts for the apparent guessing of the listeners. That is, in the masculine forms, nos 6 and 9, [m] is only 130 ms long. In no. 18, /Jam'ia/, laryngealization is present and [m] is only 90 ms long. But in no. 21, there is neither[?] nor Jaryngealization, yet [m] is halfway between-115 ms. A certain amount of shortening has taken place, but not enough to ensure positive identification as a feminine. Thus the random result: 40% feminine, 60% masculine. One question remains: Is the manner of articulation of the medial consonant related to its effectiveness as an acoustic cue when [?] is absent? Although the number of words in my sample is small, I would like to tentatively suggest that the answer is yes. I think the length of the medial consonant is only a significant cue when it is a continuant. When the consonant is a voiceless stop-there were no voiced stops in the sample-then the presence of[?] is the only cue listeners use. The evidence comes from no. 2, jxat?aj, which had an intermediate value for [t]-105 ms-compared to no. 14 with [?]present, 60 ms, and compared to the masculine forms, nos 1 and 20, where [t] was 145 and 150 ms, respectively. Number 2, with its intermediate length for [t] should have produced random responses. In fact it did not-89% of the respondents said the form was masculine. Apparently the lack of[?] was sufficient to signal the masculine and the intermediate duration of [t] was ignored. I am suggesting that this fact might be explained as due to the acoustic nature of voiceless stops versus continuants like [s] and [m]. In a language that does not have phonemic length, as Hebrew does not, it may be more difficult to perceive a length difference in voiceless stops than in continuants. Stops are identified acoustically by a lack of energy in the spectrum, a short period of silence so to speak. Continuants have energy throughout their duration-high frequency noise in [s], or the characteristic formant
174
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
pattern of nasals as in [m]. It is possible that this fundamental acoustic difference is responsible for the fact that the duration of the voiceless stop in fxat?aj is not a significant acoustic cue. The hypothesis that manner of articulation (stops versus continuants) plays a role in the perception of duration has not been tested before. Because of the small size of my sample, further research should be done to investigate this phenomenon. Four groups in Table IV have not yet been explained. Groups F and G did not show the loss of [?] in the feminine form in any of the productions, so the presence of either [?] or laryngealization was of course the only identification cue. In group C, /kara?f- /kar?aj, the duration of [r] ranged from only 70 to 90 ms. [r] in the casual speech of most Hebrew speakers is a uvular trill, fairly short in duration. Although in no. 4, / kar?aj, a feminine with no [?], [r] is intermediate between the feminine form with laryngealization and the masculines, the amount of difference among them is not enough to make a perceptible difference. Finally in group B the compensatory shortening fai ls to apply. In no. 26, /max?aj, [x} is 160 ms, the same duration as the masculine form, no. 11. The fact that[?] is absent in no. 26, plus the long duration of [x] led to a 92% agreement that the form was masculine. Conclusion In summary, when [?]or laryngealization is present, the verbs in this experiment were overwhelmingly perceived as feminine . When both of these cues were absent, forms were perceived as unambiguously feminine only when the medial consonant was relatively short, as it always is when [?] or laryngealization is present. When the medial consonant is intermediate in length, either random guessing will result, or, in the case of [t], the consonant will not be used as a cue. I am suggesting that a compensatory shortening process operates in Hebrew to shorten consonants before phonemic glottal stops. If the process always applied, then even where there was no phonetic [?], verbs should be perceived as feminine. But the process, at least in casual speech, seems to be unstable- when no [?]is phonetically present, the consonant often is only partially shortened. This phenomenon of Modern Hebrew reflects the subtle interplay between segmental and suprasegmental factors in production and perception. I hope that future instrumental research can further investigate such phenomena in an attempt to consolidate the techniques and knowledge of both experimental phonetics and phonology. References Ladefoged, P. (1971). Preliminaries to Linguistic Phonetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marbe, A. (1972). The structure of the syllable in Modern (Israeli) Hebrew. Work in Progress 5, Edinburgh University. Peterson, G. & Lehiste, I. (1960). Duration of syllable nuclei in English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 32, 693-703 .
