Showing papers on "Voice published in 2017"

Inferior frontal cortex contributions to the recognition of spoken words and their constituent speech sounds

Abstract: Speech perception and comprehension are often challenged by the need to recognize speech sounds that are degraded or ambiguous. Here, we explore the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in resolving ambiguity in the identity of speech sounds using syllables that contain ambiguous phonetic segments e.g., intermediate sounds between /b/ and /g/ as in "blade" and "glade". We used an audio-morphing procedure to create a large set of natural sounding minimal pairs that contain phonetically ambiguous onset or offset consonants differing in place, manner, or voicing. These ambiguous segments occurred in different lexical contexts i.e., in words or pseudowords, such as blade-glade or blem-glem and in different phonological environments i.e., with neighboring syllables that differed in lexical status, such as blouse-glouse. These stimuli allowed us to explore the impact of phonetic ambiguity on the speed and accuracy of lexical decision responses Experiment 1, semantic categorization responses Experiment 2, and the magnitude of BOLD fMRI responses during attentive comprehension Experiment 3. For both behavioral and neural measures, observed effects of phonetic ambiguity were influenced by lexical context leading to slower responses and increased activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus for high-ambiguity syllables that distinguish pairs of words, but not for equivalent pseudowords. These findings suggest lexical involvement in the resolution of phonetic ambiguity. Implications for speech perception and the role of inferior frontal regions are discussed.

Teachers' voicing and silence periods during continuous speech in classrooms with different reverberation times.

Abstract: The relationship between reverberation times and the voicing and silence accumulations of continuous speech was quantified in 22 primary-school teachers. Teachers were divided into a high and a low reverberation time groups based on their classroom reverberation time (higher and lower than 0.90 s). Reverberation times higher than 0.90 s implicate higher voicing accumulations and higher accumulations of the silences typical of turn taking in dialogue. These results suggest that vocal load, which can lead to vocal fatigue, is influenced by classroom reverberation time. Therefore, it may be considered a risk factor for occupational voice users.

Phonetic detail and lateralization of reading-related inner speech and of auditory and somatosensory feedback processing during overt reading.

Abstract: Phonetic detail and lateralization of inner speech during covert sentence reading as well as overt reading in 32 right-handed healthy participants undergoing 3T fMRI were investigated. The number of voiceless and voiced consonants in the processed sentences was systematically varied. Participants listened to sentences, read them covertly, silently mouthed them while reading, and read them overtly. Condition comparisons allowed for the study of effects of externally versus self-generated auditory input and of somatosensory feedback related to or independent of voicing. In every condition, increased voicing modulated bilateral voice-selective regions in the superior temporal sulcus without any lateralization. The enhanced temporal modulation and/or higher spectral frequencies of sentences rich in voiceless consonants induced left-lateralized activation of phonological regions in the posterior temporal lobe, regardless of condition. These results provide evidence that inner speech during reading codes detail as fine as consonant voicing. Our findings suggest that the fronto-temporal internal loops underlying inner speech target different temporal regions. These regions differ in their sensitivity to inner or overt acoustic speech features. More slowly varying acoustic parameters are represented more anteriorly and bilaterally in the temporal lobe while quickly changing acoustic features are processed in more posterior left temporal cortices. Furthermore, processing of external auditory feedback during overt sentence reading was sensitive to consonant voicing only in the left superior temporal cortex. Voicing did not modulate left-lateralized processing of somatosensory feedback during articulation or bilateral motor processing. This suggests voicing is primarily monitored in the auditory rather than in the somatosensory feedback channel. Hum Brain Mapp 38:493-508, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Heritage language exposure impacts voice onset time of Dutch–German simultaneous bilingual preschoolers

Abstract: This study assesses the effects of age and language exposure on VOT production in 29 simultaneous bilingual children aged 3;7 to 5;11 who speak German as a heritage language in the Netherlands. Dutch and German have a binary voicing contrast, but the contrast is implemented with different VOT values in the two languages. The results suggest that bilingual children produce ‘voiced’ plosives similarly in their two languages, and these productions are not monolingual-like in either language. Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence between Dutch and German can explain these results. Yet, the bilinguals seemingly have two autonomous categories for Dutch and German ‘voiceless’ plosives. In German, the bilinguals’ aspiration is not monolingual-like, but bilinguals with more heritage language exposure produce more target-like aspiration. Importantly, the amount of exposure to German has no effect on the majority language's ‘voiceless’ category. This implies that more heritage language exposure is associated with more language-specific voicing systems.

