Presentation: Yu-chiao
Summary: Hsiang-Yu
This
study examines how nasal coarticulation changes over time in Philadelphia
English using the Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus conducted between 1973 and 2013.
A total of 105 speakers and 8029 tokens from transcribed recordings were
adopted and divided into three models according to different frameworks. The
nasal coarticulation, or namely nasality, is defined by the amplitude
difference between the F1 harmonic
peak and the lower nasal peak measured at the midpoint of target syllables.
The
first two models, the trend model and the pseudo-panel model, approach
real-time sociolinguistic research. In the trend model, 46 speakers under age 25
were included with year of birth ranging from 1949 to 1989. Results showed significance
on cubic regression, indicating people born before 1965 and after 1980 showed a
trend of increasing nasality, while people born between 1965 and 1980 showed the
opposite trend. A further measurement on nasality pattern was done to examine
whether it is the overall degree of nasalization or the gestural timing of
velum lowering that changed. Results suggested a dynamic gestural account of
the change. In the pseudo-panel model, instead of visiting the same speakers,
the study recruited 41 speakers born between 1940 and 1949, ranging in ages
from 30 to 67 at the time of interview to approach a panel study. Results
showed that there is no significant age effect.