An acoustic-perceptual study of modern Hebrew 'alef and 'ayin Holly Semiloff-Zelasko Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, U.S.A. Received 21st Apri/1975
Abstract:
In Modern Israeli Hebrew the phonemes f?f and r/, which are both phonetic [?], are often absent in all positions in the worl. In some verb paradigms, [?] is the only mark for the feminine, and when lost,. the masculine and feminine forms are homophonous. The purpose of this study was two-fold: (I) to determine whether [?] was phonetically present in conversational Hebrew, and (2) to determine whether native speakers could tell when a form was masculine or feminine in the absence of [?]. In 11 out of 21 productions of feminine verb forms, [?] was completely absent. In five productions although there was no [?], a period of laryngealization was present, and in five productions [?] was present. The results of the perception test showed high listener agreement as to the gender of the verb. In most cases, absence of [?] resulted in judgments of "masculine". There also appears to be a phonetic process in Hebrew: compensatory shortening of a consonant before [?], a process that sometimes applied even when [?] is absent. Thus, in some cases, even lack of[?] gave responses of "feminine" and where the preceding consonant was intermediate in length, random guessing resulted. A hypothesis is suggested that, in Hebrew, the perception of duration may be related to the manner of articulation of the consonant.
Background The Hebrew consonants, 'alef and 'ayin, were historically realized as the glottal stop [?], and a voiced pharyngeal fricative[<;'], respectively, and they occurred in all positions within the word. In Modern Israeli Hebrew, however, both phonemes are phonetically [?],1 and for many speakers [?]is often completely lost in all positions. In initial and final positions, [?] is never pronounced; in medial position, the determining factors are speed and style of speech, where [?], if it occurs at all, is found in more formal, careful and emphatic pronunciation. Although there appears to be no reason, on phonetic grounds, to insist that Hebrew still retain two phonemes, on phonemic grounds, the distinction must be kept. 2 The presence or absence of 'alef and ayin' poses an interesting problem for several reasons: (I) loss of a phonetic distinction can be the first stage in the loss of a phonemic distinction, and (2) Hebrew speakers have informally reported that they hear a [?]in morphological forms where impressionistically it is not phonetically present. For example [?] 1 Some segments of the population, the "Oriental" Jews, still retain the distinction between [?] and [~]. 2 The reason that the distinction between [?] and [~] is still alive in Hebrew is that different phonological rules apply to each. For example, breaking occurs before final [~]: *yode~ --+ /yodea~/ ' know (masc)', but not before [?]: *kore?--+ /kore?/ 'read (masc)'.
168
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
is never phonetic in the masculine 3 sg of verbs like /kara?j [kara] "he read" and /Jama)/ [Jama] "he heard", but it may or may not be present in the feminine forms: jkar?aj [kar?a] ~ [kara] "she read" and /Jam)aj [Jam?a] ~ [Jama] "she heard". 3 1t is the feminine forms where speakers claim that they "always" hear the [?]. Unfortunately very little instrumental phonetic research has been done on Modern Hebrew; most studies have been largely impressionistic. The purpose of this research was two-fold. First, I was interested in production: is [?] phonetically present in the relaxed, conversational speech of native (or near-native) Hebrew speakers? Second, I was interested in perception: can listeners (also native or near-native) tell when a given verb. is masculine or feminine in those cases where [?] is absent? In other words, I wanted to determine whether there are additional acoustic cues within the word that signal the difference in gender. Method: Production
In order to elicit the morphological minimal pairs such as the /kara?f-/kar?a/ example mentioned above, I used the following technique :4 an adult male native Hebrew speaker recorded 14 verb forms (minimal pairs from seven verbs, see Table I). Table I
Words used in production test
Form /CaCa?f /CaCa<:!j Masculine
/CaC?af /CaC<:!af Feminine
Gloss
/kara?f /maxa?/ /xata?f /kara<:!f /nasa<:!/ /Sarna<:!/ /nata<:!/
/kar?af /max?af /xat?af /kar<:!af /nas<:!aj /Jam<:!af /nat<:!a/
read applauded sinned ripped traveled heard planted
Each verb was in medial position in a sentence, which was printed in Hebrew on index cards. The subject was told to read the sentence silently, except for the underline verb-that verb was to be read aloud. The purpose of this procedure was to insure, as much as possible that the speaker would read the sentence in a natural, casual style, yet at the same time it was important to record only the isolated production of each word. (This is because of the technical difficulty of splicing individual words on a tape out of a sentence context.) The technique seemed to work: the speaker reported that he felt his "mental reading" of the sentence plus the actual reading of the key word was as natural as if he had spoken the entire sentence aloud. The recording was made in an anechoic chamber and recorded on · an Ampex AG-350 tape recorder. There were 14 sentences and the subject recorded the entire group a total of four times. The first reading of the sentences was discounted as a practice since the subject said that in the subsequent repetition of the whole group his reading became more natural and typical of relaxed, conversational Hebrew. 3 The basic form of the Hebrew root in the 3 sg is CVCVC in the masculine and CVCCV for the feminine. 4 1 am grateful to Dr lise Lehiste for suggesting this technique to me.