Laryngeal contrasts in the Tai dialect of Cao Bằng

Abstract: The Tai dialect spoken in Cao Bằng province, Vietnam, is at an intermediate stage between tonal register split and the accompanying transphonologization of a voicing contrast into a dual-register tone system. While the initial sonorants have completely lost their historical voicing distinction and developed a six-way tonal contrast, the obstruent series still preserves the original voicing contrast, leaving the tonal split incomplete. This paper presents the first acoustic study of tones and onsets in Cao Bằng Tai. Although f0, VOT, and voice quality were all found to play a role in the system of laryngeal contrasts, the three speakers considered varied in terms of the patterns of acoustic cues used to distinguish between onset types, particularly the breathy voiced onset / /. From the diachronic perspective, our findings may help to explain why the reflex of modal pre-voiced stops (*b) can be either aspirated or unaspirated voiceless stops.

Formalizing modulation and the emergence of phonological heads

Abstract: This paper provides an account of how certain instances of “headedness” in segmental phonology may be derived within the Onset Prominence (OP) representational framework. It is shown that headedness is not a primitive property of OP representation, but rather emerges directly from the phonetic anatomy of the OP representational primitives, envisioned in terms of Traunmuller’s Modulation Theory. The phonological status of voicing, including the relationship between nasals and voiced stops has been ascribed to headedness. Here it is shown to fall out from the Modulation perspective on laryngeal phonology. With regard to vowel quality, it is shown that apparent headedness effects derive from asymmetries in the modulatory properties of formant convergences as opposed to individual formants. Empirical implications of this perspective are reflected in vowel harmony patterns, by which rounding is typically less likely to be harmonic than palatality or tongue root advancement. This article is part of the Special Collection: Headedness in Phonology

How Truncating Are 'Truncating Languages'? Evidence from Russian and German.

Abstract: Russian and German have pr eviously been described as 'truncating', or cutting off target frequencies of the phrase-final pitch trajectories when the time available for voicing is compromised. However, supporting evidence is rare and limited to only a few pitch categories. This paper reports a production study conducted to document pitch adjustments to linguistic materials, in which the amount of voicing available for the realization of a pitch pattern varies from relatively long to extremely short. Productions of nuclear H+L*, H* and L*+H pitch accents followed by a low boundary tone were investigated in the two languages. The results of the study show that speakers of both 'truncating languages' do not utilize truncation exclusively when accommodating to different segmental environments. On the contrary, they employ several strategies - among them is truncation but also compression and temporal re-alignment - to produce the target pitch categories under increasing time pressure. Given that speakers can systematically apply all three adjustment strategies to produce some pitch patterns (H* L% in German and Russian) while not using truncation in others (H+L* L% particularly in Russian), we question the effectiveness of the typological classification of these two languages as 'truncating'. Moreover, the phonetic detail of truncation varies considerably, both across and within the two languages, indicating that truncation cannot be easily modeled as a unified phenomenon. The results further suggest that the phrase-final pitch adjustments are sensitive to the phonological composition of the tonal string and the status of a particular tonal event (associated vs. boundary tone), and do not apply to falling vs. rising pitch contours across the board, as previously put forward for German. Implications for the intonational phonology and prosodic typology are addressed in the discussion.

Perception Abilities of L1 Cypriot Greek Listeners - Types of Errors Involving Plosive Consonants in L2 English.

