32.2603, Review: Phonetics; Phonology: Sands (2020)

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Subject: 32.2603, Review: Phonetics; Phonology: Sands (2020)

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Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2021 19:10:19
From: Michael Cahill [Mike_Cahill at sil.org; mike_cahill at sil.org]
Subject: Click Consonants

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36721077


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-3151.html

EDITOR: Bonny  Sands
TITLE: Click Consonants
SERIES TITLE: Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory
PUBLISHER: Brill
YEAR: 2020

REVIEWER: Michael C. Cahill, SIL International

SUMMARY

In a book titled “Click Consonants,” with no other subtitle or other
indication of limitations, one would expect to find all of one’s questions and
ideas about clicks answered. These would include both naïve and more
sophisticated questions like: What exactly ARE clicks? Are we talking about
“real contrastive consonants” or just noises? How many kinds of clicks are
there? How rare are phonemic clicks? Can they be allophones of some other
consonant? What are the details of their articulation and acoustics? Do they
function just like other consonants in a phonology, or do they exhibit
behaviors as strange as their production? Do they have formal features in
common with other consonants, and if so, do they interact with those?
Historically, how did clicks develop? If they disappear, do they have common
reflexes? How do children learn to produce clicks, and do they develop later
than other consonants? (I listed these before I read the book.)

Almost all of these are addressed in this volume to a greater or lesser
degree. 

Chapter 1, “Click Consonants: an Introduction,” by Bonny Sands (73 pages),
defines the parameters of the book, defining and describing the five basic
click types – (ʘ, ǀ, ǁ, ǃ, ǂ) – bilabial, dental, lateral, (post-)alveolar,
palatal. Sands reviews the tremendous variety of detailed modifications these
five symbols can cover, as well as click varieties not covered by these
symbols, illustrating with waveforms, spectrograms, palatograms, and
high-speed ultrasound traces. She then examines the “accompaniments” that the
basic click types can have – involving additional gestures such as aspiration,
voicing, nasalization, various dorsal accompaniments, and so on. (A “delayed
aspirated click” was a new one for me.) She also reviews proposals for
representing clicks with accompaniments in orthographies, both practical and
for facilitating cross-linguistic comparisons. The areal and familial
distributions of the couple of dozen existing click languages are presented,
along with some caveats as to defining a “click language” in terms of lexical
frequency and varying dialects. She reviews the types of studies that have
been done on clicks; phonetic studies predominate, but also other types of
studies, which are discussed in more detail in other chapters in this volume.
The 20 pages of references, much more extensive than other chapters, reflect
the wide range of the issues discussed in this thorough introductory chapter. 

Chapter 2, “Click Phonology,” the second-to-longest chapter (54 pages), by
William Bennett, notes that while the phonetics of click articulation are
increasingly well-understood, phonological representations have lagged behind.
 Attempting to relate click accompaniments to more traditional phonological
classes, for example, is a challenge, to put it mildly. Documentation of
alternations, a main source of evidence for phonological identity of other
segments, is “sparse” for clicks, and Bennett reviews alternations of clicks
and non-clicks, including loss and replacement of clicks, modification of
accompaniments, and harmony, in a few languages. These all deal directly with
clicks, but he also presents data showing the effect that clicks can have on
other surrounding sounds, as well as the distributional restriction that
commonly limits clicks to word-initial position. Unfortunately, these do not
provide the degree of robust evidence we would like to have for phonological
representation of clicks. Another source of information is typological
patterns, e.g. nasality and place, which indicate that nasality in clicks is
not the same as nasality in other segments. How to phonologically represent
the distinction between clicks and non-clicks, whether they are unitary or a
cluster, has sparked a few proposals, and Bennett discusses the cluster
approaches in some detail. The advantage of a cluster analysis is that it
reduces the number of independent units, but its explanatory power is small,
and the question is far from settled. 

Chapter 3, “The Interaction between Click Consonants and Tone in Tsua,” by
Timothy Mathes (26 pages), discusses a topic I hadn’t previously considered:
tone and clitics. Depression of tone by voiced obstruents is well-known, by
aspirated stops less common, and by /h/ rarer still, but all three occur in
Tsua. Tsua has dental, palatal, alveolar, and lateral clicks, with possible
voicing, nasal, and aspirated accompaniments. Palatal and alveolar clicks lack
some of these accompaniments, and these are the click types that are most
often replaced by stops historically. Mathes shows that tone is depressed
after voiced or aspirated clicks, with cross-linguistic comparisons and pitch
traces. However, some expected pitch depressions do not occur, and these are
summarized in the hypothesis “Tsua voiced obstruents that were nasal sonorants
or nasalized clicks historically are not depressors synchronically.” This
brings out the importance of comparative lexical data, and also raises
questions about why aspiration raises pitch in some languages and lowers it in
others.

