Showing papers on "Voice published in 1992"

Phonetic prototypes: Influence of place of articulation and speaking rate on the internal structure of voicing categories

Abstract: In this investigation, the effects of context on the perception of voicing contrasts specified by voice‐onset‐time (VOT) in syllable‐initial stop consonants were examined. In an earlier paper [J. L. Miller and L. E. Volaitis, Percept. Psychophys. 46, 505–512 (1989)], it was reported that the listener’s adjustment for one contextual variable, speaking rate, was not confined to the region of the phonetic category boundary, but extended throughout the phonetic category. The current investigation examines whether this type of perceptual remapping also occurs for another contextual variable, the place of articulation of the syllable‐initial consonant. In a preliminary experiment that involved acoustic measurement of natural speech, it was confirmed that as place of articulation moves from labial to velar, VOT increases, and it was established that this occurs across a range of speaking rates (syllable durations). In the main experiments, which focused on the voiceless category, it was found that this acoustic ...

Acoustic and perceptual characteristics of voicing in fricatives and fricative clusters.

Abstract: Several types of measurements were made to determine the acoustic characteristics that distinguish between voiced and voiceless fricatives in various phonetic environments The selection of measurements was based on a theoretical analysis that indicated the acoustic and aerodynamic attributes at the boundaries between fricatives and vowels As expected, glottal vibration extended over a longer time in the obstruent interval for voiced fricatives than for voiceless fricatives, and there were more extensive transitions of the first formant adjacent to voiced fricatives than for the voiceless cognates When two fricatives with different voicing were adjacent, there were substantial modifications of these acoustic attributes, particularly for the syllable-final fricative In some cases, these modifications leads to complete assimilation of the voicing feature Several perceptual studies with synthetic vowel-consonant-vowel stimuli and with edited natural stimuli examined the role of consonant duration, extent and location of glottal vibration, and extent of formant transitions on the identification of the voicing characteristics of fricatives The perceptual results were in general consistent with the acoustic observations and with expectations based on the theoretical model The results suggest that listeners base their voicing judgments of intervocalic fricatives on an assessment of the time interval in the fricative during which there is no glottal vibration This time interval must exceed about 60 ms if the fricative is to be judged as voiceless, except that a small correction to this threshold is applied depending on the extent to which the first-formant transitions are truncated at the consonant boundaries

The phonological representation of [voice] in speech perception.

Abstract: This paper examines to what extent phonological representations affect word identification. The contrast under investigation involves the interaction between voicing and vowel length in Dutch. Dutc...

Segment Composition as a Factor in the Syllabification Errors of Second Language Speakers.

Abstract: A major goal of second-language acquisition research is to identify factors that influence speaker/listener errors. This study focused on the markedness of L2 consonant characteristics as one such factor. Markedness theory has well served the search for performance constraints that go beyond native-language interference. Its application to phonological errors in particular has been fertile ground for testing the claim that L2 errors reflect universal constraints on learning linguistic forms. Evidence for this claim has been sought more often from the syllabic structure of words than the properties of the speech sounds comprising it. Thus, given the universally favored CV syllable shape, L2 errors are expected to occur more often in the more marked syllable-final than syllable-initial word position. Our study revealed, however, that the markedness of the syllabic position can be neutralized by the type of consonant sounds that are perceived and produced: The expected rank ordering of initial and final consonant errors of Mandarin speakers of English did not conform to Anderson's (1987) hierarchy as predicted by a modified version of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis. These learners' syllable final/initial errors could be related to the consonant's manner and place of articulation, as well as to its voicing and sonority features as described in other studies; the greater vulnerability of their nasal than their oral stops to syllable position constraints implicates the markedness of the speech sounds themselves as a factor limiting performance. This study, then, adds to the growing body of evidence that L2 errors are differentially influenced by the inherent properties of the L2 speech sounds. The research focus on segmental sound properties becomes important in view of the fact that so much of the syllable structure research has focused on oral stops; our findings suggest that research on syllable structure constraints may not be generalized across sound classes. Furthermore, it is clear that multiple interacting factors must be taken into account in modeling L2 errors within a universal constraints framework.