Abstract: This paper investigates the difficulties adult second language (L2) users of English encounter with plosive consonants in the L2. It presents the results of a task examining the acquisition of plosive voicing contrasts by college students with Cypriot Greek (CG) linguistic background. The task focused on the types of errors involving plosive consonants indicating that performance was significantly better in the voiceless plosive category. Participants were able to perceive voiced plosives but they treated such instances as a /nasal + voiced plosive/ sequence. Therefore, the question raised concerns different phonological contrasts realised through similar phonetic cues. The patterns observed suggested that this gap between phonetic cues and phonological contrast might explain why CG users have difficulties perceiving voiced English plosives. In this context, voice onset time (VOT) differences between the L1 and L2 are of crucial importance. In English, voiced plosives are characterised by short lag VOT while their voiceless counterparts fall within the long lag VOT continuum. The same phonetic contrast is used in CG to differentiate between single and geminate voiceless plosives. The results are discussed in relation to the frameworks of second language phonology and speech perception suggesting that the difficulties faced by the L2 listeners support the operation of a phonetic-phonological challenge.

Phonetic and phonological properties of tones in Shanghai Chinese

Abstract: This study investigates the relations between tone, voicing, and voice quality in modern Shanghai Chinese. In low tone syllables, word-initial obstruent onsets are traditionally described as voiceless and breathy, and sonorant onsets as voiced and breathy.Our study is based on acoustic and electroglottographic (EGG) data from speakers of two age groups (20–30 vs. 60–80 years). Our results are globally in line with previous studies, but with notable differences. In low tone syllables, while word-initial stops are phonetically voiceless most of the time, fricatives are quite often phonetically voiced. While low tone obstruent onsets are followed by breathier vowels than high tone onsets, this pattern is not clear-cut for nasal onsets. Furthermore, our transversal data show that low tone breathiness is more systematically produced by elderly – especially male – speakers, rather than young speakers, suggesting an on-going change towards the loss of breathiness.

Voice onset time production in Ecuadorian Spanish, Quichua, and Media Lengua

Abstract: In Ecuador there exists a dynamic language contact continuum between Urban Spanish and Rural Quichua. This study explores the effects of competing phonologies with an analysis of voice onset time (VOT) production in and across three varieties of Ecuadorian highland Spanish, Quichua, and Media Lengua. Media Lengua is a mixed language that contains Quichua systemic elements and a lexicon of Spanish origin. Because of this lexical-grammatical split, Media Lengua is considered the most central point along the language continuum. Native Quichua phonology has a single series of voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, and /k/), while Spanish shows a clear voicing contrast between stops in the same series. This study makes use of nearly 8,000 measurements from 69 participants to (i) document VOT production in the aforementioned language varieties and (ii) analyse the effects of borrowings on VOT. Results based on mixed effects models and multidimensional scaling suggest that the voicing contrast has entered both Media Lengua and Quichua through Spanish lexical borrowings. However, the VOT values of voiced stops in Media Lengua align with those of Rural and L2 Spanish while Quichua shows significantly longer prevoicing values, suggesting some degree of overshoot.

Laryngeal Features Are Phonetically Abstract: Mismatch Negativity Evidence from Arabic, English, and Russian

Abstract: Many theories of phonology assume that the sound structure of language is made up of distinctive features, but there is considerable debate about how much articulatory detail distinctive features encode in long-term memory. Laryngeal features such as voicing provide a unique window into this question: while many languages have two-way contrasts that can be given a simple binary feature account [±VOICE], the precise articulatory details underlying these contrasts can vary significantly across languages. Here, we investigate a series of two-way voicing contrasts in English, Arabic and Russian, three languages that implement their voicing contrasts very differently at the articulatory-phonetic level. In three event-related potential experiments contrasting English, Arabic, and Russian fricatives along with Russian stops, we observe a consistent pattern of asymmetric mismatch negativity (MMN) effects that is compatible with an articulatorily abstract and cross-linguistically uniform way of marking two-way voicing contrasts, as opposed to an articulatorily precise and cross-linguistically diverse way of encoding them. Regardless of whether a language is theorized to encode [VOICE] over [SPREAD GLOTTIS], the data is consistent with a universal marking of the [SPREAD GLOTTIS] feature.

