@article {525,
	title = {Fonetische natuurlijkheid als drijfveer van verandering?},
	year = {2023},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {Utrecht, The Netherlands},
	abstract = {Een belangrijk onderdeel van het {\textquoteleft}constraints problem{\textquoteright} van Weinreich, Labov, \& Herzog (1968) is de vraag welke taalveranderingen mogelijk en onmogelijk zijn. In de fonetiek worden de mogelijkheden beperkt, volgens Garrett \& Johnson (2013), door fonetische biases, die voortkomen uit de eigenschappen van het productie- en perceptieapparaat. In hun visie leiden die biases tot taalverandering, indien ze (waarom dan ook) sociale relevantie verkrijgen. Hoe werken die biases? Drijven die verandering {\textendash} in termen uit de biologie, veroorzaken ze selectiedruk {\textendash} of zijn ze slechts een beperking op de weg die een taalverandering van nature (uit zgn. stochastische verschuiving) zou moeten vinden? Ik onderzoek die vraag in een specifieke casus uit het Engels van Philadelphia.

{\'E}{\'e}n van de kenmerken van het Philadelphia-accent is American Raising: een centralisering van [aɪ] tot [əɪ] voor stemloze obstruenten. Voor deze verandering zijn twee verklaringen geponeerd (Davis \& Berkson 2021): pre-fortis clipping (vocaalverkorting die maakt dat de [a] niet helemaal bereikt wordt) en offglide peripheralization (de [ɪ] wordt [i] en de [a] coarticuleert mee). Ik onderzoek American Raising in het Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus (408 sprekers geboren in 1880-1994) d.m.v. een statistisch model oorspronkelijk uit de populatiegenetica (zie Nourmohammad et al 2017) dat onderscheid maakt tussen selectie en stochastische verschuiving. Resultaten tonen sterke selectiedruk in de genormaliseerde F1/F2-ruimte, die bovendien sterker is bij vrouwen dan bij mannen. Ik vind echter geen evidentie voor bijkomstige selectie op kortere vocaalduren in deze allofooncontext, noch voor sterkere selectie in offglides dan in onglides. Het gevonden verschil tussen mannen en vrouwen leidt tot de conclusie dat sociale factoren een drijfveer (kunnen) zijn van taalverandering. Over de rol van fonetische factoren is, gezien de nulresultaten voor die factoren, echter geen conclusie mogelijk.

Referenties

Davis, S., \& Berkson, K. (2021). American Raising: An Introduction. Publication of the American Dialect Society, 106(1), 1-12.
Garrett, A., \& Johnson, K. (2013). Phonetic bias in sound change. In: Yu, A. C. L. (Ed.). Origins of sound change: Approaches to phonologization (pp. 51-97). Oxford University Press.
Nourmohammad, A., Rambeau, J., Held, T., Kovacova, V., Berg, J., \& L{\"a}ssig, M. (2017). Adaptive evolution of gene expression in Drosophila. Cell Reports, 20(6), 1385-1395.
Weinreich, U., Labov, W., \& Herzog, M. (1968). Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. University of Texas Press.

},
	author = {Voeten, Cesko}
}
@article {507,
	title = {An operationalization of causal factors in vowel shifts},
	year = {2022},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {Utrecht, The Netherlands},
	abstract = {Ample phonetic literature has tried to determine causality behind sound change, oftentimes in vowel shifts. Proposed causes may be divided into internal factors (e.g. push chains maintaining margins of security, drag chains maintaining symmetry; [1]) and external ones (gender, social network, etc.; [2]). The usual approach to establishing such effects (e.g. [3]) is to demonstrate that such factors significantly correlate with change progression over time. However, such a correlation is insufficient to establish causation. Thus, do internal and external factors really cause change, or are they simply along for the ride?

We present a method to answering this question based on natural selection in biology. We operationalize causality as a deterministic pressure driving language change ({\textquoteleft}directional selection{\textquoteright}), which contrasts with the cumulative effect of random variation ({\textquoteleft}stochastic drift{\textquoteright}). [4] demonstrated that this distinction makes it possible to disambiguate caused changes from historical accidents, based on results from English do-support (Fig. 1). We present ongoing work adapting this model from discrete syntactic features to continuous measures in F1/F2 space. We use this to infer selection pressure within the vowels in the Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus, a corpus full of vowel changes spanning a course of ~100 years ([5]).

