The partially denasalized bilabial plosive in Southern Min: comparison to [mb] in Amdo Tibetan

Regular SessionThis pilot study focuses on the biphasic plosive [mb] in Southern Min. Acoustic analysis suggests that its nasal portion tends to be weak in nasality (nasal flow) but tighter in integrity (not readily separable from the plosive portion) in comparison with prenasalized plosives described in the literature. On the other hand, the [mb] in Amdo Tibetan is similar to known prenasalized plosives in other languages, which allows a preliminary comparison of [mb] in Southern Min with the prenasalized plosive [mb] in Amdo.published_or_final_versio

An international investigation of forensic speaker comparison practices

The results of the first international survey on forensic speaker comparison practices are presented in this paper. Thirty-four experts from 13 countries and 5 continents responded to a series of questions concerning their practices in casework and which features they found to be useful speaker discriminants. Despite the responses revealing some prominent trends, there is wide variation in methodology, importance assigned to particular speech features, and choice of framework for expressing conclusions

Ultrasound study of Moroccan Arabic labiovelarization

In this survey, we have provided some acoustic and ultrasound data from two subjects to characterize a secondary articulation generally analyzed as labialization in Moroccan Arabic. Our results show that the so-called labialized consonants are rather labiovelarized. They also show that the vowel [a] adjacent to the labiovelarized consonants is velarized

Hearing the Inner Voices of Asian English Poets

Poetry is often, even if not always, thought ofas a work to be read audibly. Literary analyses of eachpoem and biographical information of the poet aim atproviding deeper understanding, but few students ofliterature actually attend seriously to the poet’sphonology. By first providing an analysis of the tonalityHong Kong English with side view glances to Singapore,this paper provides arguments for how much moreexciting poetry can be not just for new Englishes, but forall languages in today’s world where so many languagesand cultures are in contact

Acoustic-phonetic realisation of Polish syllable prominence: a corpus study.

Malisz Z, Wagner P. Acoustic-phonetic realisation of Polish syllable prominence: a corpus study. In: Gibbon D, Hirst D, Campbell N, eds. Rhythm, melody and harmony in speech. Studies in honour of Wiktor Jassem. Speech and Language Technology. Vol 14/15. Poznań, Poland; 2012: 105-114

Formulating the Identification of Mandarin Tone2 and Tone3 in multi-dimensional spaces

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Phonetic insights into a simple level-tone system: ‘careful’ vs. ‘impatient’ realizations of Naxi High, Mid and Low tones

International audienceThe Naxi language has three level tones: H, M and L (plus a marginal Rising tone). The present study aims to offer phonetic insights into this simple system through examination of production data from three male speakers and one female speaker: realizations of the three level tones on CV syllables, under two reading conditions, labelled as ‘CAREFUL’ and ‘IMPATIENT’. Fundamental frequency (F0), glottal open quotient (Oq), and formant frequency characteristics are estimated. The three level tones span about 8 semitones under ‘CAREFUL’ reading and 11 semitones under ‘IMPATIENT’ reading. The average distance separating H from M is on the same order as that separating M from L. Under ‘IMPATIENT’ reading, F0 register is higher. Oq follows speaker-specific patterns. No clear pattern of influence of tone or reading condition on vowel articulation was found. These findings (along with the original data, made available in full) offer a basis for cross-linguistic comparison