Hanna Ruch

• University of Zurich

Contact linguistics is the overarching term for a highly diversified field with branches that connect to such widely divergent areas as historical linguistics, typology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and grammatical theory. Because of this diversification, there is a risk of fragmentation and lack of interaction between the different subbran...

This study investigates if and to what extent speakers change their vowel production after interacting with someone from a different dialect region. Phonetic accommodation was investigated for 14 mixed-dialect pairs in Swiss German. Vowels for each speaker pair were analysed acoustically before and after they interacted for about 20 minutes. Agent-...

In Andalusian Spanish, there is a well-documented sound change in which pre- has become post-aspiration in sequences of /s/ followed by voiceless stops. Here we investigate acoustically its synchronic basis across two age groups and two different regions of Andalusia that differ in the degree to which the sound change has advanced. For this purpose...

Listeners are able to quite accurately distinguish between different dialects of their native language, but little is known about the process of dialect identification and the phonetic cues listeners use to identify someone’s regional origin. This study examines how different segments, acoustic between-dialect distance, and the listeners’ knowledge...

This paper addresses the question whether listeners possess sociolinguistic knowledge of regional variation in a sound change affecting /s/ + voiceless stop sequences in Andalusian Spanish. We tested whether speakers from Seville and Granada were perceived as more Sevillian-sounding and as younger when a stimulus contained the novel phonetic varian...

The study of non-human animals, in particular primates, can provide essential insights into language evolution. A critical element of language is vocal production learning, i.e. learning how to produce calls. In contrast to other lineages such as songbirds, vocal production learning of completely new signals is strikingly rare in non-human primates...

The present study investigates the role of articulatory and perceptual factors in the change from pre- to post-aspiration in two varieties of Andalusian Spanish. In an acoustic study, the influence of stop type, speaker age, and variety on the production of pre- and post-aspiration was analyzed in isolated words produced by 24 speakers of a Western...

The study is concerned with the mechanisms by which pre- and post-aspiration are related synchronically and diachronically in Andalusian Spanish. An analysis of isolated word productions by 24 speakers of a Western Andalusian and by 24 of an Eastern Andalusian variety each divided into two age groups provided evidence for a sound change in progress...

Metathesis has often been described as abrupt and sporadic and thus as an exception to neogrammarian sound change (e.g. Wang 1969), while others suggested metatheses to be gradual, phonetically based developments (e.g. Blevins & Garrett 1998). Andalusian Spanish provides an opportunity to study this issue. As in many other Spanish varieties, in And...