The discovery of 5,500 Homo heidelbergensis fossil specimens at the Sima de los Huesos archaeological site in Spain has opened up the opportunity for research to be conducted on the vocal capabilities of this species. Previous research has revealed that the range of vowel sounds an individual can produce, known as the vowel space, is directly affected by the dimensions of the vocal tract. The vowel spaces of two hominins, Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis, have been reconstructed through previous research. However, the vowel space of Homo heidelbergensis has not yet been reconstructed. In this research, I aim to explore how the dimensions of the Homo heidelbergensis vocal tract affect the vowel space of that species. This was pursued by measuring the craniospinal dimensions of five Homo heidelbergensis specimens through three dimensional imaging software. When measurements were unattainable due to limitations in the fossil record, regression equations were used to predict missing measurements. By doing so, the vowel space of this species was reconstructed, and crucial information into the vocal capabilities of this close human ancestor was revealed.

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State-of-the-art speaker identification and verification (SIV) systems provide near perfect performance under clean conditions. However, their performance deteriorates in the presence of background noise. Many feature compensation, model compensation and signal enhancement techniques have been proposed to improve the noise-robustness of SIV systems. Most of these techniques require extensive training, are computationally expensive or make assumptions about the noise characteristics. There has not been much focus on analyzing the relative importance, or speaker-discriminative power of different speech zones, particularly under noisy conditions. In this work, an automatic, text-independent speaker identification (SI) system and speaker verification (SV) system is proposed using Line Spectral Frequency (LSF) features. The performance of the proposed SI and SV systems are evaluated under various types of background noise. A score-level fusion based technique is implemented to extract complementary information from static and dynamic LSF features. The proposed score-level fusion based SI and SV systems are found to be more robust under noisy conditions. In addition, we investigate the speaker-discriminative power of different speech zones such as vowels, non-vowels and transitions. Rapidly varying regions of speech such as consonant-vowel transitions are found to be most speaker-discriminative in high SNR conditions. Steady, high-energy vowel regions are robust against noise and are hence most speaker-discriminative in low SNR conditions. We show that selectively utilizing features from a combination of transition and steady vowel zones further improves the performance of the score-level fusion based SI and SV systems under noisy conditions. / Master of Science

This thesis analyzes the phonological and morphological nativisation of English loans in the Tonga language. The contact situation between English and Tonga, in Zimbabwe, facilitates transference of lexical items between the two languages. From having been one of the most widely used languages of the world, English has developed into the most influential donor of words to other languages such as Tonga. The infiltration of English words into the Tonga lexical inventory led to the adoption and subsequent nativisation of English words by the native Tonga speakers. The main deposit of English words into Tonga is the direct interaction between English and Tonga speakers. However, it is sometimes via other languages like Shona, Ndebele, Venda and Shangani. In the 21st century, English’s contribution to the vocabulary of Tonga became more widely spread, now covering a large proportion of the Tonga language’s lexical inventory. The fact that English is the medium of instruction, in Zimbabwe, language of technology, education, media, new administration, health, music, new religion and economic transactions means that it is regarded as the high variety language with coercive loaning powers. Words from English are then adopted and nativised in the Tonga language, since Tonga asserts itself an independent language that can handle loans on its own. The main focus of this study therefore, is to try and account for the phonological and morphological behavior and changes that take place in English words that enter into Tonga. Analyzing phonological processes that are employed during nativisation of loan words entails analyzing how Tonga speakers handle aspects of English language such as diphthongs, triphthongs, cluster consonants, CVC syllable structure and sounds in repairing unacceptable sequences in Tonga. The research also accounts for the handling of morphological differences between the two languages. This entails looking at how competence and ordered-rule framework are harmonized by Tonga speakers in repairing conflicting features at morphological level. Since the two languages have different morphological patterns, the research analyzes the repairing strategies to handle singular and plural noun prefixes, tenses and particles, which are morphological components of words. The researcher appreciates that the native Tonga speakers have robust intuitions on the proper way to nativise words. / African Languages / D.Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

Thesis (DLitt (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation is an experimental investigation of vowel duration. It focuses on phonetic and phonological aspects of vowel duration in Civili, and African language spoken in Gabon and some of its neighboring countries. It attempts to bring new insights into the phenomenon of vowel lengthening, and to assess the implictions of these insights for standardizing the orthography of this language. ...

