Showing papers on "Voice published in 2018"
TL;DR: Variation in the speech community is shown to be generationally structured such that older speakers were more likely than younger speakers to produce prevoicing, and to rely onprevoicing perceptually, and with an ongoing sound change in which the original consonantal voicing contrast is being replaced by a tonal contrast on the following vowel.
60 citations
TL;DR: Examination of individual differences suggests that speakers may differ systematically in terms of their laryngeal adjustments for expressing voicelessness even while maintaining similar timing relations as indicated by VOT, and may serve a useful complement to VOT.
29 citations
TL;DR: Yerevan Armenian has breathy-voiced plosives which are produced with closure voicing and a relatively spread glottis that is maintained into a following vowel, which supports a historical analysis in which early Armenian voiced stops were also breathy, rather than plain voiced.
27 citations
TL;DR: Findings indicate a powerful influence of orthographic input on second language lexical–phonological development that is not readily overcome by a simple intervention.
Abstract: We present an artificial lexicon study designed to test the hypothesis that native English speakers experience interference from written input when acquiring surface voicing in German words. Native English speakers were exposed to German-like words (e.g., /ʃtɑit/ and /ʃtɑid/, both pronounced [ʃtɑit]) along with pictured meanings, and in some cases, their written forms (e.g., and ). At test, participants whose input included the written forms were more likely to produce final voiced obstruents when naming the pictures, indicating that access to the written forms in the input interfered with their acquisition of target-like surface forms. In a separate experiment, we attempted to moderate this negative impact of the written input by explicitly telling participants about the misleading nature of the words' written forms, with no beneficial effect on their pronunciation accuracy. Together these findings indicate a powerful influence of orthographic input on second language lexical-phonological development that is not readily overcome by a simple intervention.
26 citations
TL;DR: Questions about the weighting of glottalisation and vowel duration as cues to coda stop voicing are raised and change in progress regarding the management of voicing cues in the rhyme is suggested.
23 citations
TL;DR: Findings imply that seemingly non-contrastive low-level variation is indeed systematically modulated by the prosodic structure in reference to phonetic representations that regulate the phonetic implementation of phonological contrast in a given language.
23 citations
TL;DR: Cross-languages differences in the voicing of utterance-initial voiced stops, and in the use of active maneuvers to achieve closure voicing, are reported, using correlated aerodynamic and acoustic data.
22 citations
TL;DR: A detailed study of voice onset time (VOT), closure duration, and obstruent F0 effects in Zurich Swiss German supports the view that the phonetic basis of voicing and related distinctions involves complex interactions of timing and articulatory gestures that cannot always be characterised in terms of a simple VOT continuum.
17 citations
TL;DR: The authors used mixed-effects logistic regression to model how boundary phenomena affect the likelihood of high vowels devoicing and modulate the effects of other variables, controlling for other major factors, including a measure of gestural overlap.
Abstract: Devoicing of high vowels (HVD) in Tokyo Japanese applies in two environments—between voiceless consonants, and between a voiceless consonant and a “pause”—and applies variably as a function of a number of factors. The role and definition of “pause” in this process, in terms of a physical pause or prosodic position (word or phrase boundary), remains unclear, as does what is expected when these environments overlap, and why HVD appears to be categorical in some environments and variable in others. This paper addresses three outstanding issues about HVD—the role of “boundary phenomena” (prosodic position and physical pauses), the relationship between the two environments, and the sources of variability in HVD—by examining vowel devoicing in a large corpus of spontaneous Japanese. We use mixed-effects logistic regression to model how boundary phenomena affect the likelihood of devoicing and modulate the effects of other variables, controlling for other major factors, including a measure of gestural overlap. The results suggest that all boundary phenomena jointly affect devoicing rate, and that prosodic phrase boundaries play a key role: variability in HVD looks qualitatively different for phrase-internal and phrase-final vowels, which are affected differently by word frequency, speech rate, and pause duration. We argue the results support an account of HVD as the result of two overlapping vowel devoicing processes, each widely-attested cross-linguistically: devoicing between voiceless consonants, and devoicing before prosodic phrase boundaries. Variability in the application of these two processes can then be partially explained in terms of aspects of phonetic implementation and processing: gestural overlap (Beckman 1996), which often plays a role in reduction processes, and the locality of production planning (Wagner 2012), a recent explanation for variability in the application of external sandhi processes.
