110 research outputs found
Palatalisation of /s/ in Afrikaans
No full textThis article reports on the investigation of the acoustic characteristics of the Afrikaans voiceless alveolar fricative /s/[1]. As yet, a palatal [ʃ] for /s/ has been reported only in a limited case, namely where /s/ is followed by palatal /j/, for example in the phrase is jy (‘are you’), pronounced as [ə-ʃəi]. This seems to be an instance of regressive coarticulation, resulting in coalescence of basic /s/ and /j/. The present study revealed that, especially in the pronunciation of young, white Afrikaans-speakers, /s/ is also palatalised progressively when preceded by /r/ in the coda cluster /rs/, and, to a lesser extent, also in other contexts where /r/ is involved, for example across syllable and word boundaries. Only a slight presence of palatalisation was detected in the production of /s/ in the speech of the white, older speakers of the present study. This finding might be indicative of a definite change in the Afrikaans consonant system. A post hoc reflection is offered here on the possible presence of /s/-fronting, especially in the speech of the younger females. Such pronunciation could very well be a prestige marker for affluent speakers of Afrikaans.[1] Given that this is a study of the phonetic characteristics of the voiceless alveolar and palatal sibilant fricatives of Afrikaans, these two consonants as well as combinations thereof are presented with the phonetic symbols in square brackets [ ], except when they are specifically being dealt with in a phonemic sense, in which case the conventional slash symbols / / will be used. This is applicable to other characters too, such as the palatal fricative [j] in the next sentence. [Please click on "Supplementary files" in the ARTICLE TOOLS sidebar on the right for the accompanying video (Figure 3)]</div
DIE OMSTREDE ROL VAN JAC PIENAAR IN DIE REBELLIE VAN 1914-1915
No full textThe controversial role of Jac Pienaar in the Rebellion of 1914-1915 J.J. (Jac) Pienaar was one of the lesser known leaders of the rebellion. However, behind the scenes he played a significant role both in the planning phase and in the actual rebellion itself. He was the only rebel general to plead guilty on all five counts of high treason. This study shows that he was also the only rebel leader to cooperate with Prof Leo Fouché, author of the Blue Book (UG 10-\u2715) on the rebellion. This he never admitted. In fact, his written statement to Fouché casts the first light on the planned uprising of 15 September 1914 while the relevant chapter of the Blue Book is based largely on Pienaar\u27s declaration. Unlike for example Sarel Alberts and General C.F. Beyers, Pienaar was a convinced rebel. This article attempts to determine the motives for his somewhat controversial actions.
J.J. (Jac) Pienaar is een van die minder bekende rebelleleiers. Tog het hy agter die skerms \u27n betekenisvolle rol in die beplanningsfase en in die opstand self gespeel. Voorts was hy die enigste rebellegeneraal wat op al vyf aanklagte van hoogverraad skuldig gepleit het. Uit dié studie blyk dit ook dat hy die enigste rebelleleier was wat met prof Leo Fouché, skrywer van die Blouboek (UG 10-\u2715) oor die Rebellie, saamgewerk het - iets wat Pienaar nooit erken het nie. Trouens, sy verklaring aan Fouché werp die eerste lig op die beplande opstand van 15 September 1914 en die betrokke hoofstuk in die Blouboek is grootliks op die Pienaar-verklaring gebaseer. Pienaar was, anders as byvoorbeeld Sarel Alberts en generaal C.F. Beyers, \u27n oortuigde rebel. Hierdie artikel poog om die motiewe vir sy enigsins omstrede optrede te bepaal
Autshumato Setswana Monolingual Corpora
No full textSetswana monolingual corpus as a deliverable of the Autshumato project. The data is given as a UTF-8 text file; with each sentence on a new line.
NOTE: There is a newer version for English-Setswana Monolingual Corpus. See https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12185/58
Autshumato English-Setswana Parallel Corpora
No full textAligned English-Setswana parallel corpus. This set contains data that was translated by professional translators, data that was sourced as translated file pairs from translators and data obtained from Government websites and documents. The data is given as six separate UTF-8 text files; with each aligned sentence pair on a new line
'n Akoestiese en artikulatoriese analise van die /r/ in Malmesbury-Afrikaans
No full textMA (Linguistics and Literary Theory), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2017In hierdie studie word daar spesifiek gefokus op die /r/-klank in Afrikaans van die Malmesbury-streek. Daar word tussen slegs twee variasies onderskei, naamlik ʼn alveolêre /r/ en ʼn bry-/r/. ʼn Bry-/r/ sluit enige variasie van /r/ in wat nie ʼn alveolêre tril is nie.
Die verskil tussen die tweede en derde formante (F2 en F3) word wyd gerapporteer in studies van die /r/-foneem. Omdat die tong na die agterkant van die mondholte toe skuif en die agterkant van die tong oplig wanneer ʼn bry-/r/ gevorm word, behoort ʼn bry-/r/ ʼn laer F2 en hoër F3 waarde te hê as wat ʼn alveolêre /r/ sal hê. Uit die metings wat in hierdie studie gedoen is, blyk dit egter dat die berekening van die verskil tussen F2 en F3 nie die beste metode vir hierdie studie is nie.
