Conference Presentations by Martine Mazaudon
Fourth Workshop on Sound Change (WSC4). Edinburgh. 20-22 April 2017
Following the transphonologization of a contrast in voicing on initial consonants into a tonal co... more Following the transphonologization of a contrast in voicing on initial consonants into a tonal contrast, we examine the conditions under which some traces of the old voicing are retained on a limited number of segments, in specific contexts and words.
Papers by Martine Mazaudon
Language Documentation & Conservation, Dec 1, 2014
In the present paper the reader will be walked through techniques of fieldwork which a researcher... more In the present paper the reader will be walked through techniques of fieldwork which a researcher discovered as she was faced with a tone system of an unexpected type. This will be presented largely as a narrative, because in the area of discovery procedures no absolute instructions can be given, only examples and warnings. Here we will provide a few practical and theoretical tools to include in the all purpose toolbox that the fieldworker requires. I will narrate what I did when I encountered an emergent tone system in Nepal, unaware that such systems existed. Two main characteristics of the Tamang 1 language, which will be our topic, posed particular difficulties in description. (1) tone categories in Tamang are defined by bundles of laryngeal features, including pitch but also voice quality and mode of articulation, in particular the voicing of initial stops, with some trade-offs between realizations of these features, even in repetitions by a single speaker. (2) the domain of tone is the word, which commonly has more than one syllable, so that many syllables do not carry a tone of their own, but are part of a polysyllabic word that carries a single tone. For the descriptor, the characteristics mentioned reduce the functional weight of pitch per se in the phonology, so that at first hearing, Tamang may not "sound like" a tone language. More seriously, the trade-offs between elements (pitch, breathiness, and initial voicing) of the feature-bundles mean that we cannot arrive at a consistent phonetic transcription of any one of them from token to token.
The tonal situation of languages of the Tamangish (TGTM) and Bodish (Tibetan) groups Following Sh... more The tonal situation of languages of the Tamangish (TGTM) and Bodish (Tibetan) groups Following Shafer's classification, the languages discussed here all belong to one division among six in Sino-Tibetan, 1 the Bodic division, a name formed on bod, the
The Pangloss Collection is a language archive developed since 1994 at the Langues et Civilisation... more The Pangloss Collection is a language archive developed since 1994 at the Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale (LACITO) research group of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientiique (CNRS). It contributes to the documentation and study of the world's languages by providing free access to documents of connected, spontaneous speech, mostly in endangered or under-resourced languages, recorded in their cultural context and transcribed in consultation with native speakers. The Collection is an Open Archive containing media iles (recordings), text annotations, and metadata; it currently contains over 1,400 recordings in 70 languages, including more than 400 transcribed and annotated documents. The annotations consist of transcription, free translation in English, French and/or other languages, and, in many cases, word or morpheme glosses; they are time-aligned with the recordings, usually at the utterance level. A web interface makes these annotations accessible online in an interlinear display format, in synchrony with the sound, using any standard browser. The structure of the XML documents makes them accessible to searching and indexing, always preserving the links to the recordings. Longterm preservation is guaranteed through a partnership with a digital archive. A guiding principle of the Pangloss Collection is that a close association between documentation and research is highly proitable to both. This article presents the collections currently available; it also aims to convey a sense of the range of possibilities they offer to the scientiic and speaker communities and to the general public.
Linguistics vanguard, Jun 17, 2022
We conducted a perception experiment in the field to examine the synchronic consequences of a ton... more We conducted a perception experiment in the field to examine the synchronic consequences of a tonal split in Risiangku Tamang (Tibeto-Burman). Proto-Tamang was a two-tone language with three series of plosives and two series of continuants. The merger of its continuants provoked a split of the original two tones into four, two high and two low, which combine pitch and phonation features. The quasi-merger of the voiced and voiceless plosives left sporadic remnants of initial plosive voicing in low tone syllables. A previous production study has shown that speakers use pitch and phonation features concomitantly to distinguish high from low tones, while producing initial plosive voicing only marginally with low tones. The present perception study establishes the preeminence of the pitch cue, but also confirms the effective use of the two older cues in tone identification. An apparent-time analysis shows the phonation cue to be less used by younger speakers, in keeping with the historical evolution. The use of the residual voicing of plosives, instead of decreasing with younger speakers, is shown to increase. This result could be explained by an increased contact of the young generation with Nepali, a toneless Indo-Aryan language with a four-way initial plosive contrast.