Moro voicelessness dissimilation and binary [voice] *

Abstract: This paper reports on a pattern of voicelessness dissimilation in the Kordofanian language Moro. Voiceless stops and affricates become voiced before a voiceless obstruent in a transvocalic configuration. The dissimilation is robust, and productive across morphological contexts. Phonetically, voicing in Moro is realised as a difference between prevoicing and short-lag voice onset time. This makes [voice] the most realistic featural characterisation; using another feature like [spread glottis] in lieu of [–voice] doesn't explain the contrast. Consequently, dissimilation of voicelessness in Moro is strong evidence that [voice] is a binary feature, and that […voice] may be phonologically active despite being ‘unmarked’. We show that when [–voice] is admitted, the Moro pattern is straightforwardly analysed on a par with other cases of dissimilation. Our analysis uses the theory of surface correspondence, which carries no crucial assumptions about markedness; other theories of dissimilation are considered in an online supplement.

Melodic heads, saliency, and strength in voicing and nasality

Abstract: Melodic Heads in Element Theory (Kaye et al 1985; Harris & Lindsey 1995; Backley 2011) have long been associated with higher acoustic saliency of the headed prime’s properties (Lindsey & Harris 1990; Backley 1995; Harris & Lindsey 1995; et alia) and with the relative strength (eg alignment of melodic heads with strong positions and robustness of headed expressions against lenition) of a melodic head compared to a dependent (eg Backley & Nasukawa 2009) Following substantial work on the interaction of voicing and nasality (Nasukawa 1997, 2005; Ploch 1999; Botma 2004) it is commonly assumed that voicing and nasality are both represented by the same prime |L|, with dependent |L| encoding nasality and headed |L| encoding voicing In this paper I counter some of the arguments for the universality of this implementation, and develop an alternative view of a unified voicing–nasality prime, in which voicing is encoded by dependent |L| and nasality by headed |L| I show how this analysis is more consistent with both the saliency and strength arguments by considering arguments based on the represented acoustic patterns, positional strength, nasal sharing (nasal harmony within onset–nucleus pairs), and cross-linguistic biases against loss of nasality Finally, I show how this account is compatible with a more restrictive, recursive view of the phonological interpretation component following the set theoretic model of Element Theory in Breit (2013) Based on these arguments I conclude that we have good reason to doubt the universality of Nasukawa (1997, 2005) and Ploch’s (1999) implementation; instead we must give serious consideration to the reverse option with headed |L| for nasality and dependent |L| for voicing I suggest that there are two possible responses to this situation: we can either make the attempt to radically adopt the alternative, or we can adopt a more relativistic position (in the sense of Cyran 2011, 2014) which allows a choice between both options This article is part of the Special Collection: Headedness in Phonology

Voicing Assimilation in Czech and Slovak Speakers of English: Interactions of Segmental Context, Language and Strength of Foreign Accent.

Abstract: This study focuses on voicing assimilation across word boundaries in the speech of second language (L2) users. We compare native speakers of British English to speakers of two West Slavic languages, Czech and Slovak, which, despite their many similarities, differ with respect to voicing assimilation rules. Word-final voicing was analysed in 30 speakers, using the static value of voicing percentage and the voicing profile method. The results of linear mixed-effects modelling suggest an effect of first language (L1) transfer in all L2 English speaker groups, with the tendency to assimilate being correlated with the strength of foreign accent. Importantly, the two language groups differed in assimilation strategies before sonorant consonants, as a clear effect of L1-based phonetic influence.

The Effects of Language Experience and Speech Context on the Phonetic Accommodation of English-accented Spanish Voicing.

