Figures
1.1 a) Doke’s symbols for Grootfontein ǃXun clicks, b) Transcription equivalents of Grootfontein ǃXun click symbols 5
1.2 Ekoka ǃXun fricated palatal click /⨎/ and following breathy vowel, in the word /⨎ȁ̤hà/ ‘cut’ 11
1.3 Ekoka ǃXun lateral click /ǁ/ and following vowel, in the word /ǁa̋è/ ‘monkey’ 12
1.4 Burst spectra of the Ekoka ǃXun [⨎] (black) and [ǁ] (red) click tokens in Figures 1.1–1.2 13
1.5 Midsagittal diagram of a retroflex click production in Grootfontein ǃXun 13
1.6 Alveolar click in the word /ᶢǃűː/ ‘belly’ pronounced by Mishe ǁXae Nǀami of Grootfontein, Namibia 14
1.7 Retroflex (fricated postalveolar) click in the word /ᶢǃǃűː/ ‘water’ pronounced by Mishe ǁXae Nǀami of Grootfontein, Namibia 15
1.8 Palatography of Grootfontein ǃXun retroflex click in the word /ᶢǃǃűː/ ‘water’, as pronounced by Kaqe Useb 17
1.9 High-speed ultrasound traces of a Grootfontein ǃXun retroflex click in the word ǃǃhá [ǃǃʰá] ‘meat’ 19
1.10 Spectrogram and waveform illustrating an ejected click in the Gǀui word /ǂ’áà/ ‘to faint, fall unconscious, play dead’ 26
1.11 Spectrogram and waveform illustrating a glottalized click in the Gǀui word /ǂʔáà/ ‘sp. grass used for an arrow shaft’ 27
1.12 Linguo-pulmonic unaspirated alveolar contour click /ǃ͡q/ and portion of the following vowel in the Nǀuu word /ǃ͡qɑo/ ‘to pluck, pick’ 30
1.13 Unaspirated alveolar click /ǃ/ and portion of the following vowel in the Nǀuu word /ǃɑɑ/ ‘hartebeest’ 30
1.14 Spectrogram of the voiceless unaspirated velar-alveolar click /ᵏǃ/ and portion of the following vowel in the ǃXóõ word ǃáa /ᵏǃáa/ ‘rain’ 33
1.15 Spectrogram of the voiceless unaspirated uvular-alveolar click /qǃ/ and portion of the following vowel in the ǃXóõ word ǃqáũ /qǃáũ/ ‘be careful, sharp’ 33
1.16 Extracted formant traces taken from the spectrograms in Figures 1.14–1.15 34
3.1 The tonal space of the six time-normalized and F0 averaged tone melodies across 3 Tsua consultants 138
3.2 F0 traces of HM ǁáē ‘to chew’ and DH-M ɡǁá͓m̄ ‘thorn’ to illustrate H tone depression 141
3.3 F0 traces of HL ǀχóò ‘gemsbok’ and DH-L ɡǀá͓à ‘Silver tree’ to illustrate H tone depression 141
3.4 The tonal space of the six non-depressed and two depressed time-normalized and F0 averaged tone melodies across 3 Tsua consultants 142
4.1 Spectrogram and waveform of [ⁿdùǀɔ́mà] ‘It is papyrus.’ 159
4.2 Spectrogram and waveform of [ɡǀìmà] ‘small fish sp.’ 160
4.3 Spectrogram and waveform of [mù-ᵑǀ̥ápì] ‘small frog sp.’ 160
4.4 Spectrogram and waveform of [zì-ᵑǀúmàrɛ̀] ‘berries of Grewia sp.’ 161
4.5 Spectrogram and waveform of [zìᵑǀûʃù] ‘sores’ 163
4.6 Spectrogram and waveform of [cìᵑǀûʃù] ‘sore’ 163
4.7 Spectrogram and waveform of [ᵑǁûʃù] ‘sore’ 163
4.8 Spectrogram and waveform of [mù-ɡɛ̂nɛ̀] ‘thin’ 166
4.9 Spectrogram and waveform of [mù-ɡǀɛ̂nɛ̀] ‘thin’ 166
6.1 rtMRI frame showing midsagittal articulation of the upper airway and maximum constriction of the initial dorsal stop in the Nama word ge [ɡè] ‘we (masc.)’ 213
6.2 Time-aligned audio and video data acquired during Nama lateral click production 215
6.3 Comparison of word-initial clicks produced before mid-back vowels 217
6.4 Evolution of midsagittal lingual posture in four contrastive Nama click releases 218
6.5 siSwati ‘plain’ click production before a high-back vowel 222
6.6 siSwati nasal click production in a low back vowel context 223
6.7 siSwati nasal click production in a high front vowel context 224
6.8 Influence of vowel context on siSwati clicks 224
6.9 Place of articulation of siSwati velar stops 225