Preliminary results demonstrate that some of the known ongoing changes in Philadelphia, such as pre-fortis [aɪ]>[ʌɪ], are the result of selection pressure, while others are historical accidents. We furthermore present in-progress quantitative analyses of internal and external factors that drive those changes that were subject to selection pressure. We discuss these findings in light of current theories of sound change.

References

[1] Labov, W. (1994). Principles of linguistic change. Vol. I: internal factors. Blackwell.
[2] Labov, W. (2001). Principles of linguistic change. Vol. II: social factors. Blackwell.
[3] Kroch, A. S. (1989). Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change, 1(3), 199-244. 
[4] Newberry, M. G., Ahern, C. A., Clark, R., \& Plotkin, J. B. (2017). Detecting evolutionary forces in language change. Nature, 551(7679), 223-226.
[5] Labov, W., Rosenfelder, I., \& Fruehwald, J. (2013). One hundred years of sound change in Philadelphia: Linear incrementation, reversal, and reanalysis. Language, 89(1), 30-65.
},
	author = {Voeten, Cesko and Tamminga, Meredith and Plotkin, Joshua B.}
}
@article {491,
	title = {Analyzing time-dynamic vowels: normalization in the current decade},
	year = {2021},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {online},
	abstract = {With the exception of van der Harst (2011), previous work comparing vowel-normalization methods for sociophonetic research has largely focused on steady-state vowels (e.g. Adank et al 2004). With modern sociophonetics nowadays resorting more to time-dynamic analyses rather than steady-state approaches, the present study revisits the issue of vowel normalization with an explicit consideration of temporal trajectories. We compared sixteen normalization methods implemented in Visible Vowels (Heeringa \& Van de Velde 2018) and an unnormalized baseline, using van der Harst (2011){\textquoteright}s hand-corrected data of the Flemish-Dutch Teacher Corpus, which includes fifteen vowels (of which six may be phonologically diphthongal, but in practice all of these are temporally variable to some extent; van der Harst 2011). Using generalized additive models to model temporal trajectories, we compared the normalization methods{\textquoteright} abilities to normalize anatomical variation, retain vowel distinctions and explain variation in the normalized F0-F3; similar criteria were also used by Adank et al (2004) and van der Harst (2011). We additionally investigated the extent to which by-speaker random effects could supplement or perhaps even replace the use of normalization. Our results partly reproduce the good results for Lobanov, Gerstman, and Nearey I found earlier. However, we observe that other methods, particularly Heeringa \& Van de Velde II, come close to their performance but at much higher effect sizes. We also observe that random effects are not only useful for the unnormalized baseline, but provide a similar benefit also for the normalized data, showing that they are complementary to normalization. We interpret our findings in light of the way the different methods handle temporal dynamics.

References

Adank, P., Smits, R., \& Van Hout, R. (2004). A comparison of vowel normalization procedures for language variation research. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116(5), 3099-3107.
van der Harst, S. (2011). The vowel space paradox. A Sociophonetic Study on Dutch. LOT.
Heeringa W., \& Van de Velde, H. (2018). Visible Vowels: a Tool for the Visualization of Vowel Variation. In: Inguna Skadina \& Maria Eskevich (Eds.). Proceedings CLARIN Annual Conference 2018, 8-10 October, Pisa, Italy (pp. 120-123). CLARIN ERIC.
},
	author = {Voeten, Cesko and Wilbert Heeringa and Hans Van de Velde}
}
@article {458,
	title = {Does short-term phonetic accommodation lead to long-term sound change? Not directly},
	year = {2019},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands},
	abstract = {The change-by-accommodation model ({\textquoteleft}CAM{\textquoteright}; [1,2]) suggests that sound change is caused by phonetic accommodation ([3,4]). This is tested empirically via longitudinal experiments using three on-going sound changes in Dutch: the diphthongization of /e:,{\o}:,o:/ ([5,6]), the blocking of diphthongs before coda /l/ ([6,7]), and the gliding of coda /r/ to [ɹ] ([8]). These have effectively completed in the Netherlands, but have not affected Flanders. This makes it possible to perform empirical studies of the CAM via sociolinguistic migrants ({\textquoteleft}SMs{\textquoteright}): Flemish speakers of Dutch who migrated to the Netherlands to start their university studies.

Over the course of nine months, ten SMs and ten controls participated in three sessions of experiments focused on their production and perception of the three sound changes. The low number of participants is compensated by a high number of experimental items combined with the repeated-measures design, resulting in sufficient power. Results show robust differences between the groups, that do not convincingly diminish over time.

