Effect of phonetic onset on acoustic and articulatory speech reaction times studied with tongue ultrasound

We study the effect that phonetic onset has on acoustic and articulatory reaction times. An acoustic study by Rastle et al. (2005) shows that the place and manner of the first consonant in a target affects acoustic RT. An articulatory study by Kawamoto et al. (2008) shows that the same effect is not present in articulatory reaction time of the lips. We hypothesise, therefore, that in a replication with articulatory instrumentation for the tongue, we should find the same acoustic effect, but no effect in the articulatory reaction time. As a proof of concept of articulatory measurement from ultrasound images, we report results from a pilot experiment which also extends the dataset to include onset-less syllables. The hypothesis is essentially confirmed with statistical analysis and we explore and discuss the effect of different vowels and onset types (including null onsets) on articulatory and acoustic RT and speech production.https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs/icphs2015caslpub3946pub84

Fine phonetic detail in the production and perception of reduced pronoun and auxiliary combinations in British English

This thesis investigates the production and perception of reduced function words, and the role of fine phonetic detail in spoken word recognition. In particular, it focusses on the phonetic features that convey linguistic information and maintain the contrast between pronoun and auxiliary combinations in British English. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part reports on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of pronoun and cliticised auxiliary combinations, such as I’d, she’s, you’ll, in reduced speech. Data of high acoustic quality and high degree of reduction were elicited in a controlled phonological and prosodic environment. The auditory and acoustic analyses of the data collected revealed that in reduced speech, function words retain essential phonetic features that constitute the identity of the target words. The comparison between the phonetic features of contrasting paradigms that convey linguistic information, such as you’ll versus you’d, and she’s versus she was, revealed that the contrast is maintained by a combination of acoustic parameters, of which resonances and duration are the most prominent. The second part investigates the role of fine phonetic detail in the intelligibility of reduced function words, and the perceptual salience of selected acoustic parameters. A perception experiment indicated that listeners are sensitive to the fine phonetic detail that maintains the contrast in reduced speech, and that they can correctly identify highly reduced words even when they are presented in a minimal semantic context. A further investigation into the perceptual salience of duration and resonances in spoken word recognition indicated that the resonances play a primary role in the correct identification of reduced speech. Besides contributing to our knowledge of reduced speech, and confirming the role of fine phonetic detail in speech intelligibility, this thesis highlights the importance of carrying out a qualitative analysis and using a non-segmental approach in the analysis of reduced speech