Abstract: Native speakers of Spanish with different amounts of experience with English classified stop-consonant voicing (/b/ versus /p/) across different speech accents: English-accented Spanish, native Spanish, and native English. While listeners with little experience with English classified target voicing with an English- or Spanish-like voice onset time (VOT) boundary, predicted by contextual VOT, listeners familiar with English relied on an English-like VOT boundary in an English-accented Spanish context even in the absence of clear contextual cues to English VOT. This indicates that Spanish listeners accommodated English-accented Spanish voicing differently depending on their degree of familiarization with the English norm.

Voice onset time in arabic and english stop consonants

Abstract: This project will study the voice onset time (VOT) of stop consonants as produced by Arabic speakers in comparison to English speakers. In English, there exists a phonological contrast between voiced and voiceless pronunciations of bilabial, alveolar, and velar stop consonants. These pairs are /p/-/b/, /t/-/d/, and /k/-/g/ respectively. In Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the voiceless and voiced versions of the alveolar stop, /t/-/d/, are contrastive, but the same does not apply to bilabial and velar stops. /b/ and /k/ are included in the phonological inventory of Arabic, but /p/ and /g/ are not. This leads to questions about pronunciation: Do the VOTs of /b/ and /k/ coincide with the VOTS of the /t/-/d/ contrasting pair according to voicing? Or conversely, do Arabic speakers VOTs vary more liberally in these stops due to the absence of a contrastive voiceless equivalent? It was found that Arabic and English speakers pronunciations of VOT in stop consonants differed significantly as Arabic speakers often engage in prevoicing. The gaps in the Arabic stop consonant inventory, though, have no noticeable effect on the VOTs of affected consonants.

‘Voice’ languages with no [voice]? Some consequences of Laryngeal Relativism

Abstract: Strict criteria on phonological categoryhood coupled with strict privativity of representation inevitably lead to a conclusion that sonorants must not contain a prime responsible for voicing. Assuming that this prime is also not supplied to sonorants in the course of phonological derivation, this class of segments, contrary to observed patterns, should be inactive with respect to voicing phenomena. Presonorant sandhi voicing in Cracow-Poznan Polish is used to show how such apparent patterns can be dealt with without compromising the above theoretical assumptions. This however has consequences which bear on almost every aspect of laryngeal phonology. Some of them include: arbitrariness of the relation between phonology and phonetics, emergent nature of laryngeal categories, minimization of the role of phonological computation, re-evaluation of typical analytical criteria for deciding on phonological representation of laryngeal distinctions, which are used in phonological practice, as well as a possibility ...

Desempenho perceptivo-auditivo de crianças na identificação de contrastes fônicos

Abstract: This study aimed at investigating children’s perceptual auditory performance in identifying phonemic contrast in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP). The hypothesis is that the perceptual auditory acquisition develops in a gradual fashion, following a systematic acquisition order. We performed four identification tasks using the instrument PerceFAL with 66 children (of both genders) between 4-5 years old. The task relied on the presentation of an acoustic stimulus, through earphones, and the choice of an image corresponding to the word shown, having two image possibilities available on the computer screen. We compared both the stimulus length of time and reaction time of children automatically through the aid of the software PERCEVAL. The children’s perceptual auditory performance occurred gradually and depended on the phonemic class. A greater accuracy regarding the phonemic contrast identification seems to follow the sequence: vowels, sonorants, stops e fricatives. The reaction time for the correct answers was shorter than that of the incorrect answers (except for the vowel class). From the perceptual maps, we verified that, within the vowel class, the anterior-posterior parameter plays an important role in perceptual salience. For the obstruintes and sonorants (nasal and liquid), the acoustic cues that characterize voicing (in the case of obstruintes) and the articulation mode (in the case of sonorants) are perceptually more robust than the cues from the point of articulation. Although speech perception should not be reduced to a mere sensory interpretation, the acoustic cues of speech segments exert influence on their categorization.

