Showing papers on "Voice published in 1980"
TL;DR: A longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in American English word-initial stop consonants, as measured by voice onset time, results in two competing models for phonological acquisition and two hypotheses regarding the skills being learned.
Abstract: This paper reports on a longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in American English word-initial stop consonants, as measured by voice onset time. Four monolingual children were recorded at two-week intervals, beginning when the children were about 1; 6. Data provide evidence for three general stages: (1) the child has no contrast; (2) the child has a contrast but one that falls within the adult perceptual boundaries of one (usually voiced) phoneme and thus is presumably not perceptible to adults; and (3) the child has a contrast that resembles the adult contrast. The rate and nature of the developmental process are discussed in relation to two competing models for phonological acquisition and two hypotheses regarding the skills being learned.
336 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an instrumental study of the phonetic contrast between English /ptk/ and /bdg/ produced by Saudi Arabians reveals that native-language phonetic norms may carry over to production of target-language sounds.
Abstract: This instrumental study of the phonetic contrast between English /ptk/ and /bdg/ produced by Saudi Arabians reveals that native-language phonetic norms may carry over to production of target-language sounds. Despite the existence of phonetic interference, however, the present cross-sectional study suggests that Saudi learners gradually approximate the phonetic norms of English, at least insofar as several temporal acoustic correlates of stop voicing are concerned. The Saudis' English speech, although not typically Arabic or English in phonetic terms, seems to be the product of a fairly stable interlanguage phonetic system which admits the possibility of phonetic strategies by individual speakers.
152 citations
TL;DR: Results indicate that, like normal-reading children and adults, dyslexic children perceive these sounds categorically, and it is suggested that linguistic disturbances at other stages of the grapheme to meaning transformation underlie misreading.
104 citations
TL;DR: Instrumental analysis of the stop productions revealed that not even by age 3; 10 were the children consistently distinguishing between voiced–voiceless stop cognate pairs on the basis of adult-like voice-onset time characteristics.
Abstract: This paper reports on the acquisition of the voicing contrast in Mexican–Spanish word-initial stops. In Study 1, three monolingual children were recorded every two weeks for seven months, beginning when the children were about 1; 7. In Study 2, four monolingual children about 3; 10 were recorded once or twice. Two analyses were done. Instrumental analysis of the stop productions revealed that not even by age 3; 10 were the children consistently distinguishing between voiced–voiceless stop cognate pairs on the basis of adult-like voice-onset time characteristics. The spirantization analysis, however, more clearly revealed the children's phonological knowledge. Discussion focuses on the implications of the data for phonological development in general and for the phonological description of voicing in Spanish.
97 citations
TL;DR: The articulation errors of 32 spastic and 18 athetoid males, aged 17-55 years, were analyzed using a confusion matrix paradigm and it was found that within- manner errors exceeded between-manner errors by a substantial amount.
Abstract: The articulation errors of 32 spastic and 18 athetoid males, aged 17-55 years, were analyzed using a confusion matrix paradigm. The subjects had a diagnosis of congenital cerebral palsy, and adequate intelligence, hearing, and ability to perform the speech task. Phonetic transcriptions were made of single-word utterances which contained 49 selected phonemes: 22 word-initial consonants, 18 word-final consonants and nine vowels. Errors of substitution, omission and distortion were categorized on confusion matrices such that patterns could be observed. It was found that within-manner errors (place or voicing errors or both) exceeded between-manner errors by a substantial amount, more so on final consonants. The predominant within-manner errors occurred on fricative phonemes for both initial and final positions. Affricate within-manner errors, all of devoicing, were also frequent in final position. The predominant between-manner initial position errors involved liquid-to-glide and affricate-to-stop changes, and for final position, affricate-to-fricative. Phoneme omission occurred three times more frequently on final than on initial consonants. The error data of individual subjects were found to correspond with the identified overall group patterns. Those with markedly reduced speech intelligibility demonstrated the same patterns of error as the overall group. The implications for treatment are discussed.
87 citations
TL;DR: A multiple regression analysis of the experimental data indicates that in natural speech not only vowel duration, but also voice bar duration, duration of silent closure preceding the final release transient, and duration of the release burst or frication noise, vary in weight as cues for voicing under different vowel- and consonant-type conditions.
