Showing papers on "Voice published in 1982"

The Theory of Lexical Phonology

Abstract: I: Introduction.- 1.1. The Issues.- 1.2. The Historical Perspective.- 1.3. The Spiral of Progress.- Notes.- II: An Outline of the Theory: English Phonology.- 2.1. Lexical and Postlexical Rule Applications.- 2.1.1. Two Criteria.- 2.1.2. Lexical Representations.- 2.1.3. Modularity in Lexical Phonology.- 2.1.4. The Intuitions: Word Phonology and Phrase Phonology.- 2.2. Lexical Morphology.- 2.3. The Use of Morphological Information in Phonology.- 2.3.1. Junctures and Rule Blocking.- 2.3.2. Junctures as Triggers: Bracket Erasure.- 2.3.3. Consequences of Bracket Erasure.- 2.4. How Many Strata in English?.- 2.4.1. Stratum 2 vs. Stratum 3: Stem Final Tensing.- 2.4.2. Syllable Structure in English.- 2.4.3. Strata 2,3 and 4: Syllabic Consonants.- 2.4.4. More on Strata 2, 3 and 4: [1] Velarization.- 2.4.5. Linking [r] in Nonrhotic Accents.- 2.4.6. Summary.- 2.5. Rules, Domains, and Stratum Ordering.- 2.5.1. Why Domains?.- 2.5.2. Multiple Stratum Domain in Phonology.- 2.5.3. Multiple Stratum Domain in Morphology.- 2.5.4. Marked and Unmarked Options.- 2.5.5. The Metaphor of Stratal Organization.- 2.5.6. Cycles and Strata.- 2.5.7. Cyclic and Noncyclic Strata.- 2.5.8. The Loop.- 2.6. The Mental Representation of Lexical Entries.- 2.6.1. Actual and Potential Words.- 2.6.2. Productivity: Phonological Rules and Performance.- 2.6.3. The Productivity Continuum.- Notes.- III: Malayalam Phonology: Segmentals.- 3.1. The Lexical Alphabet.- 3.1.1. Lexical Contrasts.- 3.1.2. Voicing of Stops.- 3.1.3. Lenition of Stops.- 3.1.4. Schwa Onglide after Voiced Stops.- 3.2. The Underlying Alphabet.- 3.2.1. Nasals: Place and Nasality Assimilations.- 3.2.2. Other Rules for Nasals.- 3.2.3. Underlying Stops.- 3.3. Syllable Structure in Malayalam.- 3.3.1. The Syllable Template.- 3.3.2. Glide Formation.- 3.3.3. Schwa Insertion.- 3.4. Lexical Strata in Malayalam.- 3.4.1. Productivity, Sanskrit and Dravidian.- 3.4.2. Two Types of Compounding.- 3.4.3. Schwa Insertion in Compounds.- 3.4.4. Degemination of Sonorants.- 3.4.5. Stem-Initial Gemination.- 3.4.6. Stem-Final Gemination.- 3.4.7. Postsonorant Gemination.- 3.4.8. Nasal Deletion.- 3.4.9. Vowel Lengthening.- 3.4.10. Vowel Sandhi.- 3.5. Summary.- Notes.- IV: Malayalam Phonology: Suprasegmentals.- 4.1. The Loop in Malayalam Morphology.- 4.2. Stress and Word Melody.- 4.2.1. Stress.- 4.2.2. Word Melody.- 4.3. The Domain of Stress and Word Melody.- 4.4. Schwa Insertion and Word Melody.- 4.5. An Ordering Paradox.- 4.6. The Effect of the Loop on Stress and Word Melody.- Notes.- V: Accessing Morphological Information.- 5.1. Types of Nonphonological Information in Phonology.- 5.2. Boundaries.- 5.2.1. Boundaries, Concatenation, and Domains.- 5.2.2. Boundary Assignment in SPE.- 5.2.3. Concatenation/Stratum vs. Boundary/Bracket Theories.- 5.3. Domains as Node Labels on Trees.- 5.3.1. Selkirk's Theory.- 5.3.2. Lexicalist Phonology: Concatenation, Stratum and Brackets.- 5.4. Hierarchical Structure in Morphology Notes.- VI: The Postlexical Module.- 6.1. Syntactic and Postsyntactic Modules.- 6.1.1. Accessing Syntactic Information in Phonology.- 6.1.2. Phonological Rules Sensitive to Syntax.- 6.1.3. Phonological Phrases.- 6.1.4. Preview.- 6.2. Speech as Implementation of Phonetic Representation.- 6.3. The Nature of Phonetic Representations.- 6.3.1. Phonetic Features on a Scale.- 6.3.2. How Abstract are Phonetic Representations?.- 6.3.3. The Status of Segments in Phonetic Representations.- 6.4. Language-Specific Implementational Phenomena.- 6.5. Types of Subsegmental Phenomena.- 6.5.1. Timing of Articulatory Gestures.- 6.5.2. Coordination of Articulatory Gestures.- 6.5.3. Degree of Articulatory Gestures.- 6.5.4. Enhancement as Phonetic Implementation.- 6.6. Underlying and Lexical Alphabets.- 6.7. Phonological Structure and Phonetic Implementation.- 6.8. Phonetic Implementation and Classical Phonemics.- 6.8.1. Conditions Relating the Phonemic and Phonetic Levels.- 6.8.2. The Nature of the Mapping.- Notes.- VII: Lexical Phonology and Psychological Reality.- 7.1. The Nature of Evidence in Phonology.- 7.1.1. Corpus vs. Speaker Behaviour.- 7.1.2. Internal and External Evidence.- 7.2. Speaker Judgments.- 7.2.1. Judgments on the Number of Segments.- 7.2.2. Judgments on Segment Distinctions.- 7.2.3. The Perceptual Grid.- 7.2.4. What the Speakers Think They Are Saying or Hearing.- 7.3. Phonemic Orthography.- 7.4. Conventions of Sound Patterning in Versification.- 7.4.1. Rhyme in English.- 7.4.2. Rhyme in Malayalam.- 7.4.3. Metre in Malayalam.- Notes.- Conclusion.- References.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