17 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the effect of glottalization on the perception of voiceless /t/ and /p/ in American English and found that it has little effect on the recognition of these sounds.
Abstract: In American English, voiceless codas /t/ and /p/ are often glottalized: They have glottal constriction that results in creaky voice on the preceding vowel. Previous claims suggest that such glottalization can serve to enhance /t/ or, more generally, voicelessness of coda stops. In this study, we examine the timecourse of word recognition to test whether glottalization facilitates the perception of words ending in voiceless /t/ and /p/, which is expected if glottalization is in fact enhancing. Sixty American English listeners participated in an eye-tracking study, where they heard resynthesized glottalized and non-glottalized versions of CVC English words ending in /p, t, b, d/ while looking at a display with two words presented orthographically. Target words were presented with a minimal pair differing in place of articulation (e.g., cop-cot), or voicing, (e.g., bat-bad, cap-cab). Although there is little evidence that glottalization facilitates recognition of words ending in /t/ or /p/, there is a strong inhibitory effect: Words ending in voiced stops are recognized more slowly and poorly when the preceding vowel was glottalized. These findings lend little support to a listener-driven, enhancement-based explanation for the occurrence of coda glottalization in American English. On the other hand, they suggest that glottalized instances of coda /t/ and /p/, but not of coda /d/ and /b/, are perceived as equally good variants of these sounds.
17 citations
TL;DR: Voicing non-consent was related to verbal and physical resistance, but was distinct in prevalence and prediction of distress, and was associated with trauma-related symptoms in multivariate models.
Abstract: The current study explored the impact of voicing non-consent in relation to rape. Aims of the study included determining (a) the prevalence of voicing non-consent, (b) the relationship of voicing non-consent to verbal and physical resistance, and (c) whether voicing non-consent predicts distress and rape acknowledgment. Out of 262 college women who experienced rape, 81% voiced non-consent. Voicing non-consent was related to verbal and physical resistance, but was distinct in prevalence and prediction of distress. Voicing non-consent was associated with trauma-related symptoms in multivariate models. Women who voiced non-consent were more likely to acknowledge their experience as rape or sexual assault. Implications are discussed.
TL;DR: Results show that closure duration is the most important cue for distinguishing both voicing and gemination, and release properties have more in common with lenis than fortis languages, leading to a complex profile for this marked category of sounds.
TL;DR: The results show that the relative role of secondary cues and duration may differ across consonants and that gemination may involve language-specific phonetic knowledge that is specific to each consonant, and question the idea that lexical access in speech processing can be achieved through features.
TL;DR: Investigating whether Voice Onset Time reliably differentiates the word-initial stop laryngeal categories and how it covaries with different places of articulation in ten languages indicated that there was a clear VOT distinction between the voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops.
TL;DR: This article examined the relationship between vowel duration, final glottal stop replacement, and deletion of word-final /t, d/ to determine whether the phonological contrast of consonant voicing is maintained through duration of the preceding vowel.
Abstract: In many varieties of African American English (AAE), glottal stop replacement and deletion of word-final /t/ and /d/ results in consonant neutralization, while the underlying voicing distinction may be maintained by other cues, such as vowel duration. Here, I examine the relationship between vowel duration, final glottal stop replacement, and deletion of word-final /t, d/ to determine whether the phonological contrast of consonant voicing is maintained through duration of the preceding vowel. Data come from conversational interviews of AAE speakers in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington, DC. Results indicate that glottalization and deletion of word-final /t/ and /d/ are widespread across the speakers in the analysis. Additionally, the duration of vowels is significantly longer before underlying /d/ than /t/ for consonant neutralized contexts, thus showing that duration, normally a secondary cue to final voicing, may be becoming a primary cue in AAE.
