Prosodically Conditioned Realization of Voiced Stops and Vowels in Yucatecan Spanish

This dissertation investigates the acoustic nature and distribution of prosodic strengthening in relation to the Prosodic Word domain and prosodic prominence in Yucatecan Spanish. In order to do so, phonologically voiced stops and word-initial vowels were examined in a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews and a read speech task with 16–21 speakers of the variety. The results provide evidence for prosodic strengthening of both voiced stops and word-initial vowels. The acoustic manifestations of prosodic strengthening of voiced stops are (i) longer duration, (ii) greater change in intensity, and, in extreme cases of strengthening, (iii) presence of a release burst. Strengthening of word-initial vowels is manifested through glottalization, which is present in the first portion of the vowel. Prosodic strengthening occurs in PW-initial position and especially under lexical stress, although accentuation may also play a role. Thus, prosodic strengthening is used to indicate (post)lexical prominence and boundaries at the PW level. In terms of speaker-specific variation, Yucatec Maya language dominance does not appear to favor more strengthened realizations either of voiced stops or word-initial vowels, while gender has no effect on the distribution of strengthened realizations. Finally, a proposal is made for the strengthening of voiced stops and glottalization of word-initial vowels being used to mark the left edges of a recursive PW in Yucatecan Spanish

Rozdíly realizace tónů hanojského a saigonského dialektu vietnamštiny mezi čteným a polospontánním mluveným projevem

Hlavním cílem této disertace je popis rozdílů realizací tónů mezi hanojským s saigonským dialektem se zaměřením na situaci ve čteném a polospontánním mluveném projevu. Výzkum se zabývá zejména produkcí, avšak je doplněn i oddílem, který řeší problematiku percepce tónů s využitím percepčního testu. Oddíl 2.1. popisuje tonalitu a tónové jazyky v obecném smyslu. V oddíle 2.2. se popisuje vietnamský jazyk s důrazem na tónové inventáře obou zkoumaných dialektů. Zmiňuje se též vznik a vývoj tónů obecně i v rámci vietnamštiny. Třetí kapitola představuje metodu výzkumu, zejména výběr mluvčích, přípravu materiálu a nahrávek, extrakce dat a přípravu analýz a percepčního testu. Čtvrtá kapitola je rozdělena do tří oddílů. Oddíl 4.1. hovoří o realizacích tónů v izolaci a ve speciálně zvoleném kontextu. Jeho účelem je popsat chování tónů co nejméně ovlivněných okolními proměnnými. Výsledky této analýzy by měly být srovnatelné s již publikovanými studiemi na stejné téma. V oddíle 4.2. je na data nahlédnuto z kvantitativní perspektivy a výsledky této analýzy by měly věrněji reflektovat jazykovou realitu. Oddíl 4.3. představuje percepční test, jehož účelem je zmapovat schopnost rozlišování tónů mimo přirozený kontext. Výsledky analýz indikují zásadní rozdíly mezi konturami tónů hanojského a saigonského dialektu....The chief objective of this dissertation is the description of tone realization differences in Hanoian and Saigonese dialects based on a representative sample of recorded material, with special focus on read monologue and semi-spontaneous conversational speech. The research discusses mainly issues of tone production but it is complemented by a section on tone perception in form of a perception test. The theoretical background in Section 2.1. describes the topic of tonality and tonal languages in general. Section 2.2. is devoted to the description of the Vietnamese language and attention is specifically paid to tonal inventories of both researched dialects. Tonogenesis is mentioned on a general level as well as in the Vietnamese language in particular. Chapter 3 introduces the research methodology, namely the speaker selection, speech material preparation and recording, data extraction and preparation for the analyses and the perception test. Chapter 4 is divided into three sections. Section 4.1. speaks about tone realizations in isolation and carefully preselected context. Its goal is to investigate the behaviour of tonal contours influenced by as few variables as possible. The results should be comparable to the findings of previously conducted studies. Section 4.2. strives to assess data from a...Institute of PhoneticsFonetický ústavFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

Negative vaccine voices in Swedish social media

Vaccinations are one of the most significant interventions to public health, but vaccine hesitancy creates concerns for a portion of the population in many countries, including Sweden. Since discussions on vaccine hesitancy are often taken on social networking sites, data from Swedish social media are used to study and quantify the sentiment among the discussants on the vaccination-or-not topic during phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of all the posts analyzed a majority showed a stronger negative sentiment, prevailing throughout the whole of the examined period, with some spikes or jumps due to the occurrence of certain vaccine-related events distinguishable in the results. Sentiment analysis can be a valuable tool to track public opinions regarding the use, efficacy, safety, and importance of vaccination