Some effects of laboratory training on identification and discrimination of voicing contrasts in stop consonants.

Abstract: For many years there has been a consensus that early linguistic experience exerts a profound and often permanent effect on the perceptual abilities underlying the identification and discrimination of stop consonants. It has also been concluded that selective modification of the perception of stop consonants cannot be accomplished easily and quickly in the laboratory with simple discrimination training techniques. In the present article we report the results of three experiments that examined the perception of a three-way voicing contrast by naive monolingual speakers of English. Laboratory training procedures were implemented with a small computer in a real-time environment to examine the perception of voiced, voiceless unaspirated, and voiceless aspirated stops differing in voice onset time. Three perceptual categories were present for most subjects after only a few minutes of exposure to the novel contrast. Subsequent perceptual tests revealed reliable and consistent labeling and categorical-like discrimination functions for all three voicing categories, even though one of the contrasts is not phonologically distinctive in English. The present results demonstrate that the perceptual mechanisms used by adults in categorizing stop consonants can be modified easily with simple laboratory techniques in a short period of time.

Enhanced discriminability at the phonetic boundaries for the voicing feature in macaques.

Abstract: Discrimination of speech sounds from three computer-generated continua that ranged from voiced to voiceless syllables (/ba-pa/, /da-ta/, and ga-ha/ was tested with three macaques. The stimuli on each continuum varied in voice-onset time (VOT). Paris of stimuli that were equally different in VOT were chosen such that they were either within-category pairs (syllables given the same phonetic label by human listeners) or between-category paks (syllables given different phonetic labels by human listeners). Results demonstrated that discrimination performance was always best for between-category pairs of stimuli, thus replicating the “phoneme boundary effect” seen in adult listeners and in human infants as young as I month of age. The findings are discussed in terms of their specific impact on accounts of voicing perception in human listeners and in terms of their impact on discussions of the evolution of language.

