This study focuses on the temporal analysis of stops /p b t d k ɡ/ and devoicing analysis of voiced stops /b d ɡ/ produced in different word positions by six native speakers of European Portuguese. The study explores acoustic properties related to voicing. The following acoustic properties were measured: voice onset time (VOT), stop duration, closure duration, release duration, voicing into closure duration, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of the following vowel. Results suggested that when [b d ɡ] were devoiced, the acoustic properties stop duration, closure duration, duration of the following vowel, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of voicing into closure were relevant for the voicing distinction. Implications for research and practice in speech and language therapy are discussed. Further investigation is needed to find how the productions analysed in the present study were perceived by listeners, specifically productions of devoiced stops.

Two words in present-day Hungarian, the conjunction tehát ‘that is’ and ‘consequently’ and the pronoun ilyen ‘like this’ seem to be undergoing a functional change, acquiring the function of fillers, while retaining their former lexical function, too. Twenty narratives were drawn from the Hungarian Spontaneous Speech Corpus (BEA), to analyze the acoustic-phonetic patterns of these words. Both words showed significant differences in duration depending on function. The first and second formant values of the conjunction tehát showed significant differences depending on whether it was used as a filler or in its original function as a conjunction. The formants of the stressed vowel in the pronoun ilyen did not show any differences with either males or females, but the second formant of the unstressed vowel, depending on function, showed significant variations with male subjects. Apparently, females make an unconscious distinction between the two functions only by varying the time structure of the word. Our data confirmed that these words are indeed undergoing a functional change, which is manifested in changes of their temporal patterns and, to some extent, in the articulation of their vowels.

This study is a formant-based investigation of the vowels of male speakers in 13 accents of the British Isles. It provides F1/F2 graphs (obtained with a semi-automatic method) which could be used as starting points for more thorough analyses. The article focuses on both phonetic realization and systemic phenomena, and it also provides detailed information on automatic formant measurements. The aim is to obtain an up-to-date picture of within- and between-accent vowel variation in the British Isles. F1/F2 graphs plot z-scored Bark-transformed formant frequencies, and values in Hertz are also provided. Along with the findings, a number of methodological issues are addressed.

Many languages have a phonological pattern of regressive voicing assimilation, according to which an obstruent is required to match a following obstruent in voicing (e.g. Russian, Sanskrit). This restriction on the distribution of categories has parallels in the phonetic fact that an obstruent has a longer interval of glottal pulsing when it occurs before a voiced sound than when it occurs before a voiceless sound. It is proposed that the phonological pattern arises diachronically through a reanalysis of the phonetic pattern, beginning with a tendency for listeners to identify an obstruent before another obstruent as matching the latter in voicing. This paper reports on two experiments designed to test premises of this account. A production study explores how obstruent voicing in English is affected by voicing in a following segment. A perception study explores how the identification of voicing categories is impacted by the acoustic effects of following segment context. It is found that listeners tend to identify a fricative as voiceless if it is drawn from the position before a voiceless obstruent, but that a following voiced segment has no significant effect on voicing class identification. Implications for the diachronic account of regressive voicing assimilation are discussed.

This year, 2010, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association and the 125th anniversary of the publishing of a journal by the Association. From 1886 through 1888, the journal had the title The Phonetic Teacher, rendered variably as Dhi Fonètik Tîtcer (1886–1887), dhə fənetik tîtcər (1887–1888), ðə fonetik tîtcər (1888). From 1889 to 1970, the name of the journal was Le Maître Phonétique (lə mɛːtr fɔnetik, revised in 1895 to lə mɛːtrə fɔnetik) in which articles and letters were usually published in phonetic transcription; hence, the journal is traditionally referred to as the ‘mf’.

This paper reports results of an acoustic study of stress in the Turkish dialect of the Northwest Caucasian language, Kabardian. Stressed syllables were found to have consistently higher fundamental frequency and characteristically greater duration and intensity than unstressed syllables. No evidence was found for secondary stresses. Schwa and, to a lesser extent, /ɐ/ were shown to undergo slight raising as their duration in unstressed syllables decreased. This gradient raising is likely due to coarticulatory overlap with adjacent consonants rather than a categorical shift in vowel quality. Considerations of articulatory effort rather than perceptual dispersion predict both the categorical alternation between stressed /aː/ and unstressed /ɐ/ in Kabardian and the non-categorical raising of schwa and /ɐ/ in unstressed syllables.

This study investigates the acoustic properties of ejective, voiced and voiceless aspirated stops in Georgian, a Caucasian language, and seeks to answer two questions: (i) Which acoustic features discriminate the three stop types? and (ii) Do Georgian stops undergo initial strengthening, and if so, is it syntagmatic or paradigmatic strengthening? Five female speakers were recorded reading words embedded in carrier phrases and stories. Acoustic measures include closure duration, voicing during the closure, voicing lag, relative burst intensity, spectral moment of bursts, phonation (H1-H2) and F0. Of these, voicing lag, voicing during the closure, mean burst frequency, H1-H2 and F0 could all be used to discriminate stop type, but stop types did not differ in closure duration or relative burst intensity. Georgian stops did show initial strengthening and showed only syntagmatic enhancement, not paradigmatic enhancement. Stops showed longer closure durations, longer voicing lags, and higher H1-H2 values in higher prosodic positions.