Effects of postvocalic voicing on the time course of vowels and diphthongs

Abstract: Studies of the effects of contextual factors on segmental duration have been mostly restricted to overall duration and relatively few have paid attention to the internal time course of speech segments. However, fine‐grained temporal analysis of speech segments is hindered by within‐speaker variability and the unreliability of manual segmentation. In this paper, using new methods for reducing statistical ‘‘noise’’ in acoustic trajectories [mappings of the time domain into an appropriate acoustic parameter space, such as formants, cepstra, etc.], analyses are presented of the effects of postvocalic voicing on the internal time course of selected vowels and diphthongs preceding voiced and voiceless consonants in contrasting minimal word pairs [e.g., ‘‘mend’’ versus ‘‘meant’’] are presented. These methods include the computation of the centroid of a set of acoustic trajectories, the average of a set of time warps among minimal word pairs, and various smoothing techniques. The centroid trajectories of a minimal pair generally coincide closely. It was found that lengthening due to postvocalic voicing is nonuniform, with certain regions expanding more than others. The location of maximal expansion could be determined reliably in most vowels and diphthongs studied, and, except for /ay/, occurs towards the end of the vowel or diphthong. For /ay/, the maximal expansion occurs toward the beginning of /a/.

Continuities between speech and spelling in a case of developmental dyslexia

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between speech and spelling in a single-case study of developmental dyslexia. JM, a developmental dyslexic with a well-documented history of speech, reading and spelling difficulties, was examined when he was 13–14 years old. He still had subtle articulation difficulties causing some disfluency and his use of phonetic voicing was atypical. We argue that these difficulties were recapitulated in his spelling where he was more sensitive to the prosodic aspects of words than normal spellers, exhibiting a strong tendency to spell accurately words which are stressed on the first, rather than the second syllable. He also had more difficulty with phonetic voicing and spelling errors reflected this uncertainty. Thus, when word-specific (orthographic) spelling information is unavailable, JM, like all spellers, must make use of phonological spelling strategies. In his case, these are compromised because of underlying phonological speech problems. It is argued that, while young children make use of a phonological ‘frame’ on which to organize orthographic information, dyslexics, like JM, who have inadequate phonological representations, are unable to do so. This has a detrimental effect on their acquisition of spelling.

A unified theory of tone-voice.

Abstract: This thesis studies the interactions of vowel tone with consonantal voice. Briefly, tone-voice interactions refer to: (i) voiced – not voiceless – onsets block high tone spreading; (ii) voiceless – not voiced – onsets block low tone spreading; (iii) sonorant onsets are transparent to both tonal processes. There are many variations to these archetypical patterns of tone-voice interactions. I argue that these variations as well as the archetypical patterns can receive a revealing account from the phonological theory. Specifically, this thesis explores the Prosodic Hypothesis of Tone-Voice, which claims: (i) tone must be represented prosodically (namely, tone is associated to mora); and (ii) tone-voice relations must be expressed by conditions (namely, path conditions, proposed in Archangeli and Pulleyblank (in prep)). By exploiting tonal representations and conditions on tone-voice, the Prosodic Hypothesis provides a principled account of tone-voice in Ngizim, Ewe, and Nupe. The result is a principled theory that unifies the known phonetic and phonological facts about tone-voice and that makes testable predictions about the nature and type of expected tone-voice interactions. In addition to tone-voice, this thesis investigates a range of theoretical issues from tonal representations, to onset representations, to the privative voicing theory to Grounded Phonology (Archangeli and Pulleyblank in prep.). I demonstrate that detailed formal analyses of tone-voice can not only uncover facts about tone-voice, but can also make important contributions to phonological theory.

Voicing in Spanish to English Spelling Knowledge Transfer.

Abstract: A study investigated spelling error patterns in native Spanish-speaking students of English as a Second Language to determine the degree to which errors can be attributed to phonological patterns. Specifically, i' examined (1) which spellings can be attributed to differences in voicedness of consonants, and (2) whether the voicedness can be used to identify a progression of spelling strategies that characterize Spanish-influenced English spelling. Subjects were 47 secondand third-grade children in a transitional bilingual education program just beginning to receive English instruction. Spelling proficiency in English and Spanish was pre-tested with 18-word developmental spelling tests, then weekly spelling samples were collected over 20 weeks. Five new words incorporating key spelling features were included with regular spelling words each week. Patterns of individual phonemes and corresponding spelling were analyzed. Results indicate that whatever conceptual knowledge children had of the spelling system in their native language was applied to English. The need to attend to voicedness in English spelling, not an issue in Spanish, remained problematic for students. A sequence of four spelling strategies was identified and implications for classroom spelling instruction are drawn. Analysis results are appended.(Contains 12 references.) (MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Lou Ferroli Rockford College 5050 E. State Rockford, Illinois 61108 815/226-4182 Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago Voicing in Spanish to English Spelling Knowledge Transfer U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Once or EauCa,onal Research and improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) is doCument 0.0 been reproduced as rece..ed Irom the Person or organaahon 0.9~Wa Pknor changt5 have been made to .rnprove reCOOCIOCNZtn CRIS Isty Pornts of 'new a OPenOnS Slated .0100 dorms went do nOt nOCIISSahly represent othc.at OERI pOsdrOn Or potcy PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY LC) ceN-VMAi TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER tERICI Running Head: VOICING