Consonant/vowel ratio as a cue for voicing in English

Abstract: Several experiments investigate voicing judgments in minimal pairs likerabid-rapid when the duration of the first vowel and the medial stop are varied factorially and other cues for voicing remain ambiguous. In Experiments 1 and 2, in which synthetic labial and velar-stop voicing pairs are investigated, the perceptual boundary along a continuum of silent consonant durations varies in constant proportion to increases in the duration of the preceding vocalic interval. In Experiment 3, it is shown that speaking tempo external to the test word has far smaller effects on a closure duration boundary for voicing than does the tempo within the test word. Experiment 4 shows that, even within the word, it is primarily the preceding vowel that accounts for changes in the consonant duration effects. Furthermore, in Experiments 3 and 4, the effects of timing outside the vowel-consonant interval are independent of the duration of that interval itself. These findings suggest that consonant/vowel ratio serves as a primary acoustic cue for English voicing in syllable-final position and imply that this ratio possibly is directly extracted from the speech signal.

Voicing‐dependent vowel duration in English and French: Monolingual and bilingual production

Abstract: It is well established in English phonology that vowels preceding voiceless consonants are approximately two‐thirds the duration of vowels preceding voiced consonants when these vowels occur in stressed prepausal environments. It is claimed that such a large voicing‐dependent effect does not exist in certain other languages, such as French. However, in previous studies, the syllabic and phonemic structures of the stimuli used for cross‐language comparison have not been held constant. Therefore, it was the purpose of this study to compare durational effects in English and French stimulus words having the same syllabic structure and, to the extent possible, the same phonemic structure. An additional issue of the study was the ability of bilinguals to utilize the English durational rule. Computer analysis of 854 stimulus words revealed that (1) there were larger context‐dependent differences in preconsonantal vowel duration in English than in French, and (2) the English and French vowel duration ratios of French–English bilinguals were essentially like those of French monolinguals. However, the bilinguals’ English vowels were longer than their French vowels.

Vowel duration as a perceptual cue to postvocalic consonant voicing in young children and adults

Abstract: Vowel duration is a powerful acoustic cue for adults’ perception of postvocalic consonant voicing, but it has not been studied sufficiently in children. The purpose of the present work was to study the development of the use of this duration cue in 3‐year‐olds, 6‐year‐olds, and adults. The duration of the vowel was varied to construct three stimulus continua (BIP–BIB, POT–POD, BACK–BAG). The subjects, who had normal language, articulation skills, and hearing sensitivity, identified all stimuli from each of the three continua ten times. Significant developmental differences in the perceptual judgments of voicing were demonstrated. These differences were reflected in both the locus of the category boundary and the slope of the identification function.

Differences between spectral dependencies in auditory and phonetic temporal processing: Relevance to the perception of voicing in initial stops

Abstract: Untrained listeners can reliably judge the temporal order of the onsets of (a) pairs of coterminous tones [forming tone‐onset‐time (TOT) continua], and (b) higher‐frequency bandlimited noises and lower‐frequency bandlimited pulse trains [forming noise‐onset‐time (NOT) continua], but only if the onset of the second sound lags the first by at least 15–20 ms. It has been argued that the limitation of auditory temporal‐order resolution that gives rise to this threshold also underlies the distinction between voiced [b,d,g] and voiceless aspirated (ph,th,kh] syllable‐initial stop consonants [which can be expressed in differences of voice‐onset‐time (VOT)]. The positions of boundaries between phonetic categories on VOT continua depend on the values of a variety of spectral parameters, including the onset frequency of the first formant; lowering this results in boundaries shifting to longer values of VOT. The present experiment demonstrated that analogous spectral manipulations applied to the members of TOT and N...