Acoustic-perceptuai study of Modern Hebrew
169
Results and Discussion Spectrograms were made on a Voiceprint 700 Series spectrograph of the second, third, and fourth productions of the 14 words. Of interest are the-feminine forms since, as expected, none of the masculines exhibit the [?]. Table II lists the results for the feminines. 5 Table II Presence or absence of [?] in feminine forms and length in ms of [?] and laryngealization 5 Word
Second production
Third production
Fourth production L
/kar?a/
100 L
;max?a/
60 ;xat?a;
+
/kar'ia/
+
75 60
L
70
+
/nas'ia/
75 L
/Jam'ia/
75 /nat'ia/
+
90
+
85
L
115
+=
[?] is present. - = (?] is absent. L =presence of laryngealization.
The phonetic nature of a glottal stop is that the vocal folds are tightly closed for a short period of time, during which no air is allowed to pass into the supraglottal tract. On a spectrogram this shows up as a period of complete silence, in these examples ranging in duration from 60 to 90 ms. Although phonemically present in all 21 productions of the feminine verb form (seven verbs produced three times each), the [?] was phonetically present in only five productions. When there is no (?] after the medial consonant, the onset of the second vowel begins immediately. In 11 of the 21 productions no [?] was present. Although, as the results of the perception experiment will show, listeners judged all words as though the [?] were either present or absent, in fact there is a third possibility. There is a type of phonation known as laryngealization, or creaky voice. In this mode the vocal folds are vibrating at a slow but irregular rate. They are tightly closed at the posterior end, but vibrating along a small portion of the anterior end (Ladefoged, 1971). On a spectrogram this is seen as a series of irregularly spaced vertical lines, in these examples ranging from 60 to 115 ms in duration (see Fig. 1). In languages that do not have laryngealized consonants as phonemes, as Hebrew does not, laryngealization is one allophonic realization of the glottal stop. In five of the 21 productions laryngealization was present. The results of the production experiment show that in the feminine verbs with a phonemic glottal stop as the 3rd consonant of the root, 11 out of21 productions did not contain any phonetic realization of[?] . The remaining 10 5 Measurements of segment length were made by measuring in millimeters and converting to milliseconds. Ten mm = 76 ms. Because accuracy to the nearest millisecond is difficult to determine, figures were rounded off to the nearest 5 ms. For methods of segmentation in determ ining boundaries of consonants, see Peterson & Lehiste (1960).
170
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
5
4
3 2
0
o
o-1
o -2
0·3
0·4
·o ·5
0 ·6
o -:t
o-a
0 :9
Time ( s)
Figure 1
Spectrograms of three productions of /kar?af showing the (J) absence of glottal stop, (2) presence of glottal stop, and (3) laryngealization .
Acoustic-perceptual study of Modern Hebrew
171
productions showed either a fully articulated [?] or the "in between" mode of phonation, laryngealization. Method: Perception , In order to test whether Hebrew speakers can tell if a verb form is masculine or feminine in the absence of(?) as a feminine marker, I made .a tape of isolated productions from the earlier experiment, and presented it to 15 Hebrew speakers (having lived all or most of their lives in Israel) in the form of a perception test. I chose two productions of each word, for a total of28 words, and then copied these words on to another tape in order to have two repetitions of each production. The words were randomized, and spliced together with 5 s intervals of silence, so that the final tape presented to the subjects contained 56 items. Subjects were given the listening test either individually or in pairs. They were given an answer sheet where, next to each number, they were to check off one of two sentence frames depending on which one the verb would fit, for example, He-the book or She-the book. Results and Discussion The results of the perception test are shown in Table III. Clearly there was high listener agreement on whether a form was masculine or feminine. In most cases the overriding Table III Results of perception test (identical tokens of each word are combined)
Word 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.
17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.