Abstract: Previous measurements have indicated that vowels before voiced and voiceless consonants exhibit a systematic duration difference, the former being longer approximately by a 3:2 ratio than the latter. Experiments with synthetic speech have shown that vowel duration is an important cue for the voicing distinction of the following consonant in word-final position. In the present paper the role of this cue is evaluated for natural speech, which may also contain secondary cues for maintaining this distinction. The stimuli, spoken by a female speaker, were 24 English monosyllabic words ending with voiced stops, fricatives, and consonant clusters after intrinsically long and intrinsically short vowels. Duration of the vowel nucleus was systematically reduced using a digital gating technique. Recognition rates as a function of vowel duration were obtained. Category change takes place mainly for intrinsically long vowels and for high vowels in combination with final fricatives alone or in consonant clusters. In other cases, category change cannot be established even after the vowel duration is reduced to only 30% of its original duration. In particular, the presence of a long voice bar for a final voiced stop will make shortening of the vowel perceptually less effective. A multiple regression analysis of the experimental data indicates that in natural speech not only vowel duration, but also voice bar duration, duration of silent closure preceding the final release transient, and duration of the release burst or frication noise, depending on the consonant type, vary in weight as cues for voicing under different vowel- and consonant-type conditions.
86 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the duration of the voiceless interval associated with voiceless stops and fricatives in the intervocalic, prestressed position was investigated and it was concluded that the devoicing gesture is the same for stops and Fricatives, and that the timing of this gesture is executed in a preprogrammed, ballistic fashion.
56 citations
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: The authors presented a cross-linguistic perspective of the aspects of the acquisition of stop systems and discussed the characteristics of speech-sound production during the age range that begins with the child's use of words and concludes with the age at which the child acquires an adult-like representation.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter presents a cross-linguistic perspective of the aspects of the acquisition of stop systems. It also discusses the characteristics of speech-sound production during the age range that begins with the child's use of words and concludes with the age at which the child acquires an adult-like representation. There are remarkable differences between children acquiring the same language. A universal phonetic principle can explain both the acquisition data and the asymmetries in the utilization of a contrast in the adult language. The voicing contrast is first acquired at the labial place of articulation in Spanish but at the dental place in English, and the voicing contrast next appears at the velar place of articulation in Spanish but at the labial place in English. Languages can differ in the ways in which phonological contrasts are utilized in the lexicon.
53 citations
TL;DR: Children may consistently produce a phonetic difference (vowel duration) which they are unable to use as the SOLE perceptual cue for a phonological contrast, suggesting that there is a complex and somewhat paradoxical relationship between developing production and perception which deserves further research.
Abstract: The present study explored children's perceptual capabilities with regard to the temporal acoustic cue of differential vowel duration, comparing children's perceptual identifications to those of adults. Three-year-old children, six-year-old children, and adults participated in two experiments, in which they were asked to identify (as voiced or voiceless) CVC words with uniformly voiceless final obstruents, but in which vowel duration was systematically varied. Children were also asked to identify a set of CONTROL stimuli, in which both closure voicing and vowel duration differences were present. Results indicate that both subject age and vowel duration of the TEST stimuli significantly affect identification responses. Adults and six-year olds evidence perceptual cross-over in their judgements for the TEST stimuli, while three-year-olds do not seem to change their identifications, regardless of variations in vowel duration. However, for both groups of children, the accuracy of identifications was greater for originally voiced stimuli on the CONTROL set of words, in which more than one potential cue to the voicing distinction was present. These results suggest that there is a complex and somewhat paradoxical relationship between developing production and perception which deserves further research. Children may consistently produce a phonetic difference (vowel duration) which they are unable to use as the SOLE perceptual cue for a phonological contrast.
47 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the VOT characteristics of word-initial stops produced by four four-year-old children and found that the children's spontaneo-time (VOT) characteristics were similar to those of adults.
Abstract: This paper reports on an investigation of the voice-onset-time (VOT) characteristics of word-initial stops produced by four four-year-old children. Instrumental analysis of the children's spontaneo...
45 citations
TL;DR: A new study is described which represents an attempt to determine a more specific basis for VOT perception by recordingitory evoked responses over the left and right hemispheres while 16 adults attended to repetitive series of two-tone stimuli.
TL;DR: The data suggest that whereas older stuttering children have longer phonation times than do nonstuttering children, younger stuttered children do not, and Voicing times for responses following nonrewarded responses tended to be shorter than those for responsesFollowing rewarded responses.
Abstract: The times needed to initiate and terminate voicing in response to series of short segments of 1000 Hz pure-tone auditory signal were studied for stuttering and nonstuttering children. The effects o...
TL;DR: The experiments reported here were designed to discover if CV transitions are also included by the listener in determining the effective duration of the "vowel," and it is clear that the syllable-initial transitions do contribute to that duration.