On the status of temporal cues to phonetic categories: Preceding vowel duration as a cue to voicing in final stop consonants

Abstract: The duration of the preceding vowel has been called a primary and even necessary cue to voicing in final stop consonants. The results of this investigation suggest that in natural speech,vowel duration differences are probably neither necessary nor adequate cues to this distinction and that voicing during closure may be required to disambiguate final voiced stops. The stimuli were 52 one‐syllable words recorded by two speakers and subjected to an analog‐to‐digital process and to linear predictive coding. Deletions, compressions, and expansions of segments of these 104 syllables produced 521 stimulus items which were randomized and presented to 12 adult listeners who judged the syllables to end in a voiced or voiceless stop. Though syllable duration was a more significant cue to the voicing feature than was vowel duration, syllable duration was not a necessary cue in that, even at the extremes of syllable length, syllables with final transition and/or final segment information intact did not effect a crossover in voicing judgment. Syllable duration was not an adequate cue to the voicing feature in that syllables without final transition and final segment information were not heard as better than 60 percent voiced at any syllable duration. By contrast, voicing during closure determined the voicing decision across the full range of syllable durations.

Voicing effect on vowel duration is not an absolute universal

Abstract: A familiar model of the linguistic analysis of speech tends to describe speech in terms of the segment units of phonetic transcription under the assumption that nondiscrete physical properties of speech can be derived from the discrete elements by universal rules of performance. Thus it is widely accepted that vowels are universally longer before voiced consonants than before voiceless ones; for example, in English tab and tap, the vowel is obviously longer in the first. A spectrographic test of Arabic minimal pairs by eight Arabs, however, revealed that Arabic did not exhibit a difference in vowel duration as a function of the segmental “voicing” feature. Yet to further support this finding another spectrographic test of English minimal pairs spoken by eight Arabs revealed that they had considerable difficulty learning the novel temporal implementation for the English “voicing” feature. These results disprove the assumption of current linguistic analysis that nondiscrete physical properties of speech sou...

Assessing the role of experience on infants' speech discrimination.

Abstract: Several studies have investigated the effect of a particular linguistic environment on infants' discrimination of voicing for stop consonants. Exposure to contrasts phonemic for a community has been said to heighten preverbal infants' sensitivity to these contrasts.This paper argues that phonetic input cannot be specified and ‘experience’ cannot be defined in this context without knowing how infants perceptually structure speech input. Consequently, the discrimination paradigm provides no test for the effect of experience on infants' speech discrimination. The conditions to be met in order to conclude an effect of experience are outlined.

Acoustic cues to final stop voicing for impaired‐ and normal‐hearing listeners

Abstract: Voicing perception for final stops was studied for impaired‐ and for normal‐hearing listeners when cues in naturally spoken syllables were progressively neutralized. The syllables were ten different utterances of /daep, daek, daet, daeb, daeg, daed/ spoken in random order by a male. The cue modifications consisted progressively of neutralized vowel duration, equalized occlusion duration, burst deletion, murmur deletion, vowel‐transition interchange, and transition deletion. The impaired subjects had moderate‐to‐severe lossses and showed at least 70% correct voicing for the unmodified syllables. For the voiced stops, vowel‐duration adjustment and murmur deletion each resulted in significant reductions in voicing perception for more than one‐third of the impaired listeners; all normals showed good performance following neutralization of these cues. For the voiceless stops, large percentages of both listener groups showed decreased voicing perception due to the burst deletion, though a majority of both groups performed well above chance even after the vowel‐duration adjustment and the burst deletion. When the vowel off‐going transitions were exchanged between cognate syllables in given pairs, the effect on voicing perception exhibited by many impaired‐ and all normal‐hearing listeners implicated the vowel transitions as an important additional source of cues to final‐stop voicing perception.

Structure and duration of vowels together specify fricative voicing

Abstract: The durations of vowels specify several types of linguistic information. Thus multiple durational cues may be decoded from the same temporal interval of the signal, a situation which should create perceptual ambiguity. Four perceptual studies of postvocalic fricative voicing examined how information in the duration and dynamic structure of the vowel might combine to resolve these ambiguities. Stimuli were made by varying the duration and structure of vowels from utterances of /jus/ and /juz/. In the first experiment vowel structure differences influenced voicing judgments by 30%–40%. The second experiment showed that the offset characteristics of the /juz/ vowel were not the major vowel structure cues in the first experiment. The third experiment examined identification and discrimination of stimuli with neutral vocalic voicing cues which differed only in friction duration. Even with these stimuli, friction duration was a weak and poorly discriminated voicing cue. The fourth experiment showed that variations in the structure and duration of vowels are specific to the voicing contrast and minimally influence vowel identification. Acoustic analyses of /jus/ and /juz/ produced at normal and rapid rates revealed that the proportional durations of the semivowel transitions and vowel steady state differed reliable before /s/ and /z/, regardless of total vowel duration. Before /s/ the steady‐state duration was approximately 45% that of the entire vowel, as compared with 65% before /z/. These proportional values remained stable across talkers and speaking rates. Postvocalic fricative voicing contrasts apparently may be encoded in the relative timing of articulatory events which produce the entire voiced portion of the syllable. Attunement to both the structure and duration of vowels as sources of perceptual information may then account for the minimal ambiguity of linguistic contrasts assumed to be cued by differences in vowel duration.

