Publications
Journal articles
- In revisionVariation in the acoustic dynamics of /s/: Patterns within and across 32 languagesMassimo Lipari, Morgan Sonderegger & Meghan ClayardsPsyArXiv
Sibilant fricatives have historically been considered fundamentally static speech sounds, characterized by clear articulatory and acoustic steady states. Recent work has called this idea into question, though, reporting differences in the articulatory and/or acoustic dynamics of sibilants across different sibilant sounds, languages, social groups, and phonological contexts. These results suggest that dynamics may be learned aspects of the production of sibilants, analogously as in vowels (including many monophthongs). However, previous studies differ methodologically in important ways, which may mean that at least part of the observed variation is driven by extraneous variables. A typological study where a consistent set of controls allows for direct comparison across a large number of languages and speakers is thus needed. In this paper, we examine the acoustic dynamics of /s/, the most common sibilant cross-linguistically, across 32 languages and more than 4,600 speakers using large read speech corpora. We find qualitative differences in the patterns of cross-linguistic and inter-speaker variation: whereas languages exhibit considerable variation in dynamics—particularly in the timing of the maximum of spectral center of gravity trajectories—most of the variation between speakers is instead in the overall height of the trajectory (i.e., in statics). We interpret this as evidence that sibilant dynamics are indeed learned, and discuss potential sources of the observed cross-linguistic differences.
@article{lipari_etalunderreviewxling, title = {Variation in the acoustic dynamics of /s/: Patterns within and across 32 languages}, author = {Lipari, Massimo and Sonderegger, Morgan and Clayards, Meghan}, journal = {PsyArXiv}, year = {In revision}, preprint = {https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/m4ksy_v1}, language = {en}, }
- 2025A new perspective on the development of Quebec French rhotic vowelsMassimo Lipari & Morgan SondereggerLaboratory Phonology
Quebec French is reportedly developing rhoticity, with low F3 resulting from a bunched or retroflexed tongue (like English /ɚ/), in some or all of the front mid rounded vowels /ø, œ, œ̃/. The source of this rare, understudied sound change is unclear from previous work: contact with English and contrast enhancement have been suggested, and phonologization of coarticulation is typologically plausible. We examine this issue, investigating the apparent time change in the F3 trajectories of the three vowels using generalized additive mixed models on a corpus of parliamentary speech (108 speakers from across Quebec). We observe rhoticity in /ø/ and /œ̃/: men begin with low F3 in these vowels, and women show change in progress. Conversely, there is less clear evidence of change in /œ/. We suggest these findings are best explained by analyzing rhotacization as a two-phased change, originally due to borrowing and subsequently spreading through contrast enhancement. Rhoticity, we argue, is the combined product of intensive exposure to English (which led to frequent nonintegration of bunched/retroflex segments in loanwords) and an exceptionally large vowel inventory. It thus results from the unique interplay of social and phonological factors in Quebec French, which is consistent with such changes being cross-linguistically rare.
@article{lipari_sonderegger2025new, title = {A new perspective on the development of {{Quebec French}} rhotic vowels}, author = {Lipari, Massimo and Sonderegger, Morgan}, journal = {Laboratory Phonology}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.16995/labphon.11678}, language = {en}, }
Book chapters
- AcceptedLes « données trouvées » et la variation phonétique en français québécoisMassimo Lipari, Laurie Dumont & Peter MilneIn Les voies du français, Québec (Québec)
Dans cette communication, nous décrivons une nouvelle ressource destinée à l’étude de la variation phonétique synchronique et diachronique en français québécois, le corpus ParlBleu. Inspiré du corpus AssNat (Milne 2014), dont il intègre le volet québécois, ce corpus est constitué à partir d’enregistrements des travaux de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec ayant fait l’objet d’un alignement forcé. Cette approche de mise en valeur de « données trouvées » (contenu audiovisuel divers découvrable sur Internet), jusqu’à présent relativement peu exploitée pour le français québécois, permet de contourner certains obstacles associés aux méthodes de collecte de données traditionnelles (e.g., corpus sociolinguistiques, expériences en laboratoire)—notamment, les importants investissements en temps et en ressources qu’elles nécessitent. À l’heure actuelle, 152 locutrices et locuteurs natifs du français québécois (67 femmes et 85 hommes) nés entre 1941 et 1992 sont représentés dans le corpus, qui totalise plus de 31 heures de données. Nous présentons également ici les résultats préliminaires d’une analyse acoustique semi-automatisée de plus de 300 000 exemplaires de voyelles tirées du corpus.