Tone Splits and Voicing Shifts in Thai: Phonetic Plausibility*

Abstract: It has been shown for a number of languages that right after the release of a voiced stop consonant the fundamental frequency (FO) of the voice is likely to be lower than after the release of a voiceless stop and that such FO perturbations can influence phonemic judgments of voicing. This led to the designing of two experiments to test the phonetic plausibility of the argument: (1) CV syllables were synthesized with three values of voice onset time (VOT) acceptable as Thai Ib p phi. Each of these was combined with a continuum of FO contours that had previously been divided perceptually into the high, mid and low tones. These syllables were played to native speakers of Thai for tonal identification. (2) Labial stops with nine values of VOT separable into Ib p phi categories were coupled on synthetic mid-tone and low-tone CV syllables with upward and downward FO onsets varying in extent and duration. The resulting syllables were played for iden­ tification of the initial consonants. The historical argument receives modest support, especially from the second experiment, suggesting that during a period of tone splitting, under the influence of audible FO perturbations, speaken could have brought about the rephonemicization of the old consonant categories. Thus, these results give direct support to the argument that pitch factors led to voicing shifts but only indirect support to the claim that they gave rise to tone splits.

The Role of F1 Transitions in the Perception of Voicing in Initial Plosives

Abstract: A memory cell comprising field effect transistors for use in a random access memory array. The cell is of the dynamic type wherein data is stored on capacitive elements, and is self-refreshing; no circuitry external to the array is needed for refresh, other than clock sources. Five MOS field effect transistors are employed, with two non-overlapping clocks, a data buss for each row of the array and one address line for each column. The transistors and associated capacitors are arranged to reinforce a stored "1" or "0".

Vowel duration in Afrikaans: The influence of postvocalic consonant voicing and syllable structure

Abstract: A production study was conducted to investigate the effect of vowel lengthening before voiced obstruents, and the possible influence that the openness versus closedness of syllables have on the temporal structure of vowels in some languages. The results revealed that vowels were significantly longer when followed by voiced consonants than voiceless consonants. Vowel duration did not, however, vary with syllable structure. However, vowels in open syllables followed by [+ voiced] consonants tended to be longer than when the following consonants were [− voiced]. These results are discussed in the context of current knowledge of other languages.

The influence of sentence articulation rate on the internal structure of phonetic categories

Abstract: Numerous experiments have shown that listeners perceive phonetic distinctions in a rate‐dependent manner A case in point is the /b/–/p/ voicing distinction, specified by voice onset time (VOT) One standard rate effect is a shift in the/b/–/p/ boundary toward longer VOT values as speech becomes slower Both a slowing of the target syllable itself and a slowing of the sentence containing the target syllable produce the effect A recent investigation [J L Miller and L E Volaitis, Percept Psychophys 46, 505–512 (1989)] demonstrated that when speaking rate is specified by the target syllable, it alters not only the location of the category boundary, but also which stimuli within a category are judged to be the best exemplars of that category In the present investigation, it was asked whether the rate at which a sentence is articulated can have the same comprehensive effect A series of 215‐ms syllables were created that ranged from /bi/ through /pi/ to a breathy, exaggerated version of /pi/; VOT varie

Voice understanding system

Abstract: PURPOSE:To modify a network which represents grammar by identifying the step of a plan model by voicing and storing the context of a talk, setting the expectancy of proposition contents regarding the realization of respective partial purposes, and using this expectancy CONSTITUTION:The recognition result outputted by a pattern recognition processing part 407 which is an HMM voice recognition module is held in a voicing proposition contents buffer 409 and a talk processing control part 406 tries to make a plan skimmer instant and detailed The voicing type of a proposition expression held in a buffer 409, on the other hand, is held in a voicing type storage part 401 The control part 406 finds a set of possible voicing types for next voicing and a set of arcs corresponding to them from the voicing type of current voicing contents held in the storage part 401; and the expectancy of proposition contents corresponding to a proposition pattern which is made concrete is set low and the expectancy of proposition contents corresponding to a proposition pattern which is not concrete is sets high, thereby weighting the set of arcs with the expectancies The grammar network which is weighted is used by a processing part 407 to recognize next voicing

Voice electronic musical instrument

Abstract: PURPOSE:To accurately reflect the musical representation of a score and the correspondence relation between notes and a text on a voice even when the notes indicated on the score and the text corresponding to the notes are stored as data as they are. CONSTITUTION:When voice data on one voice are stored corresponding to plural successive notes (YES in step 118), the current pitch is bent (121) according to following pitch data while the pitch of the note corresponding to voice data following the current voice data is read out (step 120) to perform voice generation up to a current loop part. Namely, when the current pitch is E4 and following data is C4, the pitch is bent from the E4 to C4, and consequently a voice is generated in voicing mode wherein slurs are given to E4 and C4.