Developmental Use of Vowel Duration as a Cue to Postvocalic Stop Consonant Voicing

Abstract: This developmental study investigated vowel duration as a cue to postvocalic consonant voicing. Ten trials of six test words, spoken by 10 3-year-olds, 10 6-year-olds, and 10 adults, all with norma...

A Dialect Survey of Carbonear, Newfoundland

Abstract: Since no mystically unified dialect was expected, twenty-four primary informants were chosen so as to represent the maximum linguistic variety. Thus, I attempted to secure equal numbers in (a) two generations--one older, one middle-aged--(b) the two sexes, (c) two ethnic and religious divisions--roughly, Roman Catholics of Irish ancestry versus Protestants of mostly English ancestry--and (d) three Groups based on social amd economic status and education. Correlations were sought between one or more of these four non-linguistic factors and the linguistic variations discovered. -- Though I deliberately avoid comparing the English of Carbonear with that of other dialects of English, such comparison is implied by some of the choices of emphasis which I have made. This is especially true in Chapter 1, which deals with some selected features of the grammar. -- For example, in much folk and common speech especially among the "English", even the inanimate nouns have a well-defined but covert system of three grammatical genders. In much folk speech lexical verbs employ the same form for both the simple past and the past participle, and the -s inflection is used with all subjects in the simple non-past. -- Chapters 2 and 3 are an attempt at a systematic description of the speech sounds. The common vocoids are roughly [I V ɚ ɛ ə ae ʌ ǫ] and [h]. The first three, [I V ɚ], occur both as syllabics (full vowels) and nonsyllabics (vowel glides). Only front vowels are consistently unrounded; rounded and generally lowered manifestations of all other vowels occur. Phonemic lengthening of vowels is considered to be an allophone of /h/, for it is in complementation with initial [h]. -- Wide variations are found in the distribution of vowels before the vocalic consonants /w y h r/. -- Besides the four consonants which are phonetically vocoids, /w y h r/, cultured speech contains twenty consonants which are phonetically contoids. However, many other speakers use /d/ and /t/ rather than /[special character omitted]/ and /θ/ in words spelled with th such as then and thin. The "clear" allophone of l, [ļ], occurs frequently in final and post-vocalic positions. Conditioned voicing is fairly common in all the obstruents--partial devoicing occurring finally and sometimes initially, whereas intervocalic allophones are often voiced. -- In Chapter 4, a surprisingly large variety of terms is found for many referents. Their distribution usually correlates well with one of the non-linguistic factors. -- Chapter 5 summarizes the correlations between linguistic and non-linguistic factors. The most important linguistic variations correlate well with the social, economic, and educational differences subsumed under the term Group, whereas those which correlate with age, ethnic origins, and sex are relatively minor and infrequent.

A speech training aid for the deaf with display of voicing, frication and silence

Abstract: A new speech training aid providing visual feedback for deaf children is described. The Fricative and Timing Aid (FTA) distinguisnes between silence, voiced sounds and unvoiced sounds and displays their presence and duration within words or phrases. It provides target and attempt traces, allowing subjects to perceive and correct errors in speech. The FTA was used under controlled conditions to teach fricative production and voicing contrasts, over six months. The results show that (i) for children learning voicing contrasts, those using the FTA made more progress than those not using it and (ii) for children learning fricatives the progress made by FTA users and non-users was similar. However, the FTA made speech training easier and more efficient.