Chapter 4 is “Click Loss and Click Insertion in Fwe,” by Hilde Gunnink (22
pages). Fwe has only 87 known click words, all listed in an Appendix. Voicing
and nasality are contrastive in these, but notably, click TYPE is not – the
place of articulation varies from speaker to speaker, and thus in Fwe, click
types do not contrast. Also interesting is that clicks can vary with velar
obstruents, retaining their features of voicing and nasality, thus ǀ ~ k, ᵍǀ ~
g,  and ᵑǀ ~ ŋ, with all speakers exhibiting this to some degree. However,
these synchronic substitutions are not the full story; clicks historically
have been inserted or lost which do not follow the click/velar pattern.

Chapter 5, “Perception of Non-native Click Consonant Contrasts: Implications
for Theories of Speech Perception,” by Catharine Best (30 pages), notes
findings that may surprise those who have not followed her other papers. After
reviewing the high perceptual salience of clicks and characteristics of three
models of speech perception (including her own Perceptual Assimilation Model),
she presents experimental findings on click perception, finding that speakers
of non-click languages actually do quite well in distinguishing click types,
though they do not identify them as speech sounds. Speakers of click language
A did identify clicks from click language B as consonants, but interpreted
them in light of their own language’s click inventory, and thus actually did
less well on discriminating click varieties than non-click language speakers.
Studies on both adults and infants were described in detail.

Chapter 6, “Studying Clicks using Real-Time MRI,” by the team of Michael
Proctor, Yinghus Zhu, Adam Lammert, Asterios Toutios, Bonny Sands, and
Shrikanth Narayanan (30 pages), reports their initial results from using
real-time Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rtMRI) to study the details of the
gestures of click production in Khoekhoegowab,  siSwati, and the
paralinguistic production of a “beatbox” musician (one subject each). The
imaging reveals details of how rarefaction is achieved, in terms of location
and movement of articulators, including different parts of the tongue. The
rtMRI has advantages over other imaging methods (palatography, ultrasound) in
that a fuller image of articulators is available. A good number of rtMRI
images are presented. 

Chapter 7, “Recording and Measuring Acoustic Attributes of Clicks,” by Sean
Fulop and Richard Wright (34 pages), is a bit of a field elicitation
description for how to deal with clicks, and much of this is useful for
non-clicks as well. They start with what qualities to look for in selection of
language consultants, and practical tips for elicitation, especially wordlists
(not as natural as spontaneous group conversation, but more controlled).  They
indicate what parameters in Praat (largely applicable to other software as
well) are helpful for maximum usefulness in examining clicks. The major part
of this chapter shows how different graphs (exemplified) can aid in
determining place of articulation, nasality, voicing, murmur, glottalization,
and distinguishing clusters. More technical recording considerations are
included in an Appendix.

Chapter 8 is the brief (16 pages) “Nasalized Accompaniments in Proto-Khoe and
in Khwe,” by E.D. Elderkin. Khwe and some other languages have a nasalized
click, where nasalization persists until the onset of the following vowel, and
a prenasalized click, where nasalization ceases before the click is released.
These are in complementary distribution, with the fully nasalized click
occurring when the rhyme of the syllable is nasal. Proto-Khoe is reconstructed
with one nasal click, and reflexes in daughter languages are presented. 

Chapter 9, “Click Loss in Koe-Kwadi,” is the first of two chapters by
Anne-Maria Fehn (44 pages). It first gives a survey of studies and background
on click loss (historical replacement of a click with a non-click), including
phonetics of loss (with discussion of the term “weakening”). She then moves to
a thorough and data-rich discussion of what Fehn calls “most likely the
best-known case of click loss in the literature,” the loss of alveolar (ǃ) and
palatal (ǂ) in Kalahari Khoe, with reflexes retaining features of
accompaniments (*ǃ > k, *gǃ > g, *ǃh > kh, etc.). It also presents the
lesser-known cases of the virtually extinct but previously recorded Kwadi and
also Sesfonein Damara, which also exemplifies retention of a secondary
articulation when dropping a click. Fehn ends with a discussion of
sociolinguistic factors that affect click loss. 

Chapter 10, “Click Replacement and Loss in Ju,” also by Anne-Maria Fehn (19
pages), follows the previous chapter’s foundation, but with different
languages, the Ju cluster. Proto-Ju had five clicks, including the retroflex
click (ǃǃ), and these are reduced to four in both the Southeastern and
Northwestern varieties that are focused on here (the Central varieties
retained all five.)

Chapter 11 is “Production of Click Sounds in Acquired Apraxia of Speech: a
View to the Motoric Nature of the Disorder,” (28 pages) by Anita van der Merwe
and Mollie Steyn. Apraxia of speech (AOS) is a speech motor planning disorder,
and so the complexity of articulation of clicks could shed light on the
details of such motor planning. After discussing what AOS is, the paper
presents a study which examined in narrow phonetic detail the production of
three click types in Zulu, by a speaker who has AOS. Total click duration,
click burst duration, and click release were measured. The speaker pronounced
each stimulus incorrectly at least once, and waveforms and spectrograms show
the comparison between this subject and a “typical” Zulu speaker. Distortion,
deletion and substitution of the click were the types of errors produced,
similar to other AOS studies. It is suggested that higher motor complexity of
the task (of clicks) contributed to the high rate of errors. 