6.10 Places of articulation in English consonants produced by the beatbox artist 227
6.11 Articulation of a ‘side K’ rim shot effect as a lateral click 228
6.12 Articulation of a rimshot effect as an alveolar click 228
6.13 Articulation of a ‘clap’ snare drum effect as labialized dental click 229
7.1 Praat “Edit” screen view of the Taa word [ʘŋ̥áʔãː] ‘conceal oneself’ 249
7.2 Waveform and spectrum of bilabial click burst in the Taa word [ʘŋ̥áʔãː] ‘conceal oneself’ 251
7.3 Waveform and spectrum of dental click burst in Taa word [ǀŋ̥úʔwì] ‘be careful’ 252
7.4 Waveform and spectrum of lateral click burst in Taa word [ǁŋ̥áʔám̀] ‘be damp’ 253
7.5 Waveform and spectrum of postalveolar click burst in Taa word [ǃŋ̥áʔã] ‘attack’ 254
7.6 Waveform and spectrum of palatal click burst in Taa word [ǂŋ̥úʔùã] ‘be out of reach’ 255
7.7 Waveform and power spectrum of palatal click in Yeyi word [ʃìkǂá] ‘scarification’ 256
7.8 Spectrogram of Taa word [ǀk’qàa] ‘hand’ 257
7.9 Dental and velar ejective bursts in Taa word [ǀk’qàa] 258
7.10 Second dorsal burst in Taa word [ǀk’qàa] 258
7.11 Power spectra of first and second dorsal bursts in the Taa word [ǀk’qàa] 259
7.12 Spectrogram of Yeyi word [m̀ŋǃójì] ‘Acacia erioloba’ (type of plant) exemplifying a voiced nasal alveolar click 260
7.13 Spectrogram of Yeyi word [kà ɡǃáwà] ‘calabash’ exemplifying a voiced alveolar click 261
7.14 Spectrogram of voiced prenasalized palatal click in the Taa word [ɴɢǂà̰̰li] for a kind of tree 262
7.15 Praat Edit view of the Xhosa word [ukúŋǃola] ‘to climb up’ 263
7.16 Spectrogram of Taa word [ǀˀâː] ‘die’ showing glottalized dental click 264
7.17 Spectrogram of Taa word [ǀq’ɜ́n] ‘small, pl.’ showing dental ejective click 265
7.18 Waveform showing click burst from Taa word [ǀq’ɜ́n] ‘small, pl.’ 265
7.19 Spectrogram of Taa word meaning ‘to cry incessantly’ 266
7.20 Praat Edit screen showing initial portion of the Taa word from Fig. 7.19 267
7.21 Frequency response of a built in microphone on the Zoom H4n – fairly flat up to 20 kHz 271
7.22 Pickup patterns of omnidirectional, cardioid, and shotgun microphones 272
9.1 Click load of assorted Southern African Khoisan languages, based on the onsets of lexemes taken from a Swadesh 100 word list 293
9.2 The acoustic properties of the four click influxes dental ǀ, palatal ǂ, lateral ǁ and alveolar ǃ (following Traill and Vossen 1997: 23) 297
9.3 Schematisation of the process of click weakening, according to Traill and Vossen (1997) 298
9.4 The Khoe-Kwadi language family 299
10.1 The Kx’a family 337
10.2 Evolution of click inventories in the Ju dialect cluster 353
11.1 Production of ixoxo by a typical female Zulu second language speaker 371
11.2 Production of ngcono by a typical female Zulu second language speaker 371
11.3 Production of esingenamcamelo by a typical male Zulu first language speaker 372
11.4 Production of ixoxo by the Participant with AOS 372
11.5 Production of ngcono by the Participant with AOS 373
11.6 Production of esingenamcamelo by the Participant with AOS 373
12.1 Tracings of a radiographic image (a), palate casts (b–d), and a midsagittal slice through a 3D intraoral scan (e) 385
12.2 Visual and auditory aids used during the phonetic training phase to instruct participants in the production of (post)alveolar [aǃa] (top row) and dental [aǀa] click (bottom row) target sequences 388
12.3 Waveforms and spectrograms illustrating plain, (post-)glottalized, and nasalized clicks of the target (post)alveolar and dental click types 394