Tactile communication of speech. I. Comparison of Tadoma and a frequency-amplitude spectral display in a consonant discrimination task

Abstract: Consonant discrimination experiments were performed comparing Tadoma and an Optacon‐based, frequency‐amplitude, spectral display. The results of these experiments, which employed common subjects and procedures, indicate that Tadoma is substantially superior for discriminating consonant pairs that differ in voicing or place of articulation, but not for discriminating pairs that differ in manner of articulation. The overall superiority of Tadoma revealed in these consonant‐discrimination experiments should not be generalized to all spectral displays.

Timing in the speech of children and adults

Abstract: The duration of phonetic intervals are sometimes longer in the speech of young children than adults, although it is not clear at what age timing can be said to have become “adult‐like.” This study examined speech timing as a function of speaker age. Adults and three groups of children (mean ages: 5;0, 8;0, 10;8) produced utterances like “Bob Bob Bob” with a tube in the corner of the mouth. The duration of “vowels” (/a/, /I/, /i/) and singleton and abutting stops (/b/,/b♯b/,/b♯p/) was defined by means of variation in supraglottal pressure. There were few between‐group differences in the absolute duration of vowels, and none for bilabial closure intervals. All groups showed the same relative effects of phonetic factors. For vowels, the effect of position‐in‐utterance, number of syllables per word, vowel height, and stop voicing were comparable across groups. Position‐in‐utterance, vocalic environment, gemination (i.e., /b/ versus /b♯b/), and position with regard to stress also showed similar effects on consonant duration for each group.

Effects of changes in stress, voicing and place of articulation on word recognition in continuous speech

Abstract: The perceptual effects of three types of mispronunciations were investigated in a continuous speech shadowing task. Two‐syllable key words were mispronounced, changing either the stress pattern, the voicing of obstruents, or the front‐back dimension of vowels. Three separate prose passages, taken from a popular novel, were used in the three experimental conditions. Each passage was approximately 650 words in length and contained 20 key words. The key words in the three conditions were equated for predictability from context and for frequency of occurrence in English. Subjects were instructed to shadow all three passages. The majority of subjects' responses were exact repetitions when either stress or place was altered. When voicing was altered, the majority of subjects' responses were corrections (restorations) of the mispronounced words.

The influence of consonant environment on F0 from voicing onset to vowel target in the speech of children

Abstract: Although research on adult speech has manifested systematic effects of consonant environment on the fundamental frequency (F0) of vowels, little is known about the nature of these influences in children. In order to determine the effects of consonant environment on F0 in children, three girls and three boys between 8 and 9 years recorded five repetitions each of voiceless aspirated /ph,th,kh/ voiceless unaspirated /sp,st,sk/, and voiced /b,d,g/ stops in combination with the vowels /i,e,u,o,a/. Fundamental frequency was measured for the first five glottal periods and vowel target, and voice onset time (VOT) was determined for each utterance. The findings for VOT revealed nearly identical results for voiceless unaspirated stops and voiced stops, whereas differences between voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops for labial, alveolar, and velar features were 61, 65, and 59 ms, respectively. Despite the similarity in VOT between voiceless unaspirated and voiced stops, F0 contours of voiceless unaspirated stops were more similar to voiceless aspirated than voiced stops. In general, there was a decrease in F0 from the first glottal period to the second glottal period for all voicing conditions. Moreover, F0 was usually higher in the environment of voiceless stops than voiced stops, although this was not unanimous across subjects. The findings will be discussed relative to developmental and coarticulatory processes, and sex differences. [Work supported in part by NINCDS.]