23 Mar 2018
TL;DR: Evidence that spirantization, a cross-linguistically common lenition process, affects English listeners’ ease of segmenting novel “words” in an artificial language is presented, offering partial support for theories of lenition rooted in notions of perceptual-acoustic continuity and disruption.
Abstract: This paper presents evidence that spirantization, a cross-linguistically common lenition process, affects English listeners’ ease of segmenting novel “words” in an artificial language. The cross-linguistically common spirantization pattern of initial stops and medial continuants (e.g. [ɡuβa]) results in improved word segmentation compared to the inverse “anti-lenition” pattern of initial continuants and medial stops (e.g. [ɣuba]). The study also tests the effect of obstruent voicing, another common lenition pattern, but finds no significant differences in segmentation performance. There are several points of broader interest in these studies. Most of the phonetic factors influencing word segmentation in past studies have been language-specific and/or prosodic in nature: stress, intonation, final lengthening, etc. Spirantization, while often prosodically conditioned, is different from all of these patterns in that it concerns a segmental alternation. Moreover, the effects reported here are for speakers of a language, American English, that only sporadically displays spirantization, and not in the phonological contexts used in the experiment. This suggests that the results may reflect more general properties of speech perception and word boundary detection, rather than a perceptual processing strategy transferred directly from English. As such, the studies offer partial support for theories of lenition rooted in notions of perceptual-acoustic continuity and disruption.
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: The authors examined onset and coda /s/ lenition in the Spanish of El Salvador, a dialect in which this phenomenon is particularly advanced and found that speakers from rural speakers, older Salvadorans, women, and those with lower levels of education prioritize faithfulness (i.e., the preservation of important perceptual cues).
Abstract: Author(s): Brogan, Franny Diane | Advisor(s): Quicoli, A. Carlos; Mendoza-Denton, Norma | Abstract: This dissertation examines onset and coda /s/ lenition in the Spanish of El Salvador, a dialect in which this phenomenon is particularly advanced. That is, Salvadoran /s/ weakening is not only pervasive in both syllabic positions but manifests as allophones beyond the traditional tripartite conception. In addition to providing the first sociophonetic account of /s/ in El Salvador, this dissertation aims to address another gap in the literature: while /s/ weakening is the most-studied phonological variable in the history of the field, many accounts fail to make connections between observed patterns and important aspects of phonological theory. In my analysis I show that these connections, which are highly reliant on phonetic principles, are crucial to a more complete understanding of the phenomenon at hand.Speakers for this study are 72 Salvadorans who participated in sociolinguistic interviews in El Salvador in 2015. I segmented and acoustically analyzed 200 occurrences of phonological /s/ per participant (n = 14,400 tokens) in Praat (Boersma a Weenink, 2016), and each token was subsequently coded for linguistic and extralinguistic variables including allophone, which was categorized as follows: [s]: a voiceless strident fricative; [z]: a voiced strident fricative; [sθ]: a voiceless approximant resulting from gestural undershoot; [h]: a voiceless glottal fricative; [ɦ] a voiced glottal fricative; and [∅]: deletion of the segment in its entirety. Using these 14,400 tokens, this dissertation develops a phonetically-based phonological analysis of /s/ lenition within Optimality Theory (Prince a Smolensky, 1993/2004) in which the need to reduce articulatory effort cost (Markedness) while preserving important perceptual distinctions (Faithfulness) drives variation. I model the Salvadoran data via a maximum entropy algorithm, which assigns weights to OT-style constraints instead of strictly ranking them. Maximum entropy not only allows for variation but maximizes it, assigning probabilities to all possible output candidates according to shares of total harmony. Markedness constraints in the grammar are styled following Kirchner (1998, 2004) and incentivize the weakening of difficult articulatory gestures in phonological environments that exacerbate their biomechanical effort cost. I find, for example, that /s/ is most likely to lenite when its flanking segments are more open (such as two vowels that are [-high]) or disagree with it in coronality, voicing, or both. I find that all five non-deleted variants can be modeled according to the interaction between their composite articulatory gestures and the phonological contexts in which they occur. Faithfulness constraints in the grammar, on the other hand, drive the preservation of perceptual cues in more salient prosodic positions. I find that the impetus to preserve both features [+strident] and [-voice] is highest in the strongest prosodic positions (phrase-initially g word-initially g syllable-initially) and decreases gradually in turn with position strength. Furthermore, I find that these differences are modulated by syllable stress, with tonic syllables blocking lenition at higher rates than atonic syllables. With respect to demographic factors, this dissertation shows that while language-internal factors establish basic constraints in the grammar, the relative importance of preserving perceptual cues varies for different social groups; this is implemented in the grammar by scaling Faithfulness constraint weights up or down. I find that speakers from San Miguel, rural speakers, older Salvadorans, women, and those with lower levels of education prioritize Faithfulness (i.e., the preservation of important perceptual cues) less than their respective counterparts, resulting in higher rates of effort-based lenition. Furthermore, I find that speakers from these groups not only lenite /s/ at higher rates but are also more likely to both produce particularly nonstandard variants such as [sθ] and lenite /s/ more often and more extremely in more salient prosodic positions.In sum, this dissertation contributes valuable data about a pervasive phenomenon in an understudied dialect of Spanish, including an in-depth exploration of the social factors that condition it. More broadly, this study presents a nuanced approach to Spanish /s/ lenition that is able to account for onset and coda /s/ weakening within a single analysis by situating the phenomenon within well-established theories of phonetically-based phonology.
TL;DR: Results of an ultrasound study show that tongue position differences are similar for English and Portuguese despite VOT differences, although English speakers show more variation, which implies that these languages have different laryngeal gestures but share a similar supralaryngeAL articulatory gesture, which may be necessary to distinguish between /b d ɡ/ and /p t k/ stops with respect to supranalyst cavity volume.
TL;DR: The results show that behaviour and brain activity associated to nonnative phoneme perception are influenced by musical expertise and that these effects are task‐dependent.
Abstract: Based on growing evidence suggesting that professional music training facilitates foreign language perception and learning, we examined the impact of musical expertise on the categorisation of syllables including phonemes that did (/p/, /b/) or did not (/ph /) belong to the French repertoire by analysing both behaviour (error rates and reaction times) and Event-Related brain Potentials (N200 and P300 components). Professional musicians and nonmusicians categorised syllables either as /ba/ or /pa/ (voicing task), or as /pa/ or /ph a/ with /ph / being a nonnative phoneme for French speakers (aspiration task). In line with our hypotheses, results showed that musicians outperformed nonmusicians in the aspiration task but not in the voicing task. Moreover, the difference between the native (/p/) and the nonnative phoneme (/ph /), as reflected in N200 and P300 amplitudes, was larger in musicians than in nonmusicians in the aspiration task but not in the voicing task. These results show that behaviour and brain activity associated to nonnative phoneme perception are influenced by musical expertise and that these effects are task-dependent. The implications of these findings for current models of phoneme perception and for understanding the qualitative and quantitative differences found on the N200 and P300 components are discussed.
TL;DR: This apparent-time study investigates the emerging importance of VOT and VCratio (a combined measure of proportional vowel and closure duration) in Bavarian and Saxon, two German regional varieties prone to reverse the merger.
TL;DR: The data reveal that obstruents produced with oral obstruction closer to the glottis are less likely to be voiced when contrasted with their counterparts produced in the anterior region of the vocal tract, suggesting that such factors may have a more powerful influence on speech than typically assumed.
Abstract: Abstract:This work explores the effect of ease of articulation on speech by examining the rates at which various consonants occur in word lists representing thousands of languages. The data reveal that obstruents produced with oral obstruction closer to the glottis are less likely to be voiced when contrasted with their counterparts produced in the anterior region of the vocal tract. While this finding is explainable via previously documented aerodynamic factors, these new data suggest that such factors may have a more powerful influence on speech than typically assumed. The pattern in question is evident even after controlling for the relatedness and areal proximity of language varieties. This study isolates and quantifies the decrease in consonant voicing associated with the reduction in size of the supralaryngeal cavity.
TL;DR: The results indicated similar α values and similar ranges of voiced/unvoiced categories between SLI and NC, however, β in SLI was significantly higher than that in NC.