Abstract: Most investigations into the perceptual relevance of vowel duration have employed patterns of synthetic speech in which only the steady-state portions of syllables have been used as the variable. T...
TL;DR: Consideration of average discrepancies between mean perception and mean production data suggested that interpretation of trends in production data may be assisted by taking a measure of the point of overlap between voiced and voiceless productions, rather than the simple average of their means.
Abstract: 34 children (average age 3; 3) furnished perception and production data on five initial voiced-voiceless stop cognates. In addition to the usual systematic effects of place of articulation, significan
TL;DR: Although the language-delayed and normal-speaking children showed equivalent linguistic sophistication (as measured by MLU), the language's control of the acoustic-phonetic details of the voicing contrast was less mature than that of the normal- speaking children.
Abstract: Voicing is a phonological contrast which emerges early in the speech of children. However, the acoustic correlates of the voicing contrast for stop consonants are fairly complex. In the initial pos...
TL;DR: This paper found that children produced vowel duration differences of the same nature and magnitude as those found in adult speakers' utterances, and that the duration of a preceding vowel and duration of voicing during the final consonant closure were reliable predictors of the voicing characteristic of final consonants.
TL;DR: In general, the subjects were able to make these discriminations, although certain phonemes (such as /d — t/) were easier to discriminate than others |ð−θ|.
Abstract: Two experiments were conducted to investigate the ability of 12 subjects to discriminate between whispered consonants that are differentiated, in normal speech, on the basis of voicing. In general, the subjects were able to make these discriminations, although certain phonemes (such as /d -- t/) were easier to discriminate than others (formula see text). Possible acoustic features the subjects might be using to make these discriminations were discussed.
TL;DR: A spectrographic study was carried out to determine the legitimacy of interpreting medial stop contrasts in Rembarrnga (a north Australian language) as contrasts between gerninate and single stops, rather than between voiceless or fortis and voiced or lenis stops as discussed by the authors.
TL;DR: The amount of change of F0 over the vowel was no greater before voiced than voiceless consonants, suggesting that the earlier perceptual effects cannot be explained by appealing to regularities observed in the production of F 0 contours in vowels preceding postvocalic consonants.
Abstract: Several recent studies by Lehiste have reported that changes in fundamental frequency (F0) can serve as a cue to perceived vowel length and, furthermore, that the perceived lengthening of the vowel can influence perception of the voicing feature of stop consonants in syllable-final position. In Experiment 1, we replicated Lehiste’s basic results for stop consonants in final position. Experiment 2 extended these results to postvocalic fricatives. The final consonant in syllables of intermediate vowel duration was more often perceived as voiced when F0 was falling than when F0 was monotone. In Experiment 3, we examined the F0 contours produced by eight talkers before postvocalic stop consonants and fricatives in natural speech for minimal pairs of words differing in voicing. The amount of change of F0 over the vowel was no greater before voiced than voiceless consonants, suggesting that the earlier perceptual effects cannot be explained by appealing to regularities observed in the production of F0 contours in vowels preceding postvocalic consonants.
TL;DR: It is concluded that the voicing distinction is not ordinarily accessible and that individuals easily learn and use phonological rules involving voicing assimilation because of articulatory constraints on the production of consonant clusters.
Abstract: In three experiments a series of nonsense syllables ending in consonants was presented to adult subjects who had to discover or learn a rule classifying the syllables into two groups. The rule was based either on the voicing of the final consonants or on an arbitrary division of them. Subjects performed better with the voicing than with the arbitrary rule only when there was a straightforward relationship between the voicing rule and the plural formation rule in English or, more generally, when voicing assimilation with an added consonant was involved and attention was focused on the sound and articulation of the syllables. We conclude that the voicing distinction is not ordinarily accessible and that individuals easily learn and use phonological rules involving voicing assimilation because of articulatory constraints on the production of consonant clusters.
TL;DR: The authors investigated the effects of second language learning on the voice onset time values employed for productions of word initial stop consonants in Spanish and English words by two native Spanish speaking siblings were compared, and found that delayed language development interfered with the acquisition of a new language specific phonemic contrast.
TL;DR: Fundamental frequency data obtained on precisely the utterances reported seem to fit the hypothesis that unvoiced stops and affricates have higher fold tension than voiced stops and Affricates.
