Showing papers on "Voice published in 2015"

The bilingual advantage in phonetic learning

Abstract: Numerous factors are thought to be advantageous for non-native language learning although they are typically investigated in isolation, and the interaction between them is not understood. Firstly, bilinguals are claimed to acquire a third language easier than monolinguals acquire a second. Secondly, closely related languages may be easier to learn. Thirdly, certain phonetic features could be universally more difficult to acquire. We tested these hypotheses used as explanations by having adults learn vocabularies that differentiated words using foreign phonetic contrasts. In Experiment 1, Mandarin–English bilinguals outlearned English monolinguals, and the Mandarin-like (retroflex) artificial language was better learned than the English-like (fricative voicing). In Experiment 2, bilinguals again outlearned English monolinguals for the Mandarin-like artificial language. However, only Korean–English bilinguals showed an advantage for the more difficult Korean-like (lenition) language. Bilinguals, relative to monolinguals, show a general advantage when learning ‘easy’ contrasts, but phonetic similarity to the native language is useful for learning universally ‘difficult’ contrasts.

The time-course of speaking rate compensation: Effects of sentential rate and vowel length on voicing judgments

Abstract: Many sources of context information in speech (such as speaking rate) occur either before or after the phonetic cues they influence, yet there is little work examining the time-course of these effects Here, we investigate how listeners compensate for preceding sentence rate and subsequent vowel length (a secondary cue that has been used as a proxy for speaking rate) when categorizing words varying in voice-onset time (VOT) Participants selected visual objects in a display while their eye-movements were recorded, allowing us to examine when each source of information had an effect on lexical processing We found that the effect of VOT preceded that of vowel length, suggesting that each cue is used as it becomes available In a second experiment, we found that, in contrast, the effect of preceding sentence rate occurred simultaneously with VOT, suggesting that listeners interpret VOT relative to preceding rate

Duration of voicing and silence periods of continuous speech in different acoustic environments.

Abstract: This work deals with the duration of voicing and silence periods of continuous speech in rooms with very different reverberation times (RTs). Measurements were conducted using the Ambulatory Phonation Monitoring (APM) 3200 (Kaypentax, Montvale, NJ) and Voice-Care devices (developed at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy), both of which have a contact microphone placed on the base of the neck to detect skin vibrations during phonation. Six university professors and 22 university students made short laboratory monologs in which they explained something that they knew well to a listener 6 m away. Seven students also described a map with the intention of correctly explaining directions to a listener who drew the path on a blank chart. Longer speech samples were made by 25 primary school teachers in classrooms. A tendency to increase the voicing periods as the RT increased was on average observed for the university professors, the school teachers, and the university students who described a map. These students also showed longer silence periods than the students who made short monologs. The recognized trends concerned voice professionals or subjects who were highly motivated to make themselves understood in a perturbed speaking situation. Nonparametric statistical tests, which were applied to detect the differences in distributions of voicing and silence periods, have basically supported the findings.

Diagnosing the completion of a sound change: Phonetic and phonological evidence for /ʃ/ in Buenos Aires Spanish

Abstract: This paper presents a sociolinguistic analysis of the variable devoicing of /ʒ/ in Buenos Aires Spanish, a phenomenon previously characterized as a change in progress. A novel method is implemented to determine the completion of the devoicing change by comparing the voicing levels of /ʒ/ to the inherent voicing variability of /s/, as well as by comparing the allophonic patterns of /ʒ/ to those of /s/. If the voicing levels of /ʒ/ are not significantly different from those of /s/ and the /ʒ/ no longer exhibits positional affrication, then the speaker's underlying postalveolar fricative is /ʃ/: they are a “devoicer.” The results suggest that, although older speakers, of both middle and upper classes, exhibit variation in the distribution of “voicers,” most younger speakers are devoicers, indicating that the /ʒ/ devoicing change is nearing conclusion. As a result, the underlying fricative for the majority of Buenos Aires Spanish speakers may very well be /ʃ/.

Stop and Fricative Devoicing in European Portuguese, Italian and German.