/xata?f fxat?a/ fmaxa?f /kar?af fnasa'i/ /Jama'i/ /kara'i/ /nas'ia/ /Jama'i/ /kar?af /maxa?f /nas'ia/ /kara?f /xat?af /nata'i/ /kar'ia/ /nasa'i/ /Jam'ia/ /nata'i/ /xata?/ /Jam'ia/ fmax?a/ /kara?f /nat'ia/ . /nat'ia/ /max'ia/ /kara'i/ /kar'ia/
Correct answer M
F M
F M M M
F M
F M
F M
F M
F M
F M M
F F M
F F F M
F
Number of responses: feminine
Number of responses: masculine
4 3 1 3 2 4 2 30 3 30 1 25 3 30 0 30 7 30 1 1 12 30 2 30 30 2 4 27
26 27 29 27 28 26 28 0 27 0 29 5 27 0 30 0 23 0 29 29 18 0 28 0 0 28 26 3
172
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
factor was in fact the presence or absence of[?]. For example, no. 2, jxat?aj, no. 4, /kar?aj, and no. 26, /max?aj, all feminine, received 89, 89 and 92 % agreement as the masculine form, and none of these was produced with any trace of a glottal stop. Also all five feminine verbs produced with laryngealization, nos 10, 16, 18, 22, and 24 were unanimously perceived as feminine forms, supporting the argument that when laryngealization is present, it is perceived exactly as is the glottal stop. Some results however, were considerably more interesting, and indicate that the presence of[?] is in fact not the sole acoustic cue in the identification of these minimal pairs. The first significant finding was that no. 12, jnas'ia/, did not contain a phonetic[?] and yet 83 % of the responses indicated that the form was feminine, which it is. The question ishow did listeners·known this form was feminine? The second interesting case was no. 21 , /Jam'ia/, also produced with no phonetic [?]. To this item responses were nearly random: 40 % said feminine and 60 % said masculine. The question here is: What accounts for these near random responses, when for every other item on the test there was at least 78% agreement among listeners? The answer to both of these questions has to do with the duration of the medial consonant of the root. Table IV lists these durations. In almost every case, verbs produced with either a [?] or laryngealization have medial consonants which are Table IV Duration of medial consonants
Group
Number
Word
A
1 20 2 14 3
fxata?f fxata?/ fxat?a/ /xat?af /maxa?f /maxa?/ /max?af /max?af /kara?/ /kara?f /kar?a/ fkar?a/
B
11
26 22
c
13
23 4 10
D
E
F
G
6 9 21 18
/Jama~/ /Jama~/ /Jam~a/
5
/nasa~/
17 12 8 7 27 16 28 15 19 24 25
/nasa'if
/Jam'ia/
Presence of glottal stop
145 150 105
+
60 135
L
L
160 160 105 85 90 75 70 130 130 115
L
/nas~a/
/nas'ia/ /kara'i/ fkara'i/
Duration of medial consonant (ms)
+
90 150 150 120 120 85 70
/kar~a/
L
55
fkar'ia/ /nata'i/ fnata'i/
+
60 145 145
/nat~a/
L
105
/nat'ia/
+
100
Acoustic-perceptual study of Modern Hebrew
173
shorter in duration than the corresponding form (masculine or feminine) without the [?]. For example, in no. 22, jmax?aj, produced with laryngealization, [x] is 105 ms. Number 26, jmaz?aj, with neither laryngealization nor [?]has a [x] of 160 ms, and the two masculine productions, nos 3 and 11, show [x] at 135 and 160 ms, respectively. It appears that there is a compensatory process at work in Hebrew: Shortening of a consonant before a glottal stop when a syllable boundary intervenes. Although I have not tested this experimentally, the process is possibly more general: shortening of a consonant in syllable-final position before any syllable-initial consonant. While there is some indication that syllable structure constraints are changing in Modern Hebrew (Marbe, 1972) the basic syllable structure of morphemes is CV.CV(C) and CVC.CV. An alternative explanation to Shortening in CVC.CV would be to say that there is a phonetic Lengthening in CV.CVC words. That is, one might argue that [t] in jxata? j is lengthened to 150 ms instead of shortened to 60 ms in jxat?aj. But there is no phonetic motivation for lengthening in this environment. Consonants in the offset of a syllable are known to be more prone to phonetic modification and Joss than consonants in the onset of a syllable. So we would expect that C2 would be shortened in CVC.CV and not lengthened in CV.CVC. With respect to compensatory shortening in the identification of the verbs in this study, if the process applies when there is no [?]present, (see jnas'iaj below) then the relative length of the medial consonant can serve as an acoustic cue in the identification of the verb. To return to the two interesting cases, no. 12, /nas'ia/ and no. 21, /Jam'ia/, in both forms compensatory shortening plays a role. In jnas'ia/ the shortening of [s] occurs even though [?] is absent. Thus although lack of[?] should be perceived as a masculine, the duration of [s], which is identical to [s] when [?] is present, as in no. 8, is responsible for the 83% identification of no. 12 as feminine. In other words, duration of [s] overrides the absence of [?]