Desegmentalization: towards a common framework for the modeling of tonogenesis and registrogenesis in mainland Southeast Asia with case studies from Austroasiatic

Suprasegmental contrasts of tone and register are commonplace phonological phenomena among the languages of Mainland Southeast Asia and its periphery (MSEA) (Matisoff 1990, 2001). Insofar as we have come to understand the origins and evolution of such contrasts, two theories predominate: tonogenesis (Haudricourt 1954) and registrogenesis (Huffman 1976). In their classical forms, tonogenesis and registrogenesis are well suited for modeling the development of tone and register in the best known, most studied languages of MSEA, but there is much additional complexity that they fail to capture. This is especially true for languages of Austroasiatic stock, which in many cases have developed tone and register in ways that must be considered ‘unorthodox’ with respect to the received models (Ferlus 1979, 2004, 2011; Diffloth 1982a, 1982b; Svantesson 1989; Gehrmann 2015; Sidwell 2015, 2019). The goal of this thesis is to present a possible way forward towards a unified conceptual framework for tone and register evolution in the languages of MSEA: desegmentalization. Expanding on Dockum’s (2019) concept of desegmental phonology, desegmentalization is the process by which one or more segmental properties (onset phonation, vowel height, vowel length or coda phonation) condition changes in the distribution of a language’s suprasegmental contrasts. A general survey of the Austroasiatic language family is presented, in which documented examples of desegmentalization are presented and discussed. Austroasiatic constitutes a useful laboratory for such a survey, because the identification of the segmental origins of suprasegmental contrasts in Austroasiatic languages is relatively straightforward in comparison to the other language families of MSEA. Based on this survey of desegmentalization processes in Austroasiatic, ten discrete desegmentalization models are proposed. The output typologies for the suprasegmental contrasts produced by each model are compared and implications for a general model of tonogenesis and registrogenesis are explored. This thesis offers (1) a digestible introduction for the non-specialist to the historical development of suprasegmental contrast in MSEA, (2) a resynthesis of current tonogenetic theory which integrates classical tonogenesis, classical registrogenesis and various other, lesser-known evolutionary pathways under the larger umbrella of desegmentalization and (3) a comprehensive overview of tone and register origins in the Austroasiatic family