Abstract: Many studies revealed a link between temporal information processing (TIP) in a millisecond range and speech perception. Previous studies indicated a dysfunction in TIP accompanied by deficient phonemic hearing in children with specific language impairment (SLI). In this study we concentrate in SLI on phonetic identification, using the voice-onset-time (VOT) phenomenon in which TIP is built-in. VOT is crucial for speech perception, as stop consonants (like /t/ vs. /d/) may be distinguished by an acoustic difference in time between the onsets of the consonant (stop release burst) and the following vibration of vocal folds (voicing). In healthy subjects two categories (voiced and unvoiced) are determined using VOT task. The present study aimed at verifying whether children with SLI indicate a similar pattern of phonetic identification as their healthy peers and whether the intervention based on TIP results in improved performance on the VOT task. Children aged from 5 to 8 years (n = 47) were assigned into two groups: normal children without any language disability (NC, n = 20), and children with SLI (n = 27). In the latter group participants were randomly classified into two treatment subgroups, i.e., experimental temporal training (EG, n = 14) and control non-temporal training (CG, n = 13). The analyzed indicators of phonetic identification were: (1) the boundary location (α) determined as the VOT value corresponding to 50% voicing/unvoicing distinctions; (2) ranges of voiced/unvoiced categories; (3) the slope of identification curve (β) reflecting the identification correctness; (4) percent of voiced distinctions within the applied VOT spectrum. The results indicated similar α values and similar ranges of voiced/unvoiced categories between SLI and NC. However, β in SLI was significantly higher than that in NC. After the intervention, the significant improvement of β was observed only in EG. They achieved the level of performance comparable to that observed in NC. The training-related improvement in CG was non-significant. Furthermore, only in EG the β values in post-test correlated with measures of TIP as well as with phonemic hearing obtained in our previous studies. These findings provide another evidence that TIP is omnipresent in language communication and reflected not only in phonemic hearing but also in phonetic identification.
TL;DR: Results for prevoicing duration revealed an effect of consonantal posteriority and adjacent vowel height and whether Russian speakers rely on prenasalization to produce vocal fold vibration in initial closures, which is one of the mechanisms of reducing supraglottal pressure during oral occlusion.
Dissertation•
10 Dec 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, Kortmann and van der Auwera this paper discuss the role of speaker normalization in the variability of the speaker's hearing in dutch speech processing.
Abstract: \ }S0952675702004311 Johnson, K. (1996). Speech perception without speaker normalization. In K. Johnson & J. W. Mullennix (Eds.), Talker variability in speech processing (pp. 145–165). San Diego: Academic Press. Kabatek, J., Pusch, C. D., Kortmann, B. & Van der Auwera, J. (2011). The Romance languages. In B. Kortmann & J. V. der Auwera (Eds.), The languages and linguistics of europe (pp. 69–96). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kager, R., Van der Feest, S. V. H., Fikkert, P., Kerkhoff, A. & Zamuner, T. S. (2007). Representations of [voice]: Evidence from acquisition. In J. V. de Weijer & E. J. V. der Torre (Eds.), Voicing in dutch (de)voicing phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics (pp. 41–80). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The authors examined the role of reported speech, or what Tannen (2007) more accurately terms "constructed dialogue" in establishing the reasonableness of faith, in American Protestant religious talk across a variety of institutional contexts.
Abstract: Wuthnow (2012) notes that in the modern West, “talk about the supernatural is problematic and thus requires construction in ways that reinforce its reasonableness” (296). Thus, many religious communities sense constant pressure from within and without to conform their accounts of their beliefs to the standards of what van Dijk (2012) calls the surrounding “epistemic community.” The current study examines the role of reported speech, or what Tannen (2007) more accurately terms “constructed dialogue” in establishing the reasonableness of faith. Constructed dialogue constitutes a ubiquitous feature of everyday conversation and has attracted attention within linguistics from myriad perspectives focusing on its forms and functions in talk (see Holt, 2009). This study demonstrates how two of constructed dialogue’s roles which have historically received separate treatment – as a resource for managing interpersonal relationships (e.g., Tannen, 2004) and as an evidential or “epistemic” device (e.g., Clift, 2006) – can actually work in tandem. Examining American Protestant religious talk across a variety of institutional contexts including a journalistic interview, sermons, and Bible study, the discourse analytic approach adopted here blends insights from Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982; Tannen, 1992) and epistemic discourse analysis (Heritage, 2013) in advancing
TL;DR: The first wave of data collection with the Listen-Say test indicates that the test appears to be sensitive to predicted perceptual difficulties of phonetic contrasts particularly in noise.