12.4 Static MR images of participants successfully producing sustained articulations of [ǃːːːː] and [ǀːːːː] targets held at the moment prior to click release 395
12.5 Static MR images of participants who failed to produce click postures for both [ǃːːːː] and [ǀːːːː] targets 396
12.6 Real-time MRI frame sequence showing successful production of [aǃa] with a postalveolar click 398
12.7 Real-time MRI frame sequence showing successful production of [aǀa] with a denti-alveolar click 398
12.8 Real-time MRI frame sequence showing successful production of [aǃa] with a postalveolar click in which the velopharyngeal port opens late in click production 399
12.9 Real-time MRI frame sequence showing successful production of [aǃa] with full lingual-palatal contact yielding an unusual palatal click 401
12.10 Real-time MRI frame sequence showing awareness of anterior (coronal) and posterior (dorsal) lingual articulatory components of the [aǃa] target but poor coordination and absence of velum engagement 402
12.11 Real-time MRI frame sequences showing examples of aspirated velar stop [akʰa] substitutions for [aǃa] 403
12.12 Real-time MRI frame sequence showing velar ejective stop substitution, [ak’a], for [aǃa] 403
12.13 Real-time MRI frame sequences showing examples of voiceless retroflex stop [aʈa] substitutions 404
14.1 Laal dental click [ǀ] (Speaker ID, natural speech) 424
14.2 Laal dental click [ǀ] (Speaker KD, natural speech) 425
14.3 Laal lateral click [ǁ] (speaker ID, natural speech) 427
14.4 Laal lateral click [ǁ] (AK, elicited, careful speech) 428
14.5 Laal velar click (speaker KD, elicited, careful speech) 431
14.6 Laal velar click, (speaker AK, elicited, careful speech) 432
14.7 Laal “tchip” (speaker KD, natural speech) 433
Maps
1.1 Approximate areas where click languages are spoken 37
1.2 Southern African Bantu languages with clicks as regular consonants 39
1.3 Map of southern Africa with pie charts showing the functional load of clicks in the basic vocabulary of some click languages 42
4.1 Locations where Fwe is spoken 157
9.1 Geographical distribution of click loss in the Khoe language family 302
9.2 Geographical distribution of patterns of alveolar click loss in Khoe 303
9.3 Geographical distribution of palatal click replacements in Khoe 312
10.1 Geographical distribution of click replacement and loss within the Ju language complex 337
Tables
1.1 Cross-linguistically common phonetic realizations of the five most common click types 4
1.2 Words showing regular reflexes of the Proto-Ju retroflex click *ǃǃ type 21
1.3 Minimal and near-minimal pairs illustrating ejective and glottalized clicks in Gǀui 25
1.4 ǃXóõ click accompaniments contrastive for dorsal place 31
1.5 Proto-Kx’a *ʘ cognate sets proposed by Heine and Honken (2010: 27) 50
1.6 Kx’a cognate sets involving bilabial clicks and non-dental clicks 51
2.1 Nǀuu click and non-click pronouns 76
2.2 Changes to clicks in class 9/10 post-nasal condition 82
2.3 Presence of clicks implies presence of nasalized clicks 94
2.4 ǃXóõ inventory 102
2.5 Comparison of three cluster-based analyses of ǃXóõ 105
2.6 Inventory of Khoekhoe 108
2.7 Juǀ’hoan stop clusters 111
2.8 Gǀui clusters 112
2.9 Comparison of click and non-click clusters 113
3.1 Consonant-tone interaction in African and East Asian languages 130
3.2 Tsua click consonant inventory 132
3.3 Click replacement comparative data for ǃ and ǂ clicks 135
3.4 Root counts of tonal depression exceptions by depressor type 143
3.5 Root counts of tonal depression by tone melody 143
