A grammar of spoken Chinese = 中國話的文法

This article reviews the evidence for rhythmic categorization that has emerged on the basis of rhythm metrics, and argues that the metrics are unreliable predictors of rhythm which provide no more than a crude measure of timing. It is further argued that timing is distinct from rhythm and that equating them has led to circularity and a psychologically questionable conceptualization of rhythm in speech. It is thus proposed that research on rhythm be based on the same principles for all languages, something that does not apply to the widely accepted division of languages into stress- and syllable-timed. The hypothesis is advanced that these universal principles are grouping and prominence and evidence to support it is provided.

/pdf/rhythm-timing-and-the-timing-of-rhythm-1fvgucxtyj.pdf

Rhythm, Timing and the Timing of Rhythm

Effect of audiovisual perceptual training on the perception and production of consonants by Japanese learners of English

http://ilabs.uw.edu/sites/default/files/Zhang_etal_2009_NeuralSig.pdf

Neural signatures of phonetic learning in adulthood: A magnetoencephalography study

The general literature on the phonetic correlates of stress agrees that duration, and in stress accent languages, F0 are consistent correlates of stress. However, the role of amplitude changes in the speech signal is more controversial. In particular, the conflicting results of spectral tilt as a correlate of stress have been attributed to the effects of vowel reduction. We examined the stress correlates of duration, overall intensity and spectral tilt in Catalan and Spanish in both accented and unaccented contexts while controlling for formant frequency differences between morphologically corresponding vowels in stressed and unstressed environments by comparing vowels that maintain the same quality across stress contexts with those that do not. Duration was a consistent stress correlate in all vowels in both languages, regardless of their formant frequency differences across stress contexts and of the absence of pitch accents. In fact, stressrelated formant frequency differences between corresponding vowels amplify the duration cues to the stress contrast. On the other hand, the use speakers made of intensity was not as pervasive as that of duration. Specifically, changes in spectral tilt were significant only in Catalan and in those vowels that alternate a more open and peripheral realization in stressed syllables with a mid-central realization in unstressed syllables, indicating that spectral tilt is related to the formant frequency differences linked to the centralization processes rather than to the stress contrast.

/pdf/acoustic-correlates-of-stress-in-central-catalan-and-evtzv2hevb.pdf

Acoustic correlates of stress in central Catalan and Castilian Spanish

This study assessed the extent to which second-language learners are sensitive to phonetic information contained in visual cues when identifying a non-native phonemic contrast. In experiment 1, Spanish and Japanese learners of English were tested on their perception of a labial/labiodental consonant contrast in audio (A), visual (V), and audio-visual (AV) modalities. Spanish students showed better performance overall, and much greater sensitivity to visual cues than Japanese students. Both learner groups achieved higher scores in the A V than in the A test condition, thus showing evidence of audio-visual benefit. Experiment 2 examined the perception of the less visually-salient /1/-/r/ contrast in Japanese and Korean learners of English. Korean learners obtained much higher scores in auditory and audio-visual conditions than in the visual condition, while Japanese learners generally performed poorly in both modalities. Neither. group showed evidence of audio-visual benefit. These results show the impact of the language background of the learner and visual salience of the contrast on the use of visual cues for a non-native contrast. Significant correlations between scores in the auditory and visual conditions suggest that increasing auditory proficiency in identifying a non-native contrast is linked with an increasing proficiency in using visual cues to the contrast. (c) 2006 Acoustical Society of America.

The use of visual cues in the perception of non-native consonant contrasts.

According to Sluijter and colleagues (1996a, 1997), stress is independent from accent because it has its own phonetic cues: stressed vowels are longer and have flatter spectral tilts than their unstressed counterparts. However, Campbell and Beckman (1997) show that, for American English, these duration and spectral tilt patterns are a consequence of vowel reduction: when unreduced vowels with different levels of stress (primary and secondary stress) are compared, duration and spectral tilt do not correlate with the stress difference. This paper contributes to the above discussion by examining the stress contrast in de-accented syllables in Spanish. Since Spanish has no phonological vowel reduction, it constitutes a good test case for the above hypotheses. Moreover, this study attempts to disentangle the correlates of stress from those of accent, something which has thus far not been done in the traditional literature on Spanish stress. The results indicate that stress contrast in Spanish is maintained in de-accented contexts by differences in duration, spectral tilt, and to a lesser extent, vowel quality.

/pdf/disentangling-stress-from-accent-in-spanish-production-1fzzzbycr5.pdf

Disentangling stress from accent in spanish: production patterns of the stress contrast in deaccented syllables *

This study was designed to identify English speech contrasts that might be appropriate for the computerbased auditory-visual training of Spanish learners of English. It examines auditory-visual and auditory consonant and vowel confusions by Spanish speaking students of English and a native English control group. 36 Spanish listeners were tested on their identification of 16 consonants and 9 vowels of British English. For consonants, both L2 learners and controls showed significant improvements in the audiovisual condition, with larger effects for syllable final consonants. The patterns of errors by L2 learners were strongly predictable from our knowledge of the relation between the phoneme inventories of Spanish and English. Consonant confusions which were language-dependent – mostly errors in voicing and manner – were not reduced by the addition of visual cues whereas confusions that were common to both listener groups and related to acoustic-phonetic sound characteristics did show improvements. Spanish listeners did not use visual cues that disambiguated contrasts that are phonemic in English but have allophonic status in Spanish. Visual features therefore have different weights when cueing phonemic and allophonic distinctions.

/pdf/auditory-visual-l2-speech-perception-effects-of-visual-cues-3viwevdvj4.pdf

Marta Ortega-Llebaria

Papers

Acoustic correlates of stress in central Catalan and Castilian Spanish

The use of visual cues in the perception of non-native consonant contrasts.

Disentangling stress from accent in spanish: production patterns of the stress contrast in deaccented syllables *

Auditory-visual L2 speech perception: Effects of visual cues and acoustic-phonetic context for Spanish learners of English

English speakers' perception of Spanish lexical stress: Context-driven L2 stress perception