Voice

About: Voice is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2393 publications have been published within this topic receiving 56637 citations.

Passive vocal tract enlargement during voiced stops

Abstract: Voiced stops should become devoiced within 5 to 10 m of stop closure if there is no vocal tract enlargement to delay the inevitable reduction in transglottal pressure drop. Since stops may be voiced longer than this, some cavity expansion must take place, either passive through tissue compliance or active through larynx lowering and the like. To estimate the duration of voicing in stops when only passive enlargement occurs, subjects produced isolated nonsense words of the form VC:V, where V was one of a variety of English vowels and C: was an artificially prolonged /b/, /d/, or/g/. Oral air pressure was vented through a catheter leading from the pharynx to the atmosphere via the nasal cavity. At unpredictable times, a solenoid‐activated valve closed the catheter and the consequent build‐up of oral pressure extinguished the voicing. Voicing continued after this closure longer during /b/ than /d/ or /g/, and longer when coarticulated with high vowels than with low vowels. These results can most plausibly be explained by reference to differences in compliance of the surfaces on which oral pressure impinges during the various consonants and vowels. [Supported by NSF and NIH.]

Cross-language speech perception in adults: phonemic, phonetic, and acoustic contributions.

Abstract: Cross-language studies have shown that foreign consonant contrasts vary in the degree of perceptual difficulty which they present adult non-native listeners. Phonemic, phonetic, and acoustic factors have been considered important in accounting for this variability. These factors were examined by comparing English listeners’ perception of the Hindi retroflex versus dental place-of-articulation constant in four different voicing contexts: voiceless unaspirated, breathy voiced, voiceless aspirated, and prevoiced. Differences in perceptual difficulty of the four contrasts were predicted based on (1) phonemic status (the functional status of the contrast in the listeners’ native phonology), (2) phonetic experience (as allophones or free variants), and (3) differences in acoustic salience related to voicing. Performance was not “nativelike” for any of the four contrasts; however, significant differences in perceptual difficulty among the four contrasts were evident. Perceptual differences were correlated with both acoustic salience of place cues and subjects’ descriptions of their assimilation strategies.

Categorical and noncategorical modes of speech perception along the voicing continuum

Abstract: Native speakers of English identified and then discriminated between stimuli which varied in voice onset time (VOT). One group of listeners identified a randomized sequence of stimuli; another group identified an ordered sequence of stimuli, in which stimuli from the VOT continuum were presented in a consecutive order. Half of the Ss in each group then received one of two discrimination formats: the ABX discrimination test in which X was identified with A or with B, or 4IAX test of paired similarity in which two pairs of stimuli—one pair always the same and one pair always different—were presented on each trial. Noncategorical perception of the voicing distinction, reflected by an improvement in discrimination within phonetic categories, was obtained for the group of listeners who experienced both the sequential identification procedure and the 4IAX discrimination test. The results are interpreted as providing evidence for separate auditory and phonetic levels of discrimination in speech perception.

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

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

Phonetics and Phonology of Tense and Lax Obstruents in German

Abstract: Knowing that the so-called voiced and voiceless stops in languages like English and German do not always literally differ in voicing, several linguists — among them Roman Jakobson — have proposed that dichotomies such as fortis/lenis or tense/lax might be more suitable to capture the invariant phonetic core of this distinction. Later it became the dominant view that voice onset time or laryngeal features are more reasonable alternatives. However, based on a number of facts and arguments from current phonetics and phonology this book claims that the Jakobsonian feature tense was rejected prematurely. Among the theoretical aspects addressed, it is argued that an acoustic definition of distinctive features best captures the functional aspects of speech communication, while it is also discussed how the conclusions are relevant for formal accounts, such as feature geometry. The invariant of tense is proposed to be durational, and its ‘basic correlate’ is proposed to be aspiration duration. It is shown that tense and voice differ in their invariant properties and basic correlates, but that they share a number of other correlates, including F0 onset and closure duration. In their stop systems languages constitute a typology between the selection of voice and tense , but in their fricative systems languages universally tend towards a syncretism involving voicing and tenseness together. Though the proposals made here are intended to have general validity, the emphasis is on German. As part of this focus, an acoustic study and a transillumination study of the realization of /p,t,k,f,s/ vs. /b,d,g,v,z/ in German are presented.