Anchoring consonantal perturbation of fundamental frequency

Abstract: The larynx is raised during voiceless obstruents, elevating fundamental frequency (F0) on the following vowel perceptibly above its Svalue after voiced obstruents or nasals. Though vertical larynx movement is not closely synchronized with vowel onset [C. J. Riordan, Report of the Phonology Laboratory, UC, Berkeley 5, 114–126 (1980)], it does not follow a uniform contour independent of consonant type either, but is loosely anchored to oral release. I measured F0 of vowels following glottal stop, voiced and voiceless (oral) stops, ejectives, and nasals produced by a Tigrinya speaker. Glottal stop, voiceless stops, and ejectives all elevated F0, but voiced stops and nasals did not. F0 fell 6–7 Hz during the first 50 ms after all elevating consonants and rose 2–3 Hz after nonelevators. Taking nasal values as a baseline, F0 at vowel onset was 16 Hz higher after glottal stop, 13 Hz higher after voiceless stops, but only 8 Hz higher after ejectives. F0 should be higher after ejectives than voiceless stops because the larynx is actively raised during ejectives to compress air in the oral cavity. However, voice onset time (VOT) for ejectives is 1.5 times that of oral stops, so the larnyx may have fallen back before voicing begins. The F0 contour after an ejective fits that following a voiceless stop if it is offset by the difference in their VOTs.

Coarticulatory effects of stop voicing on F0 from voicing onset to vowel target

Abstract: Fundamental frequency perturbations due to stop voicing were measured using a computer waveform editing program for the first five pitch periods and vowel target. Five adult males recorded five repetitions each of voiceless aspirated /ph, th, kh/, voiceless unaspirated /sp, st, sk/ and voiced /b, d, g/ stops in combination with the vowels /i, e, u, o, a/. Voice onset time (VOT) was determined for each utterance. Mean differences in VOT between voiceless unaspirated and voiced stops collapsed across vowels were only 3, 6, and 4 Hz for bilabial, alveolar, and velar places of articulation, respectively, whereas comparable differences between voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops were 42, 56, and 47 Hz. In general, F0 fell from the first pitch period to the second pitch period for all voicing conditions. The average magnitude of this fall was greatest for voiceless unaspirated stops and least for voiced stops. Slight changes in F0 occurred from the second pitch period to the vowel target. Moreover, the average absolute differences in F0 between voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops for the second pitch period to vowel target never exceeded 3 Hz compared to at least a 9‐Hz differential between voiceless unaspirated and voiced stops. The results indicate the importance of F0 change at voicing onset as a property that distinguishes not only voiceless aspirated from voiced stops but also voiceless unaspirated from voiced stops. [Work supported in part by NINCDS.]

Lingual velocity and onset of voicing

Abstract: The timing of tongue movements was studied in relation to oral release and onset of voicing, using pulsed‐echo ultrasound. The stimuli were CV syllables, produced at two speech rates and different stress patterns. Relationships between the timing of maximum velocity on tongue lowering, oral release, and voice onset were examined. The interval from oral release to the point of maximum lowering velocity was essentially constant across differences in speech rate, voicing, and vowel height, though estimates differed for stressed and unstressed vowels. For unstressed vowels, peak lowering velocity lagged oral release by approximately 5 ms; for stressed vowels the delay was about 35 ms. The interval from the point of maximum velocity to voice onset was highly correlated with VOT. Further, for stressed vowels, VOT was inversely related to the maximum velocity of tongue lowering and to the distance to the point of maximum velocity from linguo‐palatal contact. As reported by others, VOT varied with speech rate, consonantal voicing, and vowel height.

Impaired‐ and normal‐hearing listeners' voicing perception of final fricatives in cue‐adjusted syllables

Abstract: In the spoken syllables /d∧z/ versus /d∧s/ and /d∧v/ versus /d∧f/, vowel duration differences were reduced, frications deleted, and vowel offsets exchanged or deleted. These adjustments were performed digitally on ten different tokens of each syllable. The voicing cues were adjusted in various combinations to yield different test conditions for identification of the syllables. Hearing‐impaired (N = 24) and normal‐hearing (N = 11) listeners were tested several times under each condition. For both listener groups, fricative voicing perception was generally unaffected by deletion of the frications from the syllables. The vowel duration adjustments (lengthening vowels that preceded voiceless frication, shortening vowels preceding voiced) significantly reduced fricative voicing perception for about half of the hearing‐impaired listeners; none of the normal‐hearing listeners was significantly affected by the vowel duration adjustment. When the vowel offsets (final seven pitch periods) were exchanged between voi...