An Acoustic Analysis of the Vowels of Mebêngôkre

This project will be conducted by Myriam Lapierre (University of Ottawa), and will be supervised by Professor Andrés Salanova (University of Ottawa) and Professor Luciana Storto (Universidade de São Paulo). The aim of the project is to provide a thorough phonetic analysis
of the vowels of Mebengokre, a Jê language spoken in the Brazilian Amazon. Mebengokre has 17 vowels (Salanova, 2001), which is a strikingly large system. The methedology involves obtaining recordings of spoken words during an experimental task, and the analysis involves measuring the values of several acoustic cues that serve in identifying vowels. This data will be used in order to explore the theoretical implications of such a large vowel inventory by comparing the data from Mebengokre with the predictions made by the Dispersion-Focalization Theory (Schwartz et al. 1997, 2005), which predicts the organization of vowel systems based on the idea that different vowels are perceptually distinct and that phonological contrasts exploit acoustic differences that are more salient to the human ear.

Faculty Supervisor:

Andrés Salanova

Student:

Partner:

Universidade de São Paulo

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

University:

University of Ottawa

Program:

Globalink Research Award