A Dispersion-Theoretic Account of Taiwanese CV phonotactics

Abstract: In Taiwanese, oral voice consonants and nasal stops are in complementary distribution in the onset position: oral voiced consonants only precede phonemically oral vowels, and nasal stops only precede nasal vowels. Similar restriction in the distribution of these segments is not found in other languages with phonemic nasal vowels, such as French and Portuguese. Following studies showing that Taiwanese nasal vowels are fully nasalized, while French and Portuguese ones have delay in nasality (Chang et al., 2011; Delvaux et al., 2008; Parkinson, 1983), this study proposes a Dispersion-Theoretic account to connect phonetic observation about vocalic nasality to the phonotactic restrictions on voicing and nasality. Using a three-stage analysis (Flemming 2006, 2008), where Phonetic Realization is a distinct component of the grammar, the analysis is show how a cross-linguistic different in phonetic implementation of nasality is able to derive differences in surface phonotactics. The analysis also makes explicitly testable predictions about the perception and the typology of the distributions of voiced and nasal segments.

The voiced and voiceless outcomes of intervocalic -SJ- in Old Tuscan

Abstract: This paper deals with the non-systematic voicing of intervocalic sj in Old Tuscan. Old Tuscan displays both voiceless [ʃ] and voiced [ʒ] as outcomes of intervocalic sj, without an obvious phonological conditioning determining them. None of the existing attempts to account for this dual outcome – the search for a Neogrammarian regularity, the supposed introduction of [ʒ] through lexical borrowing, the hypothesis of a variable sound change – is completely satisfactory. It will be proposed that the hypothesis of a variable result of this sound change can be theoretically refined and given new empirical arguments. Specifically, it will be argued that an allophonic voicing rule may be followed by a partial lexical re-categorization of its output, and it will be shown that the outcome [ʒ] is most likely when the following vowel is low and/or stressed.

Realisation of voicing by French-speaking CI children after long-term implant use: An acoustic study

Abstract: Studies of speech production in French-speaking cochlear-implanted (CI) children are very scarce. Yet, difficulties in speech production have been shown to impact the intelligibility of these children. The goal of this study is to understand the effect of long-term use of cochlear implant on speech production, and more precisely on the coordination of laryngeal-oral gestures in stop production. The participants were all monolingual French children: 13 6;6- to 10;7-year-old CI children and 20 age-matched normally hearing (NH) children. We compared /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/ and /g/ in word-initial consonant-vowel sequences, produced in isolation in two different tasks, and we studied the effects of CI use, vowel context, task and age factors (i.e. chronological age, age at implantation and duration of implant use). Statistical analyses show a difference in voicing production between groups for voiceless consonants (shorter Voice Onset Times for CI children), with significance reached only for /k/, but no difference for voiced consonants. Our study indicates that in the long run, use of CI seems to have limited effects on the acquisition of oro-laryngeal coordination needed to produce voicing, except for specific difficulties located on velars. In a follow-up study, further acoustic analyses on vowel and fricative production by the same children reveal more difficulties, which suggest that cochlear implantation impacts frequency-based features (second formant of vowels and spectral moments of fricatives) more than durational cues (voicing).

Establishing the Three-Way Voicing Contrast in Madurese Stops

Abstract: Madurese, a Western Malayo-Polynesian language spoken on the Indonesian island of Madura, has been described as having a three-way voicing contrast (i.e. voiced, voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated) in its stops. However, the fact that the VOT values for voiceless unaspirated and aspirated stops are not large and they are also followed by vowels with different height raises a question if Madurese only contrasts voiced and voiceless stops phonologically instead. The goal of this paper is to establish the phonological status of the voicing contrast in Madurese stops, arguing that Madurese can be better described as a language with a three-way contrast. For this purpose, we provide phonological evidence that includes consonant-vowel interactions, vowel harmony processes and some morphophonemic processes involving vowel height alternations. All of this evidence is also used to substantiate the proposal that consonants trigger vowel height alternation rather than vowels trigger consonant allophony.