Abstract: This paper describes a cross-linguistic production study of devoicing for European Portuguese (EP), Italian, and German. We recorded all stops and fricatives in four vowel contexts and two word positions. We computed the devoicing of the time-varying patterns throughout the stop and fricative duration. Our results show that regarding devoicing behaviour, EP is more similar to German than Italian. While Italian shows almost no devoicing of all phonologically voiced consonants, both EP and German show strong and consistent devoicing through the entire consonant. Differences in consonant position showed no effect for EP and Italian, but were significantly different for German. The height of the vowel context had an effect for German and EP. For EP, we showed that a more posterior place of articulation and low vowel context lead to significantly more devoicing. However, in contrast to German, we could not find an influence of consonant position on devoicing. The high devoicing for all phonologically voiced stops and fricatives and the vowel context influence are a surprising new result. With respect to voicing maintenance, EP is more like German than other Romance languages.

Cross-linguistic interaction in trilingual phonological development: the role of the input in the acquisition of the voicing contrast.

Abstract: This paper examines the production of word-initial stops by two simultaneous trilingual sisters, aged 6;8 and 8;1, who receive regular input in Italian and English from multiple speakers, but in Spanish from only one person. The children's productions in each language were analyzed acoustically and compared to those of their main input providers. The results revealed consistent cross-linguistic differences by both children, including between Italian and Spanish stops, although these have identical properties in the speech of Italian- and Spanish-speaking adults. While the children's English stops were largely target-like, their Italian stops exhibited non-target-like realizations in the direction of English, suggesting interactions. Interestingly, their Spanish productions were largely unaffected by cross-linguistic interactions, with target-like voiceless stops, and voiced stops predominantly realized as spirants. These findings raise interesting questions about phonological development in multilingual settings and demonstrate that the number and type of input providers may crucially affect cross-linguistic interactions.

Multidimensional assessment of strongly irregular voices such as in substitution voicing and spasmodic dysphonia: A compilation of own research

Abstract: This article is a compilation of own research performed during the European COoperation in Science and Technology (COST) action 2103: 'Advance Voice Function Assessment', an initiative of voice and speech processing teams consisting of physicists, engineers, and clinicians. This manuscript concerns analyzing largely irregular voicing types, namely substitution voicing (SV) and adductor spasmodic dysphonia (AdSD). A specific perceptual rating scale (IINFVo) was developed, and the Auditory Model Based Pitch Extractor (AMPEX), a piece of software that automatically analyses running speech and generates pitch values in background noise, was applied. The IINFVo perceptual rating scale has been shown to be useful in evaluating SV. The analysis of strongly irregular voices stimulated a modification of the European Laryngological Society's assessment protocol which was originally designed for the common types of (less severe) dysphonia. Acoustic analysis with AMPEX demonstrates that the most informative features are, for SV, the voicing-related acoustic features and, for AdSD, the perturbation measures. Poor correlations between self-assessment and acoustic and perceptual dimensions in the assessment of highly irregular voices argue for a multidimensional approach.

Biomechanically Conditioned Variation at the Origin of Diachronic Intervocalic Voicing.

Abstract: This paper addresses the question of how synchronic variation in intervocalic voicing of voiceless obstruents, as observed in several languages (e.g., Rome Italian /lato/ [lato] - [lado]), may initiate and give rise to a regular sound change (e.g., /t/ > /d/ between vowels). We hypothesize that a biomechanically motivated linkage between male gender, speech rate, and voicing may provide a way to accelerate the spread of the phenomenon and lead to an eventual generalized recategorization. In order to explore this hypothesis, first we reanalyze the results of a previous study on intervocalic voicing in Spanish, focusing on individual differences and, in particular, the possible role of gender. Then we report on a study of the same phenomenon in Basque, focusing also on interspeaker variation. Finally, we report on a controlled experiment where speech rate was manipulated.

Stop voicing and F0 perturbations: evidence from French and Italian

Abstract: We report new experimental evidence on consonantinduced F0 perturbations in two languages with prevoiced stops, French and Italian. A positive correlation between duration of voicing lead and F0 at the onset of post-release voicing is observed, consistent with the predictions of an automatic or biomechanical account of the source of this effect. While the findings do not strictly rule out a role for onset F0 as a controlled enhancement, they support the proposal that, if anything, the enhancement is of [-voice] or [stiff] rather than [+voice].