Chapter 12 is “The ArtiVark Click Study: Documenting Click Production and
Substitution Strategies by Learners in a Large Phonetic Training and Vocal
Tract Imaging study,” by Scott Moisik, and Dan Dediu (33 pages). This study,
using MRI and intraoral scanning, aims to determine how vocal tract shape
(variable across individuals) influences the ability to learn to produce
clicks. (It has been suggested that Khoisan speakers have a palate shape that
is favorable for this, and this may help explain the geographical/populational
distribution of clicks.) Participants were taught how to produce intervocalic
clicks (aǀa and aǃa), with variable success rates. Quite detailed description
of individuals and a multiplicity of MRI graphics yielded a great deal of
information on the mechanisms that learners employ to produce clicks. However,
the original question of interrelatedness of hard palate shape and ease of
learning clicks still remains, with the investigators planning further
studies.

Chapter 13, “Notes on Child Acquisition of Clicks in Hadza,” by Kirk Miller,
very briefly (4 pages) notes informal observations by a native speaker that
children learn at least some clicks before they learn /s/. Clicks are assumed
to be marked and thus expected to be acquired late, but the fact that clicks
are not learned late has implications for theories on markedness that depend
on children’s acquisition ages.

Chapter 14, “Paralinguistic Use of Clicks in Chad,” by Florian Lionnet, (16
pages) brings up the point that clicks are used outside the phonemic inventory
of a language. As such, these are not used in individual words, but in normal
conversations. In the Laal language, he notes a dental click that expresses
negation or a negative feeling, and a lateral click which expresses approval
or encouragement to continue speaking. A “back-released velar click,” not one
of the basic click types and not mentioned by any other contributor, has the
same functions as the lateral click and has been noted by a few others (I have
heard this in Ghana myself). Finally, a “bilabial fricated” click expresses
disapproval. He concludes with a reference to the WALS database list of other
African languages with paralinguistic clicks (which do not seem to be 
languages which have them as part of their consonantal inventory).

The brief (6 pages) Chapter 15, “False Alarms: Spurious Reports of Click
Consonants,” by Kirk Miller, first lists some languages constructed for
science fiction scenarios. The main source of false alarms that he documents,
however, is when either the public, or in some cases, linguists of the past,
have confused clicks with ejectives. 

There are also two useful indices: one of languages mentioned, and a general
one that lists both topics and people.

EVALUATION

Does this volume answer the somewhat naïve questions I raised at the
beginning? Mostly, yes. There is a great deal of phonetic detail in these
chapters, enough to satisfy all but the most die-hard enthusiast. The
phonology is admittedly less advanced, and information on child language
acquisition is sparse. There is a good deal of historical discussion, but most
of it deals with click loss, with very little of the origins of clicks, except
for Fehn’s mention (p292) that the underlying assumption is that clicks are “a
relic from early human languages that has been retained in small pockets of
eastern and southern Africa, but was lost in the majority of the world’s other
languages.” There are also a few mentions of bilabial clicks having their
origins in labial-velar stops, but these are optimistic at best and some of
the mentions misrepresent the primary references. 

Some chapters are summaries of knowledge that would be suitable for a
Handbook, while others are language-specific enough, even first reports of
studies, that they would feel at home as journal articles. A valuable
contribution of a volume of this sort is that it points to primary sources for
further information, and all of the chapters do this well. 

Suggestions for improvement are few. The volume would have benefited from more
cross-referencing between chapters. Some authors (Bennett, Gunnink at least,
as well as Sands’ Introduction) did this a bit, but not all. Also, a list of
typological implicational inventories would have been nice. What is the most
common click type, and if a language has click type A, what are the chances of
its having click type B or C? Fehn’s Figure 9.1 comes close, with a useful
chart of 18 languages with their click types and frequencies. 

In terms of production, the book is well edited – I did not find any
typographical errors (though if such were in the detailed phonetic
transcriptions, these would not be apparent on first glance!). The color
included in many of the graphics and diagrams was quite helpful in reading
these easily – and much appreciated (though it no doubt contributed to the
$166 price tag for either hardback or e-book).

This summary review does not begin to do justice to the depth and detail of
the contributions to this volume. This is definitely a state of the art book.
At least some of the issues on clicks are not universally accepted or settled,
so for some of the points, this cannot be called a summary of accepted truth
as would be typical in a “handbook” type of publication. Still, for those
wanting an in-depth look at many of the issues regarding clicks, including
some in-depth case studies of individual languages, this volume will be a very
useful place to look.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Michael Cahill (Ph.D. Ohio State University) has been interested in
multiply-articulated consonants for some time, though concentrating mostly on
labial-velar obstruents. He also has interests in tone, especially in African
languages. Finally, as SIL International's Orthography Services Coordinator,
he is learning more and more about the complex interactions of linguistic and
of non-linguistic factors in newly-developed orthographies.





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