. In no. 21, /Jam'ia/, the compensatory shortening only partially applies, and this accounts for the apparent guessing of the listeners. That is, in the masculine forms, nos 6 and 9, [m] is only 130 ms long. In no. 18, /Jam'ia/, laryngealization is present and [m] is only 90 ms long. But in no. 21, there is neither[?] nor Jaryngealization, yet [m] is halfway between-115 ms. A certain amount of shortening has taken place, but not enough to ensure positive identification as a feminine. Thus the random result: 40% feminine, 60% masculine. One question remains: Is the manner of articulation of the medial consonant related to its effectiveness as an acoustic cue when [?] is absent? Although the number of words in my sample is small, I would like to tentatively suggest that the answer is yes. I think the length of the medial consonant is only a significant cue when it is a continuant. When the consonant is a voiceless stop-there were no voiced stops in the sample-then the presence of[?] is the only cue listeners use. The evidence comes from no. 2, jxat?aj, which had an intermediate value for [t]-105 ms-compared to no. 14 with [?]present, 60 ms, and compared to the masculine forms, nos 1 and 20, where [t] was 145 and 150 ms, respectively. Number 2, with its intermediate length for [t] should have produced random responses. In fact it did not-89% of the respondents said the form was masculine. Apparently the lack of[?] was sufficient to signal the masculine and the intermediate duration of [t] was ignored. I am suggesting that this fact might be explained as due to the acoustic nature of voiceless stops versus continuants like [s] and [m]. In a language that does not have phonemic length, as Hebrew does not, it may be more difficult to perceive a length difference in voiceless stops than in continuants. Stops are identified acoustically by a lack of energy in the spectrum, a short period of silence so to speak. Continuants have energy throughout their duration-high frequency noise in [s], or the characteristic formant
174
H. Semiloff-Zelasko
pattern of nasals as in [m]. It is possible that this fundamental acoustic difference is responsible for the fact that the duration of the voiceless stop in fxat?aj is not a significant acoustic cue. The hypothesis that manner of articulation (stops versus continuants) plays a role in the perception of duration has not been tested before. Because of the small size of my sample, further research should be done to investigate this phenomenon. Four groups in Table IV have not yet been explained. Groups F and G did not show the loss of [?] in the feminine form in any of the productions, so the presence of either [?] or laryngealization was of course the only identification cue. In group C, /kara?f- /kar?aj, the duration of [r] ranged from only 70 to 90 ms. [r] in the casual speech of most Hebrew speakers is a uvular trill, fairly short in duration. Although in no. 4, / kar?aj, a feminine with no [?], [r] is intermediate between the feminine form with laryngealization and the masculines, the amount of difference among them is not enough to make a perceptible difference. Finally in group B the compensatory shortening fai ls to apply. In no. 26, /max?aj, [x} is 160 ms, the same duration as the masculine form, no. 11. The fact that[?] is absent in no. 26, plus the long duration of [x] led to a 92% agreement that the form was masculine. Conclusion In summary, when [?]or laryngealization is present, the verbs in this experiment were overwhelmingly perceived as feminine . When both of these cues were absent, forms were perceived as unambiguously feminine only when the medial consonant was relatively short, as it always is when [?] or laryngealization is present. When the medial consonant is intermediate in length, either random guessing will result, or, in the case of [t], the consonant will not be used as a cue. I am suggesting that a compensatory shortening process operates in Hebrew to shorten consonants before phonemic glottal stops. If the process always applied, then even where there was no phonetic [?], verbs should be perceived as feminine. But the process, at least in casual speech, seems to be unstable- when no [?]is phonetically present, the consonant often is only partially shortened. This phenomenon of Modern Hebrew reflects the subtle interplay between segmental and suprasegmental factors in production and perception. I hope that future instrumental research can further investigate such phenomena in an attempt to consolidate the techniques and knowledge of both experimental phonetics and phonology. References Ladefoged, P. (1971). Preliminaries to Linguistic Phonetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marbe, A. (1972). The structure of the syllable in Modern (Israeli) Hebrew. Work in Progress 5, Edinburgh University. Peterson, G. & Lehiste, I. (1960). Duration of syllable nuclei in English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 32, 693-703 .