Acoustic cue weighting in the singleton vs geminate contrast in Lebanese Arabic: The case of fricative consonants

Abstract: This paper is the first reported investigation of the role of non-temporal acoustic cues in the singleton-geminate contrast in Lebanese Arabic, alongside the more frequently reported temporal cues. The aim is to explore the extent to which singleton and geminate consonants show qualitative differences in a language where phonological length is prominent and where moraic structure governs segment timing and syllable weight. Twenty speakers (ten male, ten female) were recorded producing trochaic disyllables with medial singleton and geminate fricatives preceded by phonologically short and long vowels. The following acoustic measures were applied on the medial fricative and surrounding vowels: absolute duration; intensity; fundamental frequency; spectral peak and shape, dynamic amplitude, and voicing patterns of medial fricatives; and vowel quality and voice quality correlates of surrounding vowels. Discriminant analysis and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves were used to assess each acoustic cue's contribution to the singleton-geminate contrast. Classification rates of 89% and ROC curves with an area under the curve rate of 96% confirmed the major role played by temporal cues, with non-temporal cues contributing to the contrast but to a much lesser extent. These results confirm that the underlying contrast for gemination in Arabic is temporal, but highlight [+tense] (fortis) as a secondary feature.

Building phonological lexical representations

Abstract: This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on how much detail young children's word representations contain. We investigate early representations of place of articulation and voicing contrasts, inspired by previously attested asymmetrical patterns in children's early word productions. We tested Dutch-learning 20- and 24-month-olds’ perception of these fundamentally different contrasts in a mispronunciation-detection paradigm. Our results show that different kinds and directions of phonological changes yield different effects. Both 20- and 24-month-olds noticed coronal mispronunciations of labials, but not vice versa. The 24-month-olds noticed voiced mispronunciations of voiceless stops, but not vice versa, while the 20-month-olds failed to notice any voicing mispronunciations. We argue that early lexical representations are specified in very systematic ways, that not all phonological contrasts are encoded at the same time and that the phonological system of a language determines which contrasts are specified first in the representations of early words.

Pre-aspiration in Welsh English : a case study of Aberystwyth

Abstract: This thesis examines the phonetic, phonological, and social aspects of pre-aspiration in English spoken in Aberystwyth, mid Wales. Pre-aspiration refers to a period of voiceless (primarily) glottal friction occurring in the sequences of sonorants and phonetically voiceless obstruents (e.g. in mat [mahts] or mass [mahs]). Chapter 1 summarises the objectives of this thesis and where the thesis is positioned with respect to our current knowledge of the phenomenon and the relevant theoretical issues. Chapter 2 introduces the data used to address these objectives.Pre-aspiration is usually considered as consisting of a voiced glottal component, or breathiness, and a voiceless glottal component, or voiceless pre-aspiration, and these are treated as a single unit in a number of analyses (Helgason 2003; Helgason & Ringen 2008; Karlsson & Svantesson 2011; Morris 2010; Ringen & van Dommelen 2013; Stevens & Hajek 2004b, 2004c; Stevens 2010, 2011). Chapter 3 shows that this is not adequate because distinguishing the two enables us to discover patterns that would remain obscured otherwise ? such as breathiness being a possible precursor to pre-aspiration. This is demonstrated through the segmental and prosodic conditioning of pre-aspiration and breathiness.Chapter 4 shows that although pre-aspiration is not an obligatory feature of Aberystwyth English (in the sense that it would occur in 100% of time where it can), it nevertheless forms two clear categories sensitive to phonological rather than phonetic vowel height. However, phonological vowel height on its own cannot explain these two categories and interacts with a number of other conditioning factors.Whilst Chapter 3 investigates the relationship between pre-aspiration and breathiness, Chapter 5 looks into that of pre-aspiration and glottalisation and demonstrates that the two can occur in the same environment, which enlightens the debates related to the historical connections between pre-aspiration and glottalisation in particular (e.g. Kortland 1988). It furthermore reveals that although it is not known why they are co-occurring for some speakers and mutually exclusive or allophonic for others, their relationship is conditioned prosodically and not segmentally.Chapter 6 illustrates that pre-aspiration is an acoustic correlate of the fortis-lenis contrast in plosives in production at least equally well as breathiness, voicing, release duration, or the duration of the preceding vowel, and better than voiceless closure duration, glottalisation, or f0 before or after the plosive in question in the word-medial (cotter [kh?hts?] ~ codder [kh?d?]) and the word-final positions (cot ~ cod). It is therefore at least as important as the other four correlates.Chapter 7 finds that pre-aspiration also exhibits social conditioning. Females pre-aspirate more frequently than males, which is often found in pre-aspiration studies, but this difference disappears as the age decreases. Furthermore, the frequency of breathiness, and the duration of pre-aspiration and breathiness are not conditioned by gender. However, all four variables are affected by age. Pre-aspiration thus seems to be undergoing an advancing sound change according to Labov?s Principle II (2001: 292) and breathiness seems to be its precursor. Chapter 8 summarises the results and outlines questions for further research.