Abstract: To meet the need for a linguistic speech perception test in Swedish, the 'Listen-Say test' was developed. Minimal word pairs were used as speech material to assess seven phonetic contrasts in two auditory backgrounds. In the present study, children's speech discrimination skills in quiet and in four-talker (4T) speech background were examined. Associations with lexical-access skills and academic achievement were explored. The study included 27 school children 7-9 years of age. Overall, the children discriminated phonetic contrasts well in both conditions (quiet: Mdn 95%; 4T speech; Mdn 91% correct). A significant effect of 4T speech background was evident in three of the contrasts, connected to place of articulation, voicing and syllable complexity. Reaction times for correctly identified target words were significantly longer in the quiet condition, possibly reflecting a need for further balancing of the test order. Overall speech discrimination accuracy was moderately to highly correlated with lexical-access ability. Children identified as having high concentration ability by their teacher had the highest speech discrimination scores in both conditions followed by children identified as having high reading ability. The first wave of data collection with the Listen-Say test indicates that the test appears to be sensitive to predicted perceptual difficulties of phonetic contrasts particularly in noise. The clinical benefit of using a procedure where speech discrimination, lexical-access ability and academic achievement are taken into account is discussed as well as issues for further test refinement.
10 Feb 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that adding the feature [fortis/lenis] to the set of generally accepted phonological features, as originally proposed by Trubetzkoy (1939), can best explain postnasal strengthening and the distribution of ejective stops in Setswana and Sebirwa.
Abstract: This paper argues that in favor of adding the feature [fortis/lenis] to the set of generally accepted phonological features, as originally proposed by Trubetzkoy (1939). Phonetic data from the consonant systems the Southern Bantu languages Setswana and Sebirwa is presented. Measurements of consonant closure and voicing duration in Setswana show that post-nasal “strengthening” and the distribution of ejective stops in this language can best be accounted for phonologically with the feature [fortis] rather than [+/- voice] or [constricted glottis]. In contrast, the phonetic data show Sebirwa to be a “true voice” language, demonstrating that the patterns of Setswana are not phonetically inevitable.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the genetic status of Lamalamic, a grouping of three languages: Lamalama, Umbuygamu, and Rimanggudinhma, from the east coast of Cape York Peninsula (Australia).
Abstract: This paper investigates the genetic status of Lamalamic, a grouping of Lamalama, Umbuygamu, and Rimanggudinhma, three languages from the east coast of Cape York Peninsula (Australia). Lamalamic has long been assumed in the literature to form a subgroup of Paman (Pama-Nyungan), but its status as a genetic unit has not yet been examined in a systematic way. I provide evidence from historical phonology and morphology to show that the three languages do form a subgroup of Paman, defined by shared innovations in phonology and morphology. At the same time, the analysis also provides a detailed picture of the origins of some of the unusual phonological properties that set the Lamalamic languages apart in the broader Australian context, like the development of fricative series, prenasalized plosives, voicing contrasts for plosives and trills, dental glides, and CV metathesis resulting in diphthongs.
TL;DR: Recently released, publicly available resources, which allow users to watch videos of hidden articulators during the production of various types of sounds found in the world’s languages, are introduced.
Abstract: In this article, we introduce recently released, publicly available resources, which allow users to watch videos of hidden articulators (e.g. the tongue) during the production of various types of sounds found in the world’s languages. The articulation videos on these resources are linked to a clickable International Phonetic Alphabet chart ([International Phonetic Association. 1999. Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]), so that the user can study the articulations of different types of speech sounds systematically. We discuss the utility of these resources for teaching the pronunciation of contrastive sounds in a foreign language that are absent in the learner’s native language.