Voice input circuit

Abstract: PURPOSE:To enable voice recognition by free-timing voicing by an operator by providing a microphone, a voice detection part which detects a voice being inputted from a voice signal converted into an electric signal, and a delay circuit which delays the voice signal by a specific time and outputs the delayed signal CONSTITUTION:When 'television' is voiced, the voice detection part 3 converts this voice signal into power, which is compared with a threshold value to detect whether or not there is the voice When the power of the voice signal exceeds a threshold value, the voice detection part 3 outputs a voice detection signal and a voice recognition device 5 receives this voice detection signal and starts recognition For example, when the voiced word is 'stereo', a delay circuit 4 is given a sufficient time in consideration of a case wherein a sound 'S' is voiceless to make voice detection difficult, and then the voice recognition device 5 is actuated only by voicing to recognize the voice Consequently, the operator only voices a word at free timing to enable the voice recognition without any omission of the head part of the voice

Language learning device

Abstract: PURPOSE:To record a spoken voice by stopping the reproduction of a teaching material for the time of a voicing practice regardless of the slow speed of the voicing practice time of a person who makes the practice. CONSTITUTION:A teaching material pause detecting circuit 7 detects a teaching material pause from transition from the voiced state to the voiceless state of a reproduced sound 2 reproduced by a teaching material reproduction part 1 and outputs a trigger signal 8 to the teaching material reproduction part 1 and a sound recording part 6. The teaching material reproduction part 1 stops the reproduction of the teaching material in response to the trigger signal 8 and the sound recording part 6 starts recording the spoken voice in response to the trigger signal 8. A spoken voice end detecting circuit 9 detects the end of the voicing practice from the transition from the voiced state to the voiceless state and outputs a trigger signal 10 to the teaching material reproduction part 1 and sound recording part 6. The teaching material reproduction part 1 starts reproducing the teaching material with the trigger signal 10 and the sound recording part 6 stops the sound recording with the trigger signal 10.

Perception of voicing in syllable‐initial stops at different intensities: Does neural synchrony encode voice‐onset?

Abstract: In response to stop consonants differing in voice onset time (VOT), the dominant synchronization of mid‐CF chinchilla auditory nerve fibers changes from the frequencyof F2 to the frequency of F1 at onset of voicing [D. G. Sinex and J. P. McDonald, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 1995–2004 (1987)]. If this change in neutral synchronization is perceptually relevant for human listeners, changes in stimulus intensity and changes in the frequency difference between F1 and F2 should both affect perception of voicing. In a series of experiments, several continua of synthesized CV’s varying in VOT were played to listeners at levels ranging from 40 to 80 dB SPL. The frequency difference between F1 and F2 was manipulated through the use of different places of articulation and different following vowels. Subjects labeled more CV’s as voiceless as a function of increasing stimulus level and of deceasing F1–F2 frequency difference. There was also an interaction between stimulus intensity and F1–F2 frequency difference such that the effect of intensity was greater for smaller F1–F2 differences. These effects were reliable across a number of synthetic VOT series, and the effect of intensity extended to a computer edited series of hybrid CV’s in which VOT was varied by cross‐splicing a naturally produced /da/ and /ta/. The effect of overall stimulus intensity was not affected by amplitude of aspiration energy or by the presence or absence of release bursts. The results provide evidence for synchrony encoding of voicing for stop consonants. [Work supported by NIDCD/NIH Grant No. DC‐00719.]

Syllable and Consonant Assimilation in English

Abstract: The goal of this paper is a straightforward one. That is to demonstrate and give evidence to the proposal that nasal and voicing assimilations and their cognate processes are regulated by syllable structures of the concerned sequences. This approach turns out to be plausible in some respects. First, in the case of nasal assimilation it is possible to describe it in terms of a single rule schema and cope with the difficulties derived from the previous foot-based analyses. Second, for the explanation of voicing agreement, we can offer a phonological account, rejecting the morphological accounts of Mascar6 (1987) and others. In this case it proves that reduction parameter is positive in earlier lexical levels to provide a coherent description of voicing assimilation in English.