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This study examines phonological and phonetic properties of ATR contrasts in the vowel system of Akebu (Kwa). The sum of descriptive evidence, including vowel harmony, vowel distribution in non-harmonising contexts, vowel reduction and typological and etymological considerations, indicates a rare vowel inventory with an ATR contrast in front/back vowels but a height contrast in the three redundantly [ATR] central vowels /ᵻ, ə, a/. This analysis was checked against four common acoustic metrics of ATR: F1 and F2 frequencies, spectral slope and F1 bandwidth size (B1). As expected, the results for the last three metrics were variable across speakers and vowel types, and are therefore inconclusive. The results for F1 were consistent but do not distinguish between ATR and vowel height. Two results nonetheless suggest the [ATR] status of central vowels: they occupy the same belt of F1 frequencies and show the same position of observed-over-predicted B1 values as front and back [ATR] vowels.

Secondary gemination is a remarkable but little-known phonological process of singleton consonant lengthening into geminates in certain prosodic positions in Finnic languages. Its phonetic premises, typology, and chronology are still understudied. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it summarises the main facts about secondary gemination and its place within general prosodic tendencies observed in Finnic languages. Second, it uses acoustic data from Soikkola Ingrian, which manifests one of the most developed Finnic systems of secondary gemination, to argue about the relative chronology and phonetic mechanisms of this gemination. The conclusion is that the phonetic duration of phonologised secondary geminates cannot be used as an argument for their age, because, as our acoustic data in [1] showed, their duration is regulated by compensatory stress-induced shortening as a function of the foot structure. On the other hand, the atypical prosodic positions of trisyllabic secondary gemination in Soikkola Ingrian can indeed suggest the younger age of this particular type of gemination.

This acoustic study explores compensatory influences of foot structure on segmental duration and quantity in the foot nuclei of 22 trisyllabic and four disyllabic structures in vanishing Soikkola Ingrian (Finnic). A robust ternary quantity contrast of consonants is confirmed for both disyllables and trisyllables. While in the shortest disyllables the contrast is “pure” (i.e., not significantly reinforced by the durations of other segments), in all trisyllables it is enhanced through the durationally inverse (compensatory) effects in other segments. In this, the situation in trisyllables is closer to that attested in other languages with ternary consonantal quantity than the situation in disyllables. The phonological quantity contrast has been lost from the second syllable vowel of trisyllables, and its duration is now inversely related to the first syllable complexity. In the segments preceding this vowel, all compensatory effects are purely phonetic. Shorter segmental durations and stronger compensatory effects in trisyllables than in disyllables indicate tendencies for both polysegmental and polysyllabic shortening. We discuss a potential relation of observed compensatory effects of shortening and lengthening (a “half-long” vowel) to foot isochrony and metrical stress.

The vanishing Soikkola dialect of Ingrian (Finnic; Uralic) manifests an ongoing shortening of second syllable unstressed long vowels (V2) in trisyllables. Our major acoustic study [1] showed that the original phonological contrast of long and short V2 is currently in a state of fine-grained continuum from contrast maintenance to complete merger, depending on the structure. Structural variation is aggravated by considerable interspeaker variability, addresed in this paper. Out of the five studied speakers, three were innovative and two conservative as regards long V2 shortening. Speakers do not communicate in the language any longer, which affects the natural curve of sound changes. Moreover, this particular sound change is likely never to be completed due to imminent language loss. Unfinished long V2 shortening with its high interspeaker variability creates challenges for the development of practical transcription, needed for language description, codification, and teaching, and for the typological placement of the rare ternary quantity contrast of consonants attested in Soikkola Ingrian.

The chapter discusses phonetic, phonological, evolutionary, and typological properties of two particular features in the vanishing Udihe language (Tungusic): vowel aspiration and glottalisation. In their evolution, traced from the end of the 19th century to the 2000s, two main aspects are distinguished: (1) a qualitative evolution from consonants to vowel features and word-prosodic features and (2) a loss of the syllabic boundary between two short vowels, where the original consonants occurred. While aspiration is nearly lost, glottalisation can now be occasionally realised as a pitch dip within a long vowel. The latter realisations do not, however, necessarily imply the transformation of glottalisation into a lexical pitch-accent or tone. They rather represent an articulatory target undershoot, which is at least partially induced by the process of language loss and the influence of “lax” Russian articulation. On the other hand, Udihe glottalisation has already accumulated enough word-prosodic features to permit also a phonological analysis as a glottal prosody, typologically similar to Danish stød and lexical laryngeal prosodies in some Otomanguean languages. In spite of a potential for further word-prosodic development, glottalisation is likely to be lost, in the same way as aspiration. This pathway is suggested by the pressure of the dominating Russian language which lacks such features.