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
Title: Pitch and voice quality characteristics of the lexical word-tones of Tamang, as compared
The origin of the Tamang and of the first Tamang clans
How a mother sparrow obtains custody of her daughter (a tale)
The tonal situation of languages of the Tamangish (TGTM) and Bodish (Tibetan) groups Following Sh... more The tonal situation of languages of the Tamangish (TGTM) and Bodish (Tibetan) groups Following Shafer's classification, the languages discussed here all belong to one division among six in Sino-Tibetan, 1 the Bodic division, a name formed on bod, the
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Copyright Cue weighting after a tone-split in Tamang (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) A perception study of stop initial words Martine Mazaudon, Jiayin Gao
The languages of the Tamang group (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) are presently in the process of developi... more The languages of the Tamang group (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) are presently in the process of developing tones from an earlier opposition of voicing on word-initial consonants (“tone split” in an old two-tone system: voiceless onsets > 2 high tones; voiced onsets > 2 low tones). In this group of languages, we observe a large amount of variation between dialects, between speakers, and within speakers concerning the realization of the features which define each tone. We interpret these variations as different degrees of retention of earlier features (Mazaudon, 2012). A previous phonetic study of the Tamang dialect of Risiangku (Mazaudon & Michaud, 2008) demonstrated the use of F0 and phonation, and to a lesser degree of initial stop voicing, as cues to the four tones of the system. The retention of breathiness and stop initial voicing with low pitch tones may be explained by mutual enhancement (Silverman, 1997). In the Tamang dialect of Taglung, one of the two low tones has evolved i...
Introduction: The lexical tones of the Bodic language group (Sino-Tibetan family), and of the Tam... more Introduction: The lexical tones of the Bodic language group (Sino-Tibetan family), and of the Tamang language in particular, raise a challenge for theories of tone, and for prosodic phonology: (i) their domain is the phonological word (whether monosyllabic or polysyllabic), not the syllable or the mora; (ii) their phonetic realisation is highly variable, and involves F0 and voice quality characteristics of the syllable rhyme as well as characteristics of the syllable-initial consonants (as described in earlier studies by the first author). In an effort to refine on the phonological characterisation of these tones, a cross-linguistic experiment was set up, comparing the pitch and voice quality characteristics of the Tamang tones with similar data from Naxi, a language which possesses a relatively simple system of level tones (without phonological use of voice quality), and from Vietnamese, which possesses tones that combine pitch and voice quality specifications. Method: Experimental...
Although the general classification of Tibeto-Burman languages remains uncertain, the Tamang lang... more Although the general classification of Tibeto-Burman languages remains uncertain, the Tamang language of Nepal belongs clearly in the broad group which Robert Shafer (Shafer 1955) called the 'Bodish Section' of the 'Bodie division' of Tibeto-Burman, of which Tibetan is the best known member. The Bodish section consists of two main branches, the Bodish Branch, containing classical Tibetan and all the so-called 'Tibetan dialects', which share the innovation of bdun for 'seven', and the 'Tamang Branch ', earlier named 'Gurung Branch' by Shafer on account of the fact that the Gurungs, being soldiers in the British army, were the most visible members of this group. For the earlier scholars , the Tamang branch consisted of Tamang (also called 'Murmi '), Gurung and Thakali (also called 'Thaksya'), to which have been more recently added Manangke, Nar-Phu and the Seke dialects (from the group of villages known as Panchgaon, the 'five villages' in Nepal), plus Chantyal, which is in a very bad state of repair. All of these have dialectal variants or sub dialects. All languages of the Tamang Branch share a fo ur-tone tonal system resulting from a recent two-way tonal split of what can be reconstructed as an earlier two-tone system, not shared by Tibetan in any of its dialects. If not reconstructible to Proto-Tibeto Burman, as I believe it is not (but this remains an open question), this proto two-tone system is a common innovation of the Tamang Branch. Except for the northernmost members of the group, the Seke and Manang dialects, which underwent some recent Tibetan influence on their grammar, languages of the Tamang branch have a very plain verbal morphology, exhibiting none of the developments
Linguistics of the TIbeto-Burman Area, 2012
The influence of the manner of articulation of initials on tonal development is well established;... more The influence of the manner of articulation of initials on tonal development is well established; conversely, apparently irregular correspondences in manner among daughter languages can be the result of the indirect influence of tone and the complexity of onsets. We present three examples from TGTM (the Tamang-Gurung-Thakali-Manangba subgroup of Tibeto-Burman). This subgroup presents a classic case of initial-merger-with-tonal-split, in which the loss of a voicing contrast on initials in a two-tone system led to the development of a fourtone system. Where the *voiced series of proto-TGTM normally developed into a voiceless unaspirated series under both proto-tones, in Manangba it developed into an aspirated series under one of the proto-tones and into a voiceless unaspirated series under the other. In Gurung, we find a double conditioning of the manner of the initial by tone and segmental complexity of the onset: *voiced stops have become voiceless under proto-tone *I, but have retained their voicing under prototone *II, unless they were affricated or followed by a medial, in which case they devoiced. Initial complexity has also influenced manner in Taglung and Risiangku Tamang, and in one word we suspect that it may even have altered the tone category.
Linguistics of the TIbeto-Burman Area, 2011
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Conference Presentations by Martine Mazaudon
Papers by Martine Mazaudon