Information density and phonetic structure: Explaining segmental variability

There is growing evidence that information-theoretic principles influence linguistic structures. Regarding speech several studies have found that phonetic structures lengthen in duration and strengthen in their spectral features when they are difficult to predict from their context, whereas easily predictable phonetic structures are shortened and reduced spectrally. Most of this evidence comes from studies on American English, only some studies have shown similar tendencies in Dutch, Finnish, or Russian. In this context, the Smooth Signal Redundancy hypothesis (Aylett and Turk 2004, Aylett and Turk 2006) emerged claiming that the effect of information-theoretic factors on the segmental structure is moderated through the prosodic structure. In this thesis, we investigate the impact and interaction of information density and prosodic structure on segmental variability in production analyses, mainly based on German read speech, and also listeners' perception of differences in phonetic detail caused by predictability effects. Information density (ID) is defined as contextual predictability or surprisal (S(unit_i) = -log2 P(unit_i|context)) and estimated from language models based on large text corpora. In addition to surprisal, we include word frequency, and prosodic factors, such as primary lexical stress, prosodic boundary, and articulation rate, as predictors of segmental variability in our statistical analysis. As acoustic-phonetic measures, we investigate segment duration and deletion, voice onset time (VOT), vowel dispersion, global spectral characteristics of vowels, dynamic formant measures and voice quality metrics. Vowel dispersion is analyzed in the context of German learners' speech and in a cross-linguistic study. As results, we replicate previous findings of reduced segment duration (and VOT), higher likelihood to delete, and less vowel dispersion for easily predictable segments. Easily predictable German vowels have less formant change in their vowel section length (VSL), F1 slope and velocity, are less curved in their F2, and show increased breathiness values in cepstral peak prominence (smoothed) than vowels that are difficult to predict from their context. Results for word frequency show similar tendencies: German segments in high-frequency words are shorter, more likely to delete, less dispersed, and show less magnitude in formant change, less F2 curvature, as well as less harmonic richness in open quotient smoothed than German segments in low-frequency words. These effects are found even though we control for the expected and much more effective effects of stress, boundary, and speech rate. In the cross-linguistic analysis of vowel dispersion, the effect of ID is robust across almost all of the six languages and the three intended speech rates. Surprisal does not affect vowel dispersion of non-native German speakers. Surprisal and prosodic factors interact in explaining segmental variability. Especially, stress and surprisal complement each other in their positive effect on segment duration, vowel dispersion and magnitude in formant change. Regarding perception we observe that listeners are sensitive to differences in phonetic detail stemming from high and low surprisal contexts for the same lexical target.Informationstheoretische Faktoren beeinflussen die Variabilität gesprochener Sprache. Phonetische Strukturen sind länger und zeigen erhöhte spektrale Distinktivität, wenn sie aufgrund ihres Kontextes leicht vorhersagbar sind als Strukturen, die schwer vorhersagbar sind. Die meisten Studien beruhen auf Daten aus dem amerikanischen Englisch. Nur wenige betonen die Notwendigkeit für mehr sprachliche Diversität. Als Resultat dieser Erkenntnisse haben Aylett und Turk (2004, 2006) die Smooth Signal Redundancy Hypothese aufgestellt, die besagt, dass der Effekt von Vorhersagbarkeit auf phonetische Strukturen nicht direkt, sondern nur die prosodische Struktur umgesetzt wird. In dieser Arbeit werden der Einfluss und die Interaktion von Informationsdichte und prosodischen Strukturen auf segmentelle Variabilität im Deutschen sowie die Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit von Unterschieden im phonetischen Detail aufgrund ihrer Vorhersagbarkeit untersucht. Informationsdichte (ID) wird definiert als kontextuelle Vorhersagbarkeit oder Surprisal (S(unit_i) = -log2 P(unit_i|context)). Zusätzlich zu Surprisal verwenden wir auch Wortfrequenz und prosodische Faktoren, wie primäre Wortbetonung, prosodische Grenze und Sprechgeschwindigkeit als Variablen in der statistischen Analyse. Akustisch-phonetische Maße sind Segmentlänge und -löschung, voice onset time (VOT), Vokaldispersion, globale und dynamische vokalische Eigenschaften und Stimmqualität. Vokaldispersion wird nicht nur im Deutschen, sondern auch in einer sprachübergreifenden Analyse und im Kontext von L2 untersucht. Wir können vorherige Ergebnisse, die auf dem Amerikanischen beruhten, für das Deutsche replizieren. Reduzierte Segmentlänge und VOT, höhere Wahrscheinlichkeit der Löschung und geringere Vokaldispersion werden auch für leicht vorhersagbare Segmente im Deutschen beobachtet. Diese zeigen auch weniger Formantenbewegung, reduzierte Kurvigkeit in F2 sowie erhöhte Behauchtheitswerte als Vokale, die schwer vorhersagbar sind. Die Ergebnisse für Wortfrequenz zeigen ähnliche Tendenzen: Deutsche Segmente in hochfrequenten Wörtern sind kürzer, werden eher gelöscht, zeigen reduzierte Werte für Vokaldispersion, Formantenbewegungen und Periodizität als deutsche Segmente in Wörtern mit geringer Frequenz. Obwohl wir bekannte Effekte für Betonung, Grenze und Tempo auf segmentelle Variabilität in den Modellen beobachten, sind die Effekte von ID signifikant. Die sprachübergreifende Analyse zeigt zudem, dass diese Effekte auch robust für die meisten der untersuchten Sprachen sind und sich in allen intendierten Sprechgeschwindigkeiten zeigen. Surprisal hat allerdings keinen Einfluss auf die Vokaldispersion von Sprachlernern. Des weiteren finden wir Interaktionseffekte zwischen Surprisal und den prosodischen Faktoren. Besonders für Wortbetonung lässt sich ein stabiler positiver Interaktionseffekt mit Surprisal feststellen. In der Perzeption sind Hörer durchaus in der Lage, Unterschiede zwischen manipulierten und nicht manipulierten Stimuli zu erkennen, wenn die Manipulation lediglich im phonetischen Detail des Zielwortes aufgrund von Vorhersagbarkeit besteht

Characterization of laryngealization as irregular vocal fold vibration and interaction with prosodic prominence

International audienceThis paper introduces an original variant of recurrence analysis to quantify the degree of regularity of vocal fold vibration as captured by electroglottography during phonation. The proposed technique is applied to the analysis of laryngealized phonation as this phonation type typically shows irregular vibration cycles. The reliability of this approach is validated with synthetic vocal fold vibration signals, demonstrating that it permits measuring the regularity of vocal fold vibration, unaffected by changes in fundamental frequency. The method is also applied to real electroglottographic signals recorded at the onset of vowel-initial nonsense words produced in a speeded repetition task by five female German speakers. Results show that the degree of laryngealization during the production of word-initial vowels is modulated by the presence of stress (with stressed vowels being less laryngealized). Due to its robustness to changes of F0, the proposed technique proves to be a suitable tool for studying vocal fold regularity in concatenated speech. Its applications are not limited to the study of glottalization, since the degree of regularity of vocal fold vibration has paralinguistic functions and is a clinically relevant measure of voice pathologies

Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

Theory and description in African Linguistics

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL