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1. Background i. Empirical evidence suggests that f0 (or pitch) onset affects listeners’ judgements of the voicing of the pre-vocalic plosive, that is, f0 is a secondary cue to inform plosive voicing. ii. In languages that have developed a tonal contrast from plosive voicing (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, Lhasa Tibetan), f0 has become a cue to inform tone, a property of the vowel. iii. This change is ongoing in several languages (see Coetzee et al. 2018, for Afrikaans; Howe 2017, for Central Malagasy…), that is, the f0 difference determined by plosive voicing is enhanced on the vowel while the voicing itself has become less informative. 2. Questions of the study i. When is f0 dissociated from plosive voicing and parsed as a property of the vowel by listeners? ii. In a language where no f0 enhancement is reported (e.g., French), is f0 onset parsed as a property of the onset plosive or of the following vowel, or both? iii. Crucially to the current study, what is the role of f0 transition duration in this parsing?

We conducted a perception experiment in the field to examine the synchronic consequences of a tonal split in Risiangku Tamang (Tibeto-Burman). Proto-Tamang was a two-tone language with three series of plosives and two series of continuants. The merger of its continuants provoked a split of the original two tones into four, two high and two low, which combine pitch and phonation features. The quasi-merger of the voiced and voiceless plosives left sporadic remnants of initial plosive voicing in low tone syllables. A previous production study has shown that speakers use pitch and phonation features concomitantly to distinguish high from low tones, while producing initial plosive voicing only marginally with low tones. The present perception study establishes the preeminence of the pitch cue, but also confirms the effective use of the two older cues in tone identification. An apparent-time analysis shows the phonation cue to be less used by younger speakers, in keeping with the historical evolution. The use of the residual voicing of plosives, instead of decreasing with younger speakers, is shown to increase. This result could be explained by an increased contact of the young generation with Nepali, a toneless Indo-Aryan language with a four-way initial plosive contrast.

With astounding advances, China expressway construction has caused inevitable environmental destruction around the construction projects. A series of expressway construction-induced environmental problems is caused by the noise pollution of machinery and equipment in expressway construction, atmospheric pollution caused by fuel consumption, soil contamination caused by abandoned waste materials and gases generated by asphalt mixture during road paving, and increasing traffic volume. In this study, the literature regarding expressway construction-induced environmental pollution was combined by taking Changyu (Changchun-Yulin Lalin River) Expressway as an example. The impacts of expressway construction on the ecological environment were analyzed, and feasible treatment measures were proposed. Results show that the expressway construction in various countries across the globe aggravates the regional ecosystem damage unavoidably to a certain extent; The environmental impacts caused by Changyu Expressway are manifested at five aspects, namely, water environmental pollution, vegetation deterioration, heavy metal pollution, water and soil losses, and induction of geological disasters; The environmental impacts of expressway construction can be mitigated by reasonable route selection, strengthening planning and environmental protection, preventing water and soil losses, reinforcing atmospheric pollution detection, reducing sewage discharge, enhancing vegetation recovery, and relieving the impact on animal habitats. The study results serve as an important reference for identifying the sources of expressway environmental risks and lowering the environmental pollution caused by expressway construction to an acceptable level.

We performed a regional geological survey in discontinuous permafrost (PF) area along the Bei’an to Heihe Expressway between September 2009 and October 2016 to investigate the state and change of PF in northeast China. Underground resistivity changes were periodically detected along the foot of the subgrade and soil temperatures were monitored under the road foundation. We combined local meteorological and average annual air temperature data to analyze changes in PF thickness. The climate data show that the average annual temperature has gradually increased in the study area since 1980, rising to 0 °C around 1990, and the frost number has decreased to less than 0.5 since 1988. The soil temperature results show that the PF temperature in this section is higher than − 1 °C and is in a high-temperature PF zone affected by changes in seasonal air temperature. The PF under the left foot of the subgrade (LPF) and under the road central separation zone of the road (CPF) both show a decreased PF table, increased PF base, and severe PF degradation. Owing to different cover thicknesses, as well as differences in heat transfer between frozen and unfrozen soil, the base of LPF degraded faster than its table, to CPF the opposite is true. Underground resistivity measurements to verify the accuracy of the PF degradation results. The ground temperature monitoring data and climate data show good consistency. Comprehensive analysis results show that PF in the study area is in a strong degradation stage and will soon disappear.

Two nitrogen-rich azo-bridged porphyrin porous organic polymers (Azo-Por-Bpy-POP and Azo-Por-Dadp-POP) with high surface areas were prepared by coupling 5,10,15,20-tetra(p-nitrophenyl)-porphyrin with the aromatic amines of 2,2′-bipyridine-5,5′-diamine (Bpy) and diaminodiphenyl (Dadp). Azo-Por-Bpy-POP and Azo-Por-Dadp-POP display high photocatalytic reduction activity for CO2 to CO under visible-light irradiation without a sacrificial reagent or metal co-catalyst. Azo-Por-Bpy-POP exhibits the highest photoreduction for CO2 with CO as the only carbonaceous reduction product with a production rate of 38.75 μmol g−1 h−1. Theoretical investigations indicate a stronger electrostatic interaction between CO2 and Azo-Por-Bpy-POP than Azo-Por-Dadp-POP, which favors CO2 photoreduction.

In production, word-initial voicing contrast of plosives in Tokyo Japanese is not robustly based on VOT, since young speakers tend to devoice previously voiced plosives. Meanwhile, speakers rely heavily on f0. The present study aims to examine the role of VOT and f0 cues in perception. We conducted an identification test using resynthesized stimuli along a VOT continuum (-60 to +40 ms) orthogonal to an f0 continuum. Results suggested a categorical perception of VOT, while f0 was especially useful when VOT was around 0 ms. Higher f0 contours affected the response rate more than lower f0 contours, suggesting that the perceptual role of f0 raising was more important than f0 lowering.Hence, plosive devoicing in production is not preceded by listeners’ misparsing of low f0 and prevoicing. Their misattribution of high f0 to voicelessness may play a more important role in the shift of VOT-f0 cue weighting in perception and production.

In production, word-initial voicing contrast of plosives in Tokyo Japanese is not robustly based on VOT, since young speakers tend to devoice previously voiced plosives. Meanwhile, speakers rely heavily on f0. The present study aims to examine the role of VOT and f0 cues in perception. We conducted an identification test using resynthesized stimuli along a VOT continuum (-60 to +40 ms) orthogonal to an f0 continuum. Results suggested a categorical perception of VOT, while f0 was especially useful when VOT was around 0 ms. Higher f0 contours affected the response rate more than lower f0 contours, suggesting that the perceptual role of f0 raising was more important than f0 lowering. Hence, plosive devoicing in production is not preceded by listeners' misparsing of low f0 and prevoicing. Their misattribution of high f0 to voicelessness may play a more important role in the shift of VOT-f0 cue weighting in perception and production.

International audience; The languages of the Tamang group (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) are presently in the process of developing tones from an earlier opposition of voicing on word-initial consonants (“tone split” in an old two-tone system: voiceless onsets > 2 high tones; voiced onsets > 2 low tones). In this group of languages, we observe a large amount of variation between dialects, between speakers, and within speakers concerning the realization of the features which define each tone. We interpret these variations as different degrees of retention of earlier features (Mazaudon, 2012). A previous phonetic study of the Tamang dialect of Risiangku (Mazaudon & Michaud, 2008) demonstrated the use of F0 and phonation, and to a lesser degree of initial stop voicing, as cues to the four tones of the system. The retention of breathiness and stop initial voicing with low pitch tones may be explained by mutual enhancement (Silverman, 1997).In the Tamang dialect of Taglung, one of the two low tones has evolved into a high falling tone. However, we still observe occasional retention of word-initial voicing (word-medial voicing is not contrastive), not only on the present-day low tone, but also on the historical low tone which is no longer low. The conditioning of this retention is the object of the present study.

International audience

International audience