Naturalistic Speech Misperception

Abstract: This thesis presents a new corpus containing ≈ 5,000 instances of naturally occurring misperception of conversational English, which is the result of a standardised format for the orthographic and phonetic transcriptions and meta-data of existing naturalistic corpora. I examined top-down phonetic/phonological factors and bottom-up lexical factors for their contributions in naturalistic settings. On the feature level, voicing/place/manner confusions were best explained using sonority, featural underspecification (Lahiri and Reetz, 2002) and markedness (Lombardi, 2002), and vowel height/backness confusions using perceived similarity (Steriade, 2001) and chain shifts (Labov, 1994a). On the segment level, I found that confusions can be explained with acoustic/featural distances, and extreme signal-to-noise ratio and narrow bandwidth were less ecologically valid. Furthermore, three well-known sound changes (TH-fronting, velar nasal fronting and back vowel fronting) were consistently found in naturalistic and experimental data. On the syllable level, codas are more likely to be misperceived than nuclei/onsets for monosyllables, but onsets are more likely to be misperceived for polysyllables. Fewer errors occur in the stressed syllables than in unstressed syllables in polysyllabic words, but not monosyllables. Initial syllables are more likely to be misperceived than medial syllables, which in turn are more prone to misperception than final syllables. On the word level, listeners were found to perceive a word of similar frequency as the intended word in a misperception – but crucially not a more frequent word. This supports the graceful degradation account of a malfunctioning system (Vitevitch, 2002). On the utterance level, listeners were sensitive to the predictability of a word, suggesting that less predictable words are more likely to be misperceived. Together, these analyses establish the naturalistic corpus as an ecologically valid resource and a benchmark of misperception, bridge the gap between experimental and naturalistic studies, and highlight the need of examining misperception with units larger than nonsense syllables.

Speech characteristics of Arabic speakers : dialect variations

Abstract: Arabic is spoken by more than 280 million people around the world and has been subject to attention in a number of acoustic phonetic studies. However, there are a limited number of studies on Gulf Arabic dialects and the majority of these studies have focused mainly on male speakers. Therefore, this study aimed to explore two Gulf Arabic dialects, the central Najdi dialect from Saudi Arabia and the Bahraini Bahraini dialect from Bahrain. It aimed to establish normative data for the Diadochokinetic Rate (DDK), Voice Onset Time (VOT), Fundamental Frequency (F0) and Formant Frequencies (F1-F3) for male (n = 40) and female (n = 40) speakers from both dialects. Furthermore, it aimed to investigate whether there are differences between the two dialects. Another direction of the research was to examine whether differences between male and female speech will be evident in both dialects. The study was accomplished using different stimuli where the monosyllables /ba, da, ga/ and a multisyllabic sequence /badaga/ were selected to analyse the DDK rates. VOT duration was examined in monosyllablic minimal pair words containing the initial voiced stops /b, d/ and the three long vowels /a:, i:, u:/, and in words containing the initial voiceless stops /t, k/, initial voiced/voiceless stops /d, t/ and plain/emphatic alveolar stops /t, t*/ and the two long vowels /i:, u:/. F0 was examined in the sustained phonation of the /a, i, u/, vowels in the words presented earlier and in sentences from the Arabic version of “The North Wind and the Sun” (Thelwall & Sa’Adeddin, 1990) and two verses from the first chapter of the Quran. F1, F2 and F3 values were examined in the sustained phonation of individual vowels and in vowels in the words described earlier. Acoustic analysis was carried out by using Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013). A series of mixed model ANOVAs were performed to investigate dialect and sex differences for each of the parameters. Dialect and sex were the main independent variables; however, additional variables were assessed (syllable type, voicing, vowel context, place of articulation and emphasis). The first aim has been met, with normative data being established for males and females from both dialects. The results showed that for each of the parameters (DDK, VOT, F0 and formant frequencies), the dialect differences as well as the degree of differences were dependent on the stimuli type. Furthermore, sex differences were apparent for F0, F1, F2 and F3 where males had lower frequencies than females in all tasks. In addition, the results showed that females had longer VOT durations than males for voiceless stops; and in the initial emphatic /t≥/ context; males had longer VOT duration than females. However, there were no differences between male and female speakers with regard to the DDK rates, and in the VOT analysis, initial voiced stops did not show an effect for dialect and sex. Furthermore, the impact of other variables other than dialect and sex are discussed. In conclusion, dialect, and to a lesser extent, sex differences in the Arabic dialects under study, are dependent on the stimulus type. The study also showed that emphatic /t*/ might help in differentiating between different Arabic dialects.