本論文為以共振峰頻率資料來研究海陸腔客語母音音質之聲學研究。 語言學的文獻中，以共振峰頻率資料來研究世界上各種語言的母音的音質已經有相當豐富的文獻，在過去五十年來，前人在客語的語音及音韻系統上已經有豐富的研究成果。但以聲學資料來對海陸客語做描述的文獻相當缺乏。 本研究的受試者為居住在新竹縣新埔鎮，六位以海陸腔客家話為母語的人士，其中有三名男性及三名女性。本研究使用了32個測試字，包含了單元音、雙合元音及三合元音。語音資料是利用KAY CSL 4100 (KAY Electronics)來做分析。本研究測試字包含的音節結構有:CV, CVV, CVVC, CVC, 以及CVVV。測試字在實驗的過程中，被受試者單獨發音，或是放在句子中間。在實驗資料完成分析後，我們以Origin 6.0軟體繪出海陸腔客語母音的聲學空間圖。 根據供振峰研究資料，本研究得到以下有關海陸腔客語母音音質的表現。首先關於單元音，海陸腔客語共有六個單元音: [i], [e], [ɨ], [a], [o], 以及 [u]。其次，海陸腔客語共有十一個雙元音: [ie], [ia], [io], [iu], [eu], [ai], [au], [oi], [ui], [ue], 以及 [ua]。我們比較單元音及雙元音的聲學空間圖(vowel space)後，發現相同的母音在雙母音的環境下，由於受到鄰近母音發音位置的影響，在聲學空間上，比起在單母音的時候，變的更高低，或更前或後。第三，三母音[iai], [iau]和[uai]在聲譜圖上的表現，第一個母音[i]和[u]都比其後的兩個母音，長度來的相對的短一些，表現很像是滑音[j]和[w]。 最後，本研究以共振峰聲學頻率的形式描述及記錄了當代海陸腔客語母音的音質，前人的研究中，以楊時逢(1952)最能說明本研究所提供的聲學資料。希望這些資料能對海陸腔客語母音的研究有所貢獻。 / This thesis is an acoustic study that investigates the vowel quality of Hai-lu Hakka vowels with formant frequency data. The acoustic method has been widely applied to the study of vowel quality of languages worldwide. In the past 50 years, Hakka researchers have yielded rich results in phonological system and phonetic description of Hakka, but there are relatively fewer research focus on the acoustic properties and characteristics of vowel phones in Hai-lu Hakka. The subjects of this study included three male and three female native Hai-lu Hakka speakers. Testing items used in this study were 32 syllables that involve monophthongs, diphthongs, and triphthongs. The speech data were analyzed by using KAY CSL 4100 (KAY Electronics). The data discussed in this study were testing items produced in citation form and sentence form, including the following syllable structures: CV, CVC, CVV, CVVC, and CVVV. The vowel qualities of Hai-lu Hakka vowels were measured and analyzed, and the acoustic vowel space of Hai-lu Hakka is plotted by the software Origin 6.0. Several results concerning the vowel quality of Hai-lu Hakka vowels were reported based on the formant frequency data. Firstly, there are six monophthongs in the vowel system of Hailu Hakka: [i], [e], [ɨ], [a], [o], and [u]. Secondly, there are eleven diphthongs in the vowel system of Hai-lu Hakka : [ie], [ia], [io], [iu], [eu], [ai], [au], [oi], [ui], [ue], and [ua]. By comparing the relative position of the vowel in a diphthong and the corresponding vowel as in a monophthong, we found that the second vowel in a diphthong tend to be higher or lower, more fontal or back, and it is possibly due to the coarticulatory influence of the adjacent phones.the Thirdly, as shown in the spectrogram of the three tripthongs [iai], [iau] and [uai], the duration of [i] in [iai55], [i] in [tʰiau55] and [u] in [kuai55] are relatively shorter than the rest two vowels in the same syllable, as [ai] in [iai55], [au] in [tʰiau55] and [ai] in [kuai55]. In these CVVV syllables, [u] and [i] are similar to glides or so-called semi-vowels, or approximants [j] and [w] as shown in the spectrogram. Finally, the vowel system in Yang (1957) is more suitable for accounting for the data in this study. Hopefully, the vowel formant data presented in this study will contribute to the study of vowels in Hakka.

This thesis analyzes the phonological and morphological nativisation of English loans in the Tonga language. The contact situation between English and Tonga, in Zimbabwe, facilitates transference of lexical items between the two languages. From having been one of the most widely used languages of the world, English has developed into the most influential donor of words to other languages such as Tonga. The infiltration of English words into the Tonga lexical inventory led to the adoption and subsequent nativisation of English words by the native Tonga speakers. The main deposit of English words into Tonga is the direct interaction between English and Tonga speakers. However, it is sometimes via other languages like Shona, Ndebele, Venda and Shangani. In the 21st century, English’s contribution to the vocabulary of Tonga became more widely spread, now covering a large proportion of the Tonga language’s lexical inventory. The fact that English is the medium of instruction, in Zimbabwe, language of technology, education, media, new administration, health, music, new religion and economic transactions means that it is regarded as the high variety language with coercive loaning powers. Words from English are then adopted and nativised in the Tonga language, since Tonga asserts itself an independent language that can handle loans on its own. The main focus of this study therefore, is to try and account for the phonological and morphological behavior and changes that take place in English words that enter into Tonga. Analyzing phonological processes that are employed during nativisation of loan words entails analyzing how Tonga speakers handle aspects of English language such as diphthongs, triphthongs, cluster consonants, CVC syllable structure and sounds in repairing unacceptable sequences in Tonga. The research also accounts for the handling of morphological differences between the two languages. This entails looking at how competence and ordered-rule framework are harmonized by Tonga speakers in repairing conflicting features at morphological level. Since the two languages have different morphological patterns, the research analyzes the repairing strategies to handle singular and plural noun prefixes, tenses and particles, which are morphological components of words. The researcher appreciates that the native Tonga speakers have robust intuitions on the proper way to nativise words. / African Languages / D.Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

In this paper an attempt will be made to offer a partial history of the three major languages of ancient Peru: Puquina, Aimara and Quechua, postulating their initial settlement from which they started spreading, until their encounter in the Central-Southern Andes during the Late Intermediate Period. It is proposed that the Incas passed through two stages of language substitution: the first from Puquina to Aimara and then from Aimara to Quechua. Linguistic, historical and archaeological evidence will be advanced to support the hypothesis. / En la presente contribución intentaremos bosquejar una parte de la historia de las tres lenguas mayores del antiguo Perú: el puquina, el aimara y el quechua, proponiendo los emplazamientos iniciales a partir de los cuales se expandieron hasta confluir en los Andes centro-sureños durante el Periodo Intermedio Tardío. Proponemos que los incas, a lo largo de su dominación, pasaron por dos etapas de mudanza idiomática: primeramente del puquina al aimara y, luego, del aimara al quechua. En apoyo de las hipótesis planteadas echamos mano de las evidencias de carácter lingüístico, histórico y arqueológico disponibles.