What is reproduced here must be as rare an item as any from the early years of the IPA – an unused membership application form for the decade 1910–1919. The section to be completed by the applicant is perforated, ready to be torn along the wavy line. The form is probably a token of the systematic and meticulous approach of the young Daniel Jones (1881–1967), who became Assistant Secretary to the Association in 1910. The clerical task of keeping track of the membership must have been considerable; in 1914, numbers peaked at 1,751, drawn from 40 countries (MacMahon 1986: 31).

The present study sets out to investigate variation due to gender, F0, and/or prosodic position in Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec (Oto-Manguean), a language with phonemically breathy, modal and creaky vowels, each associated with a tone. Male and female speakers produced words in five prosodic positions: isolation (with focus, F0 higher than sentence-medial position), initial (focused, high F0), isolation (without focus, mid-range F0), medial (mid-range F0), final (lower F0). Two acoustic measures of phonation, H1-H2 and H1-A3, were made for each vowel. Results were inconclusive as to whether one gender was creakier or breathier than the other, though they did suggest that there was a difference in the production of phonation. In addition, there was also a strong effect of F0 on phonation, but not of position independently of F0. While the three-way phonation contrast was present in all five prosodic positions, it was not always well-defined. The contrast was minimized in isolation with focus (high F0) and initial position (high F0). The results obtained indicate that there is variation in phonation, even in a language with contrastive phonation.

The (inter)dental approximant is a little-studied speech sound in the Philippines and Western Australia. In this paper, we document the articulation of the sound, providing acoustic and video data from Kagayanen and Limos Kalinga, respectively. The sound is attested in at least fifteen languages. It is contrastive in five Western Australian languages, while in the Philippines it generally patterns as an allophone of /l/ but has emerged recently as a separate phoneme due to contact. It arose independently in the two regions. The sound is easily describable in terms of values of phonological features or phonetic parameters. All of these factors argue for the inclusion of the sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The following two texts were published by the predecessor of our journal over half a century ago and illustrate the characteristic nature of its publications at that time.

Descriptive reports of South Wales English indicate front rounded realizations of the nurse vowel (e.g. Wells 1982; Collins & Mees 1990; Mees & Collins 1999; Walters 1999, 2001). However, the specific phonetic properties of the vowel are not depicted uniformly in these studies. In addition, they have relied entirely on auditory descriptions, rather than instrumental measurements. The study presented here is the first to provide a systematic acoustic and articulatory investigation of the nurse vowel in South Wales English, and to explore its relationship to realizations of Standard Southern British English /ɜː/ and Standard German /øː/. The results indicate systematic differences between the three vowels, with the South Wales English vowel produced with an open rounded lip posture, yet the acoustic characteristics of an unrounded front vowel. Implications for the notion of ‘front-rounding’ are discussed.

The reprinted text entitled ‘On the classification of stop consonants’ was written by J. C. Catford, in original phonetic transcription, for the 1939 January–March issue (vol. 65) of Le Maître Phonétique and is an example of the article de fond type of contribution. J. C. (Ian) Catford (1917–2009) studied phonetics with Daniel Jones, Pierre Fouché and Marguerite Durand. He founded the School of Applied Linguistics in Edinburgh in the early 1950s. In 1964, he was invited to the University of Michigan, where he headed the English Language Institute and the Laboratory of Communication Studies until his retirement in 1985.

Goizueta is a small town in northwestern Navarre, Spain, bordering Gipuzkoa. According to the most recent official figures, it has slightly over 800 inhabitants, about 95% of whom speak Basque (2001, Instituto de Estadística de Navarra). All inhabitants (except for young children) also speak Spanish. In the school system standard Basque and, to a lesser extent, Spanish are used. Older speakers (those born before 1970 or so) were educated exclusively in Spanish. The local Basque dialect, however, enjoys very high prestige among its speakers, and this is the linguistic variety that is most commonly used in everyday interaction within the town.

The reprinted text entitled ‘Dutch’ was written by Eli Fischer-Jørgensen and J. G. Talma-Schilthuis, in original phonetic transcription, for the 1948 January–June issue (vol. 89) of Le Maître Phonétique and is an example of the spécimen type of contribution. Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1911–2010) was a member of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen from 1933 and became Denmark's first Professor of Phonetics at the University of Copenhagen. Johanna Geertruida Talma-Schilthuis (1901–1984) studied with Daniel Jones in 1921.

‘In choosing between the various proposals that have been made for revising our alphabet, we've been guided by the following principles, which I think are admitted by most of our readers as essential to a practical system of phonetic spelling.’ (Passy 1888: 57)

JOHN CUNNISON ‘IAN’ CATFORD, IPA Council member and one of the great phoneticians, died peacefully on 6 October 2009. Catford was not only one of the best phoneticians; he was also a good, kind, honest human being. He always gave credit where and when credit was due. Catford first became seriously interested in phonetics when, at age 14, his parents took him to see a stage performance of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. From that time until his death, he maintained a professional interest in phonetics and linguistics. Soon after seeing Pygmalion, he found a copy of A Primer of Phonetics by Henry Sweet in a second-hand bookstore in Edinburgh. It became his ‘bible’, and over the next two years he read every book on phonetics and linguistics he found in the Edinburgh Public Library. About the same time, he started keeping notebooks on his ideas and phonetic observations.