A sociotonetic study of Lalo tone split in progress

Abstract: Since Labov’s early work (e.g., 1963, 1966), sociolinguists have frequently examined change in progress on the segmental level, but much less is known about tone change in progress. The present study finds evidence of a tone split in progress in Lalo, a Tibeto-Burman language of China. While many of the world’s tone languages show historical evidence of tone splits, to our knowledge this is the first time that a tone split has been observed while it is occurring, making it possible to closely examine phonological, social, and perceptual factors. In this sociotonetic study of Lalo, 2,938 tone tokens were extracted from recordings of 38 speakers and analyzed in terms of age, sex, and educational level. Multifactorial analyses show that the temporal extent of voiced stops’ depression of Tone 1 F0 is increasing in apparent time, especially among women, while VOT of voiced stops is decreasing as educational levels improve, giving speakers more contact with Mandarin Chinese. The same 38 speakers were also given a perceptual identification task in which F0 was systematically adjusted. Mixed-effects modeling showed that listeners used multiple acoustic cues (consonant voicing, F0 onset, and F0 shape) to identify the voiced initial. These findings suggest that Lalo is undergoing a tone split that follows Beddor’s (2009) coarticulatory path to sound change.

Why do sonorants not voice in Hungarian? And why do they voice in Slovak?

Abstract: This paper investigates the acoustic aspects of voicing assimilation in Hungarian and Slovak, paying special attention to the position before the sonorant consonants /m/ and /l/. With the help of acoustic experiments, we enumerate and compare the acoustic phonetic correlates of laryngeal contrast for the obstruents /t d s z/ in various contexts in the two languages, presenting acoustic evidence of why voiceless obstruents are voiced before sonorants in Slovak but remain voiceless in Hungarian. We show that regressive voicing assimilation — including pre-sonorant voicing and final devoicing in Slovak — is close to be a completely phonologised process in both languages.

Infants Discriminate Voicing and Place of Articulation With Reduced Spectral and Temporal Modulation Cues.

Abstract: Purpose This study assessed the role of spectro-temporal modulation cues in the discrimination of 2 phonetic contrasts (voicing and place) for young infants. Method A visual-habituation procedure was used to assess the ability of French-learning 6-month-old infants with normal hearing to discriminate voiced versus unvoiced (/aba/-/apa/) and labial versus dental (/aba/-/ada/) stop consonants. The stimuli were processed by tone-excited vocoders to degrade frequency-modulation cues while preserving: (a) amplitude-modulation (AM) cues within 32 analysis frequency bands, (b) slow AM cues only (<16 Hz) within 32 bands, and (c) AM cues within 8 bands. Results Infants exhibited discrimination responses for both phonetic contrasts in each processing condition. However, when fast AM cues were degraded, infants required a longer exposure to vocoded stimuli to reach the habituation criterion. Conclusions Altogether, these results indicate that the processing of modulation cues conveying phonetic information on voicin...