This is problematic for the CAM, especially because a follow-up cross-sectional experiment over multiple years{\textquoteright} time did find changes. Since phonetic accommodation is known to be extremely rapid ([3,4]), the result that nine months were not enough, but decades are, casts doubt on the change-by-accommodation model.

References
[1]	Auer, Peter, \& Hinskens, Frans. 2005. The role of interpersonal accommodation in a theory of language change. Dialect change: Convergence and divergence in European languages, 335.
[2]	Sonderegger, Morgan. 2012. Phonetic and phonological dynamics on reality television. Doctoral dissertation, Chicago.
[3]	Pardo, Jennifer S. 2006. On phonetic convergence during conversational interaction. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1194, 2382{\textendash}2393. doi:10.1121/1.2178720
[4]	Maye, Jessica, Aslin, Richard N, \& Tanenhaus, Michael K. 2008. The weckud wetch of the wast: Lexical adaptation to a novel accent. Cognitive Science, 323, 543{\textendash}562. doi:10.1080/03640210802035357
[5]	Van de Velde, Hans. 1996. Variatie en verandering in het gesproken Standaard-Nederlands. Doctoral dissertation, Nijmegen. doi:2066/146159
[6]	Voeten, Cesko Cis. 2015. The interaction between the segmental and the prosodic phonology in the midst of an on-going sound change. resolving a contradiction in the synchronic phonology of Dutch. Master{\textquoteright}s thesis, Nijmegen. Retrieved from https://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/628
[7]	Berns, Janine, \& Jacobs, Haike M G M. 2012. A first glance at the role of length in production and perception of diphthongs before Dutch coda l. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 291, 15{\textendash}26. doi:10.1075/avt.29.02ber
[8]	Sebregts, Koen. 2015. The sociophonetics and phonology of Dutch /r/. Doctoral dissertation, Utrecht. doi:1874/306415

},
	author = {Voeten, Cesko}
}
@article {441,
	title = {Using random effects to investigate phonetic variation: a puzzling discrepancy between production and perception},
	year = {2018},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands},
	abstract = {This study reports on perception (rhyme decision with morphed stimuli; see (1)) and production (word-list reading; see (2)) differences in the vowel systems of three groups of subjects: 45 Netherlandic-Dutch subjects, 45 Flemish-Dutch subjects, and an unclear group of 18 Dutch-speaking Belgians who have been in the Netherlands for a long time (years<--->decades). I term this group {\textquoteleft}unclear{\textquoteright} because it is conceivable that some of these subjects, but not others, may have adapted their Flemish phonetics to the Netherlandic norms, which can be considered a long-term form of phonetic accommodation (sensu Pardo et al 2012). This is the present study{\textquoteright}s object of investigation, with a focus on the Dutch tense mid vowels (contextually-restricted diphthongs in Netherlandic Dutch, monophthongs in Flemish Dutch; Adank et al 2007).

What factors discriminate {\textquoteleft}successful{\textquoteright} adapters from {\textquoteleft}unsuccessful{\textquoteright} adapters? Because the critical third group of subjects is not (a priori) homogeneous, the present study partitions the 108 subjects into groups that are defined empirically. For the production part, this is done by finding clusters in the predicted random slopes of a na{\"\i}ve mixed-effects model, which turns out to work very well. Puzzlingly, the same approach performs poorly for the perception data, though a group-level effect does arise when explicitly entered into the model. The precise reason for this discrepancy is not known, but it suggests that for perception but not production, even the reference groups are not homogeneous.



(1)	Example stimuli for the rhyme decision task, which was designed to be a covert phoneme-decision task. The percentages refer to the degree to which the vowel [e:] was morphed to [ɛi]. All words were pseudowords to enable precise experimental control of the vowels without running into the Ganong effect (Ganong 1980).

Auditory word: [de:tə]	       
- Participant 1: 20\%
- Participant 2: 40\%
- Participant 3: 60\%
- Participant 4: 80\%
{\textrightarrow} does this rhyme with <grijte>?

Auditory word: [ble:tə]	     
- Participant 1: 40\%
- Participant 2: 60\%
- Participant 3: 80\%
- Participant 4: 20\%
{\textrightarrow} does this rhyme with <zete>?

(2)	Example stimuli for the word production task:
- nobelere
- pijn
- verschuil
- beul
},
	author = {Voeten, Cesko}
}