@incollection{lipari_etalunderreviewdonnees, title = {Les « données trouvées » et la variation phonétique en français québécois}, author = {Lipari, Massimo and Dumont, Laurie and Milne, Peter}, year = {Accepted}, booktitle = {Les voies du français}, publisher = {Les Presses de l'Université Laval}, location = {Québec (Québec)}, language = {fr}, }
- 2025Functional Principal Components AnalysisMassimo LipariIn Morgan Sonderegger, Márton Sóskuthy, Massimo Lipari & Amanda Doucette, Advanced Quantitative Methods for Linguistic Data, version 0.2
@inebook{lipari25functional, title = {Functional Principal Components Analysis}, booktitle = {Advanced {{Quantitative Methods}} for {{Linguistic Data}}}, author = {Lipari, Massimo}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.15942068}, bookauthor = {Sonderegger, Morgan and Sóskuthy, Márton and Lipari, Massimo and Doucette, Amanda}, version = {version 0.2}, language = {en}, }
Conference proceedings
- 2026Disentangling sociophonetic and physiological variation in /s/ acoustics across 12 languagesMassimo Lipari, Morgan Sonderegger & Meghan ClayardsIn Proceedings of Interspeech 2026
Sibilants, especially /s/, display gendered variation across languages. From acoustic data alone, it can be hard to determine whether this variation is due to performance of social identity or to physiology, e.g. vocal tract length (VTL) variation. In causal terms, there is a direct effect of gender on sibilant acoustics and an indirect effect mediated by VTL, which must be teased apart. To this end, a speaker’s VTL can be estimated from their vowel formants, though the consistency of this measure’s relationship to sibilant acoustics is largely untested. Using a new multilingual phonetic database of 12 languages (> 1,300 speakers) and the tools of causal mediation analysis, we investigate the relationship between VTL and /s/ peak frequency and its causal role in gender effects. We find that estimated VTL predicts peak well across languages. While there are gender differences in peak across nearly all languages, the relative contributions of physiology and performance vary considerably.
@inproceedings{interspeech_proc26, title = {Disentangling sociophonetic and physiological variation in /s/ acoustics across 12 languages}, booktitle = {Proceedings of {Interspeech} 2026}, author = {Lipari, Massimo and Sonderegger, Morgan and Clayards, Meghan}, year = {2026}, publisher = {International Speech Communication Association}, preprint = {https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/kv8bh_v1}, doi = {https://www.isca-archive.org/interspeech_2026/lipari26_interspeech.html}, pages = {3312--3317}, language = {en}, }
- 2023The emergence of rhotic vowels in Quebec French: A change from below?Massimo LipariIn Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
Quebec French is undergoing a rarely observed kind of sound change whereby the front mid rounded vowels become rhotic (produced with a bunched tongue or retroflex gesture resulting in low F3, like English /ɚ/). Previous work has suggested that this is a change from below—i.e., one which speakers are not conscious of and which is thus not socially marked. These previous studies, however, have not had the breadth to robustly demonstrate this finding throughout the entire speech community, and the extent of interspeaker variation (especially according to age, gender, and geographic origin) remains largely unknown. This study, which employs a sizeable corpus of parliamentary speech, adds to the documentation of the change, while directly examining the effects of the aforementioned predictors. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis of change from below (with some caveats), although additional data from new speakers is likely needed to draw any strong conclusions.
@inproceedings{lipari23emergence, title = {The emergence of rhotic vowels in {Quebec} {French}: A change from below?}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {20th} {International} {Congress} of {Phonetic} {Sciences}}, publisher = {International Phonetic Association}, author = {Lipari, Massimo}, editor = {Skarnitzl, Radek and Volín, Jan}, year = {2023}, pages = {3740--3744}, language = {en}, } - 2023The acoustics of borrowed /ɚ/ in Quebec FrenchMassimo LipariIn Canadian Acoustics
@inproceedings{lipari23acoustics, title = {The acoustics of borrowed /ɚ/ in {Quebec} {French}}, volume = {51}, issue = {3}, booktitle = {Canadian {Acoustics}}, publisher = {Canadian Acoustical Association}, author = {Lipari, Massimo}, year = {2023}, pages = {210--211}, language = {en}, }