Segmental alignment of English syllables with singleton and cluster onsets

Recent research has shown fresh evidence that consonant and vowel are synchronised at the syllable onset, as predicted by a number of theoretical models. The finding was made by using a minimal contrast paradigm to determine segment onset in Mandarin CV syllables, which differed from the conventional method of detecting gesture onset with a velocity threshold [1]. It has remained unclear, however, if CV co-onset also occurs between the nucleus vowel and a consonant cluster, as predicted by the articulatory syllable model [2]. This study applied the minimal contrast paradigm to British English in both CV and clusterV (CLV) syllables, and analysed the spectral patterns with signal chopping in conjunction with recurrent neural networks (RNN) with long short-term memory (LSTM) [3]. Results show that vowel onset is synchronised with the onset of the first consonant in a cluster, thus supporting the articulatory syllable model

A split-gesture, competitive, coupled oscillator model of syllable structure predicts the emergence of edge gemination and degemination

The phonological mechanisms responsible for the emergence of edge geminates in phonological processes like the Italian Raddoppiamento (Fono-)Sintattico (RS) are an open issue. Previous analyses of Italian treat gemination of (i) word initial consonants, (ii) morpheme-final consonants, and (iii) word final consonants as separate processes brought about by dedicated rule/constraints. We argue that these edge gemination processes result from the same, independently established principles. Through computational simulation of the split-gesture, competitive, coupled oscillator model of syllable structure of Articulatory Phonology, we show that increases in closure duration typical of geminates arise from changes to consonant/vowel couplings. Word initial gemination follows from coupling of a closure gesture to a preceding vowel across a word boundary. Word final gemination follows from coupling of a release gesture to a following vowel. In both cases, the posited structures reflect changes in syllabification hypothesized in previous work. The model simulation also predict different durations for resyllabified edge geminates and medial lexical geminates, in line with experimental findings on the topic. Changes to consonant/vowel couplings also account for the opposite effect: word initial degemination. Thus, the coupled oscillator model of Articulatory Phonology, originally developed to model intergestural timing, predicts the emergence of edge gemination/degemination

Deep learning assessment of syllable affiliation of intervocalic consonants

In English, a sentence like “He made out our intentions.” could be misperceived as “He may doubt our intentions.” because the coda /d/ sounds like it has become the onset of the next syllable. The nature and occurrence condition of this resyllabification phenomenon are unclear, however. Previous empirical studies mainly relied on listener judgment, limited acoustic evidence, such as voice onset time, or average formant values to determine the occurrence of resyllabification. This study tested the hypothesis that resyllabification is a coarticulatory reorganisation that realigns the coda consonant with the vowel of the next syllable. Deep learning in conjunction with dynamic time warping (DTW) was used to assess syllable affiliation of intervocalic consonants. The results suggest that convolutional neural network- and recurrent neural network-based models can detect cases of resyllabification using Mel-frequency spectrograms. DTW analysis shows that neural network inferred resyllabified sequences are acoustically more similar to their onset counterparts than their canonical productions. A binary classifier further suggests that, similar to the genuine onsets, the inferred resyllabified coda consonants are coarticulated with the following vowel. These results are interpreted with an account of resyllabification as a speech-rate-dependent coarticulatory reorganisation mechanism in speech

Resilabificación incompleta y acoplamiento gestual ambisilábico en español

In the generative literature, the pattern of coronal fricative lenition found in the traditional Chinato Spanish dialect is commonly cited as a phonological argument that the resyllabification of word-final prevocalic consonants is complete, in the sense that onsets derived by resyllabification are structurally identical to canonical (word-level) onsets. However, recent acoustic studies of Northern-Central Peninsular Spanish have problematized the completeness of resyllabification with experimental evidence that /s̺/ is shorter and more voiced as a derived onset than as a canonical onset. Using a split-gesture, competitive, coupled oscillator model of the syllable in Articulatory Phonology, which divides consonants into a separate constriction and release gesture, we propose a novel representation of ambisyllabicity that predicts the phonetic behavior of derived onset /s̺/ in Northern-Central Peninsular Spanish. We then show that ambisyllabic coupling permits a simpler phonological analysis of coronal fricative lenition in Chinato Spanish as compared to alternative accounts. Our analysis makes typological predictions that are confirmed by patterns from other contemporary Spanish varieties. Lastly, we examine the consequences of ambisyllabicity for the analysis of Spanish rhotic consonants, which have also been argued to support complete resyllabification. We offer an analysis of rhotics that is entirely compatible with an ambisyllabic representation of incomplete resyllabification.En la literatura generativa, el debilitamiento de fricativas coronales en el dialecto chinato del español peninsular se cita comúnmente como un argumento fonológico a favor de la resilabificación completa de consonantes prevocálicas finales de palabra, o sea que los arranques derivados por resilabificación son idénticos estructuralmente a los arranques canónicos a nivel de palabra. Sin embargo, algunos estudios acústicos recientes han problematizado la resilabificación completa en el español peninsular centro-norteño al presentar evidencia experimental de que la /s̺/ es más corta y sonorizada como arranque derivado que como arranque canónico. Utilizamos un modelo de acoplamiento competitivo desde la Fonología Articulatoria, el cual divide a las consonantes en un gesto de constricción y de soltura, para proponer una nueva representación de la ambisilabicidad que predice el comportamiento fonético de la /s̺/ como arranque derivado en el español peninsular centro-norteño. Luego, demostramos que el acoplamiento ambisilábico permite analizar mejor el debilitamiento de fricativas coronales en el español chinato, en comparación con otras explicaciones alternativas. Confirmamos las predicciones tipológicas de nuestro análisis para otras variedades contemporáneas del español. Por último, examinamos las consecuencias de la ambisilabicidad para el análisis de las consonantes róticas del español, también citadas como otro argumento a favor de la resilabificación completa. Ofrecemos un análisis de las róticas que es totalmente compatible con una representación ambisilábica de la resilabificación incompleta

An informal logic of feedback-based temporal control

A conceptual framework and mathematical model of the control of articulatory timing are presented, in which feedback systems play a fundamental role. The model applies both to relatively small timescales, such as within syllables, and to relatively large timescales, such as multi-phrase utterances. A crucial distinction is drawn between internal/predictive feedback and external/sensory feedback. It is argued that speakers modulate attention to feedback to speed up and slow down speech. A number of theoretical implications of the framework are discussed, including consequences for the understanding of syllable structure and prosodic phrase organization

Categoriality and continuity in prosodic prominence

Prosody has been characterised as a "half-tamed savage" being shaped by both discrete, categorical aspects as well as gradient, continuous phenomena. This book is concerned with the relation of the "wild" and the "tamed" sides of prosodic prominence. It reviews problems that arise from a strict separation of categorical and continuous representations in models of phonetics and phonology, and it explores the potential role of descriptions aimed at reconciling the two domains. In doing so, the book offers an introduction to dynamical systems, a framework that has been studied extensively in the last decades to model speech production and perception. The reported acoustic and articulatory data presented in this book show that categorical and continuous modulations used to enhance prosodic prominence are deeply intertwined and even exhibit a kind of symbiosis. A multi-dimensional dynamical model of prosodic prominence is sketched, based on the empirical data, combining tonal and articulatory aspects of prosodic focus marking. The model demonstrates how categorical and continuous aspects can be inte- grated in a joint theoretical treatment that overcomes a strict separation of phonetics and phonology