3.6 Gǀui, Kua and Tsua correspondences for the voiced obstruents 144
3.7 Root-initial nasal consonants in Kalahari Khoe East languages compared to Tsua root-initial voiced consonants 146
3.8 Examples of nasal clicks co-occurring with five of the six non-depressed tonal melodies in Tsua 147
3.9 Cognates where tonal depression occurs in Tsua but not in Gǀui or Kua 148
4.1 Words showing contrast between clicks and non-clicks in Fwe 158
4.2 Click/non-click alternations for each speaker 167
4.3 Click/non-click alternations for each word 169
4.4 Bantu non-click cognates of Fwe click words 172
6.1 Nama click consonants 216
6.2 Summary of Phonetic Properties of Click Consonants 232
6.3 Nama orthography and phonetic transcriptions, with Afrikaans disambiguators (where used during presentation), and English glosses 234
6.4 siSwati orthography and phonetic transcriptions, with English glosses 235
7.1 Hierarchy of elicitation techniques in relation to speech style variation 244
9.1 Kalahari Khoe doculects used in this paper 295
9.2 Symbols used in this paper deviating from IPA standards 296
9.3 Diachronic stages of click loss in Khoe 301
9.4 Alveolar click retention in ǁAni and Gǁana 304
9.5 Variation in alveolar click loss among five speakers of ǁAni 304
9.6 Non-click replacements of the alveolar click in Kalahari Khoe 306
9.7 Palatal click retention in Ts’ixa 313
9.8 Variation in palatal click loss among nine speakers of Ts’ixa 314
9.9 Non-click replacements of the palatal click in Kalahari Khoe 317
9.10 Assumed correspondences between ǀx’~ǀʔ in Khoekhoe and ts’ in Kalahari Khoe 323
9.11 Cognate forms between Kwadi and Khoe displaying click loss in Kwadi 325
9.12 Cognate forms between Sesfontein Damara and other Khoekhoe varieties displaying click loss in Sesfontein Damara 328
10.1 Reflexes of Proto-Ju *ǃǃ in Doke’s Neitsas ǃXun (C2), Juǀ’hoan, Northwestern ǃXun (W2), Mupa ǃXun and Snyman’s “A1” 339
10.2 Reflexes of Proto-Ju *ǂ in Juǀ’hoan, König and Heine’s (2008) Northwestern ǃXun (W2), Mupa ǃXun and Traill’s ǃXun from Menongue 342
10.3 Replacements for the fricated palatal click ⨎ attested in Mupa ǃXun 345
10.4 Non-click replacements for the alveolar click attested in Mupa ǃXun 346
10.5 Patterns of alveolar click loss in Mupa ǃXun, compared to Juǀ’hoan and König and Heine’s (2008) Northwestern ǃXun 347
10.6 Non-click replacements for a subset of dental and lateral influxes as recorded with one speaker of Mupa ǃXun 351
10.7 Patterns of dental click loss in Mupa ǃXun, compared to Juǀ’hoan and König and Heine’s (2008) Northwestern ǃXun (W2) 351
10.8 Patterns of lateral click loss in Mupa ǃXun, compared to Juǀ’hoan and König and Heine’s (2008) Northwestern ǃXun (W2) 352
11.1 The word stimuli and characteristics of the click sound in each word 366
11.2 Spectrogram analysis parameters 369
11.3 Click production characteristics across recordings 1 to 3 as judged perceptually 370
11.4 Comparison of acoustic data of the Participant with AOS and control participants 375
11.5 The difference between minimum and maximum acoustic measurements (range) per participant and control participants to demonstrate variability across recordings 376
12.1 Frequencies of different airstream and/or manner of articulation patterns observed in the participant production audio 392
12.2 Frequencies of different place of articulation patterns observed in the participant production audio (focusing in all cases on the anterior-most stricture) 393
14.1 Paralinguistic clicks in Laal and Wolof 435