Vervolgens is die duur van die /r/-foneme gemeet. Hierdie analises toon groot prakties beduidende verskille tussen die lengte van die alveolêre /r/ en bry-/r/ en kan die meting van die duur word as ʼn goeie metode vir analises van /r/-klanke.
Die laaste akoestiese analise wat in hierdie studie gedoen is, is die meting van die vier spektrale momente nl. gravitasie-middelpunt (“centre of gravity”), standaardafwyking (“standard deviation”), kurtosis en skeefheid (“skewness”). Hierdie spektrale momente word gewoonlik gebruik in die analise van frikatiewe en is tot dusver nog nie regtig in studies van /r/ gebruik nie, maar aangesien /r/-klanke sommige belangrike akoestiese eienskappe met frikatiewe deel, was dit moontlik dat dit ook hier van toepassing kan wees. Uit die analises het dit geblyk die spektrale momente ʼn besonder vrugbare analiseermetode is.
Om die analise van die /r/-foneem verder artikulatories te verryk word ʼn gevallestudie ten slotte op ʼn enkele spreker gedoen met behulp van ʼn ultraklankbeeldaftaster om die posisie van die tong tydens die artikulasie van ʼn bry-/r/ aan te toon en te bespreek.
The /r/ sound of Afrikaans in the Malmesbury region is the main focus of this study. A distinction is made between only two variations of /r/, namely an alveolar /r/ and a grout /r/. A grout /r/ includes any variation of /r/ that is not an alveolar trill.
The difference between the second and third formants (F2 and F3) are widely reported in studies of the /r/ phoneme. Because the tongue moves to the top and back of the oral cavity when a grout /r/ is formed, a grout /r/ should have a lower F2 and higher F3 value as an alveolar /r/ have. From the measurements taken in this study, it appears that the difference between F2 and F3 is not the best indicator of the alleged difference between the two sounds.
Subsequently the duration of the /r/ phoneme was measured. These analyses show great practical significant differences between the length of the alveolar /r/ and grout /r/ and can be regarded as a good method for the analysis of /r/ sounds.
The last acoustic analysis that was done in this study, was the measurement of the four spectral moments i.e. centre of gravity, standard deviation, kurtosis and skewness. These spectral moments are usually used in the analysis of fricatives and thus far not really in studies of /r/. Because /r/ sounds share some important acoustic properties with fricatives, it was possible for it to be applicable in this study. From the analysis, it appeared that the spectral moments are a particularly good method of analysis.
To further enrich the analysis of the /r/ phoneme acoustically a case study is done on a single speaker using a ultrasound scanner to determine and discuss the position of the tongue during the articulation of a grout /r/.Master
Linguistically enriched corpora for conjunctively written South African languages
No full textThis resource contains linguistically annotated data for four official South African languages with a conjunctive orthography from the Nguni family (isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu and Siswati) as well as English. The data set is parallel for all five languages and the Nguni languages have been annotated for three different types of linguistic information: morphology, part-of-speech and lemmas. We have also included the protocols and tagsets used during annotation
PHONAAS
No full textPHONAAS is a graphical user interface (GUI) tool, written in Perl and GTK2, using the R programming language and PRAAT to extract vowel formant data
W-NORM
No full textW-NORM is a graphical user interface (GUI), written in Perl and GTK2, for the Vowels 1.2 package. Vowels 1.2 is written in the R programming language and is used to manipulate, normalise and plot phonetic and sociophonetic vowel formant data
Pronunciation Variation: Coloured Afrikaans
No full textAudio recordings and orthographic and phonetic transcriptions of 5 young Coloured speakers in 3 regions respectively
Management of employee wellness in South Africa: Employer, service provider and union perspectives
No full textOrientation: This article focuses on how South African organisations manage their employees’ wellness through their Employee Wellness Programmes (EWPs).
Research purpose: The objective of this research is to describe employee wellness in South Africa by investigating the types, foci and perceived success of EWPs.
Motivation for the study: Despite the growing awareness of the importance of EWPs in South Africa, the nature, content, context, participants, role-players and anticipated benefits as well as the possible drawbacks of these programmes in the South African context are unclear.
Research design, approach and method: The researchers used a cross-sectional design. The first author developed the Employee Wellness Survey, consisting of quantitative and qualitative questions, to collect data from 16 organisations, four service providers and seven labour unions in South Africa.
Main findings: The results showed that organisations, service providers and labour unions define employee wellness differently and that these role players give different reasons for introducing EWPs. Almost half of the participating organisations have no baseline measurement with which to compare the effectiveness of their EWPs. Generally, all the organisations present the results of their programmes reasonably. However, the programmes involve little overall expenditure to the organisations.
Practical/managerial implications: Organisations should monitor the state of their employees’ wellness in order to manage it effectively. This will only become possible when information about employee wellness improves.
Contribution/value-add: This study provides new information about the nature, content, context, participants, role-players, anticipated benefits and possible drawbacks of EWPs in the South-African context
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