Articulation and acoustics of Kannada affricates: A case of geminate /ʧ/.

This study presents the first systematic articulatory and acoustic investigation of voiceless geminate affricate /ʧ/ in Kannada (a Dravidian language), compared to the palatal glide and the voiceless dental stop. Ultrasound data from 10 normal speakers from Mysore, India revealed that /ʧ/ is produced with the tongue shape intermediate between the palatal glide and the dental stop, and with the laminal constriction at the alveolar ridge. The observed articulatory differences are reflected in acoustic formant patterns of vowel transitions and stop/affricate bursts. Altogether, the results show that the Kannada consonant in question is an alveolopalatal affricate, supporting some of the previous descriptive phonetic accounts of the language and raising questions for further research on normal and disordered speech. The results and our survey of literature also suggest that affricates in South Asian languages tend to be phonetically variable and historically unstable compared to other consonant articulations. PMID: 26403671 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Tags: Clin Linguist Phon Source Type: research