Abstract: Simultaneous recordings of voice and cricothyroid activity during speech gestures by one speaker of Hindi were made The experimental utterances consisted of monosyllabic and bisyllabic meaningful and nonsense words containing in prestressed initial and medial and poststressed final positions the voiced and unvoiced stops and affricates from both the aspirated and unaspirated categories All of the words were embedded in the carrier sentence 'baba - ap bolrye' The results show markedly higher levels of cricothyroid activity for the unvoiced stops and affricates than for their voiced cognates This cricothyroid activity appears to facilitate voicelessness through increased fold tension during unvoiced stops and affricates and thus contributes to the execution of voicing distinction in voiced and unvoiced stops and affricates Fundamental frequency data obtained on precisely the utterances reported in this paper also seem to fit the hypothesis that unvoiced stops and affricates have higher fold tension than voiced stops and affricates
TL;DR: This article found that the effectiveness of silent gap duration is far from uniform for /b/•/p/, /d•/t, /g•/k, and /m•/n.
Abstract: Several studies have reported that the duration of a silent gap affects listeners' decision in identifying an auditory stimulus as rabid or rapid. It appears to be accepted that silent gap duration is a cue to stop voicing. Several implications of this asserted connection between silent gap duration and the phonetic feature of voicing deserve some discussion. First of all, since the voicing feature is commonly said to distinguish the two phoneme sets/bdg/ and /ptk/, we should like some assurance that silent gap duration operates independently of stop place of articulation. Data exists which indicate that the effectiveness of silent gap duration is far from uniform for /b/‐/p/, /d/‐/t/, and /g/‐/k/. Secondly, if a short silent gap elicits rabid responses, and /b/ is said to be voiced, i.e., characterized by glottal signal during closure, then we might expect listeners not to distinguish between presence and absence of such signal. In fact listeners can detect this difference, and some can indeed give it a phonetic interpretation. Thirdly, we may enquire whether the variation in silent gap duration needed to effect a shift in linguistic identification falls within the range observed in natural speech. A comparison of experimentally determined category boundaries with measurements of natural speech shows that the connection is not always close. [The support of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is gratefully acknowledged.]
TL;DR: Articulatory correlates of each type of processing are discussed in terms of the distinction between source features that vary discretely in speech production and resonance features that can change smoothly and continuously.
Abstract: How do acoustic attributes of the speech signal contribute to feature-processing interactions that occur in phonetic classification? In a series of five experiments addressed to this question, listeners performed speeded classification tasks that explicitly required a phonetic decision for each response. Stimuli were natural consonant-vowel syllables differing by multiple phonetic features, although classification responses were based on a single target feature. In control tasks, no variations in nontarget features occurred, whereas in orthogonal tasks nonrelevant feature variations occurred but had to be ignored. Comparison of classification times demonstrated that feature information may either be processed separately as independent cues for each feature or as a single integral segment that jointly specifies several features. The observed form on processing depended on the acoustic manifestations of feature variation in the signal. Stop-consonant place of articulation and voicing cues, conveyed independently by the pattern and excitation source of the initial formant transitions, may be processed separately. However, information for consonant place of articulation and vowel quality, features that interactively affect the shape of initial formant transitions, are processed as an integral segment. Articulatory correlates of each type of processing are discussed in terms of the distinction between source features that vary discretely in speech production and resonance features that can change smoothly and continuously. Implications for perceptual models that include initial segmentation of an input utterance into a phonetic feature representation are also considered.
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that cues for the voicing characteristic of the final post-vocalic and post-nasal stops and cues for final nasals can be ranked according to relative "strength".
Dissertation•
01 Jan 1980
DOI•
01 Mar 1980
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of initial consonants and their effect on tone was investigated and it was shown that the effect varies according to whether the consonants are aspirated, glottalized, or voiced.
Abstract: This paper is chiefly concerned with the initial consonants and their effect on tone. The effect seems to differ according to whether the consonants are aspirated, glottalized, or voiced. We may abstract three main restores, namely aspiration, glottal cloture, and voicing against the simple unaspirated voiceless consonants. It is my belief that these features have some physiological basis for their influence on tone. It is also my belief that the phonetic nature of the tone has some hearing on their effects. Not being an experimental phonetician, I can offer no more than some data from a purely linguistic and comparative point of view, but I trust that experimental phoneticians will play as ever important role in solving the problem.
TL;DR: An articulation training procedure based on the clinical extension of distinctive-feature theory was used in an attempt to correct selected voicing errors exhibited by eight hearing-impaired adults, and the results indicate that the production of the [+ voice] feature was mastered by all subjects in the phonetic context where it was trained.