Pronunciation change in SENĆOŦEN: A acoustic study of /k, kw, kw’, q, q’, qw qw’/ across generations of speakers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper presents an acoustic study of /k, kw, kw’, q, q’, qw qw’/ in SENĆOŦEN, a dialect of North Straits Salish. The “K series”—as these sounds are collectively called—are of particular concern among speakers, the perception being that both the uvular ~ velar and the plain ~ ejective contrasts may be disappearing. To understand how these contrasts are currently being realized, 12 speakers (3 speakers x 4 generations) were recorded pronouncing 20 isolated words (7 consonants x 2–3 words). Based on auditory impression and preliminary acoustic analysis (PLACE: spectral composition of bursts/frication; formant transitions into adjacent vowels; VOICING: VOT; jitter; shimmer; amplitude rise time), the velar ~ uvular contrast is indeed less consistent among younger speakers than among their elders; there is also a lot of variability in the plain ~ ejective contrast, among all speakers. In addition, the plain ~ ejective contrast interacts with the velar ~ uvular contrast for some speakers: /k kw/ and /q qw/ are merged and relatively fronted ([k kw]); /kw’/ and /qw’/ are merged and relatively backed ([qw’]). These realizations likely reflect a combination articulatory/aerodynamic considerations and orthographic influences (e.g., /kw’/ = ‘Q’; /qw/ = ‘Ḱ’).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".