Stabilizing the production of nonnative consonant clusters with acoustic variability

Abstract: Previous research on the perception, recognition, and learning of sounds and words has identified diverse effects of phonetic variation. The present study examined how variation affects cross-language production of consonant clusters. American English speakers shadowed words beginning with nonnative clusters in low- and high-variability conditions. Shadowing responses in the low-variability condition were quite sensitive to fine-grained phonetic properties that were manipulated across the stimuli. Notably, longer stop bursts led to increased rates of epenthesis, lower burst amplitudes resulted in more feature change and deletion, and intense periods of voicing at cluster onset elicited prothetic responses. Sensitivity to the acoustic manipulations was substantially attenuated in the high-variability condition, which combined stimuli from the first condition with baseline productions of the same items from two additional talkers. Detailed analyses of the response patterns indicate that more stable production targets in the high-variability condition resulted from integration, or blending, of the multiple talker stimuli. Implications of these findings for language-specific speech processing and the role of phonetic variability in second language acquisition are discussed.

A World without Voiced Sonorants: Reflections on Cyran 2014 (Part 1)

Abstract: The article discusses the theory of laryngeal phonology exposed in Cyran (2014), Laryngeal Relativism. The basic assumption of this approach is that sonorants and vowels never bear phonological specifications for voicing: their voicing is only ever phonetic in nature. Therefore phonetic interpretation, i.e. spell-out of the output of phonology into phonetic categories, is central: this is where phonetic voicing leaks into neighbouring segments. In the first part of the article, the generative power of Laryngeal Relativism is evaluated, and its workings are compared with previous analyses. The impact of substance-free primes is also discussed.

Perception of incompletely neutralized voicing cues in word-final obstruents: The role of differences in production context

Abstract: Abstract Experimental data on final devoicing in languages such as German and Russian usually show that speakers produce incompletely neutralized acoustic differences between words ending in phonologically voiced versus voiceless obstruents (e.g., /kod/ ‘code’ vs. /kot/ ‘cat’ in Russian) and that listeners can use these differences to identify the underlying specification of final consonants at an above-chance level. The current study examines how the seemingly successful perceptual identification of voicing varies across stimulus items recorded in reading vs. non-reading procedures and with and without full minimal pairs present in the experimental list. Results of a series of identification tasks reveal that Russian listeners’ identification responses are more in line with underlying voicing for the stimuli recorded during word-reading and with minimal pairs included among the experimental items. This shows that voicing judgments are strongly influenced by the acoustic differences produced when speakers encounter orthographic forms or lexical competition. At the same time, perceptual neutralization is also not complete for the items recorded without such exposure, which indicates that listeners’ ability to recover underlying voicing is not limited to the production contexts involving written forms or minimal pairs.

Longitudinal observations of typical English voicing acquisition in a 2-year-old child: Stability of the contrast and considerations for clinical assessment

Abstract: Early assessment of phonetic and phonological development requires knowledge of typical versus atypical speech patterns, as well as the range of individual developmental trajectories. The nature of data reporting in previous literature on typical voicing acquisition left aspects of the developmental process unclear and limited clinical applicability. This work extends a previous four-month group study to present data for one child over 12 months. Words containing initial /b p d t/ were elicited from a monolingual English-speaking 2-year-old child biweekly for 25 sessions. Voice onset time (VOT) was measured for each stop. For each consonant and recording session, we measured range as well as accuracy, overshoot and discreteness calculated for means and individual tokens. The results underscore the value of token-by-token analyses. They further reveal that typical development may involve an extended period of fluctuating voicing patterns, suggesting that the voiced/voiceless contrast may take months or years to stabilise.

Catalan voiced prepalatals: Effects of nonphonetic factors on phonetic variation?

Abstract: Central Catalan ‘prepalatal’ (postalveolar) consonants show a complex phonological distribution. Whereas in word-internal intervocalic position a four-way opposition obtains, involving a contrast in voice and a fricative/affricate distinction, elsewhere at least one of the two oppositions is neutralized. Position in word determines whether affrication and/or voicing is contrastive. We study the effect of this factor as well as other phonetic factors and style on the allophony of the voiced prepalatals in a large corpus of Central Catalan. The most significant conditioning factor turns out to be the preceding context, whereas position in word per se is not significant either for degree of constriction or for voicing. Thus, we do not find a direct effect of phonological contrastiveness on phonetic variation.