Glottal Opening and Strategies of Production of Fricatives

International audienceThis work investigates the influence of the gradual opening of the glottis along its length during the production of fricatives in intervocalic contexts. Acoustic simulations reveal the existence of a transient zone in the articulatory space where the frica-tion noise level is very sensitive to small perturbations of the glottal opening. This corresponds to the configurations where both frication noise and voiced contributions are present in the speech signal. To avoid this unstability, speakers may adopt different strategies to ensure the voiced/voiceless contrast of frica-tives. This is evidenced by experimental data of simultaneous glottal opening measurements, performed with ePGG, and audio recordings of vowel-fricative-vowel pseudowords. Voice-less fricatives are usually longer, in order to maximize the number of voiceless time frames over voiced frames due to the crossing of the transient regime. For voiced fricatives, the speaker may avoid the unstable regime by keeping low frication noise level, and thus by favoring the voicing characteristic, or by doing very short crossings into the unstable regime. It is also shown that when speakers are asked to sustain voiced fricatives longer than in natural speech, they adopt the strategy of keeping low frication noise level to avoid the unstable regime

Laryngeal Adjustments in the Production of Voiceless<br />Obstruent Clusters in Berber

Laryngeal adjustments in voiceless obstruent clusters in Tashlhiyt Berber were examined bymeans of simultaneous transillumination, fibre-optic films and acoustic recordings. This languageallows a rich variety of voiceless clusters naturally. Several combinations of /s/ and /k/clusters including singleton and geminate consonants were examined. We focused on thenumber of glottal-opening gestures, the influence of manner of articulation and effects ofword boundaries. Results of this study provide evidence that the manner of articulation ofsegments and their position in the clusters have a major impact both on the number and onthe location of glottal abduction movements. Word boundaries did not influence laryngealadjustment to the same extent

On the avoidance of voiced sibilant affricates

In this paper it is argued that several typologically unrelated languages share the tendency to avoid voiced sibilant affricates. This tendency is explained by appealing to the phonetic properties of the sounds, and in particular to their aerodynamic characteristics. On the basis of experimental evidence it is shown that conflicting air pressure requirements for maintaining voicing and frication are responsible for the avoidance of voiced affricates. In particular, the air pressure released from the stop phase of the affricate is too high to maintain voicing which in consequence leads to a devoicing of the frication part

The production and perception of coronal fricatives in Seoul Korean: The case for a fourth laryngeal category

This article presents new data on the contrast between the two voiceless coronal fricatives of Korean, variously described as a lenis/fortis or aspirated/fortis contrast. In utterance-initial position, the fricatives were found to differ in centroid frequency; duration of frication, aspiration, and the following vowel; and several aspects of the following vowel onset, including intensity profile, spectral tilt, and F1 onset. The between-fricative differences varied across vowel contexts, however, and spectral differences in the vowel onset especially were more pronounced for /a/ than for /i, ɯ, u/. This disparity led to the hypothesis that cues in the following vowel onset would exert a weaker influence on perception for high vowels than for low vowels. Perception data provided general support for this hypothesis, indicating that while vowel onset cues had the largest impact on perception for both high- and low-vowel stimuli, this influence was weaker for high vowels. Perception was also strongly influenced by aspiration duration, with modest contributions from frication duration and f0 onset. Taken together, these findings suggest that the 'non-fortis' fricative is best characterized not in terms of the lenis or aspirated categories for stops, but in terms of a unique representation that is both lenis and aspirated

Experimental phonetic study of the timing of voicing in English obstruents

The treatment given to the timing of voicing in three areas of phonetic research -- phonetic taxonomy, speech production modelling, and speech synthesis -- Is considered in the light of an acoustic study of the timing of voicing in British English obstruents. In each case, it is found to be deficient. The underlying cause is the difficulty in applying a rigid segmental approach to an aspect of speech production characterised by important inter-articulator asynchronies, coupled to the limited quantitative data available concerning the systematic properties of the timing of voicing in languages. It is argued that the categories and labels used to describe the timing of voicing In obstruents are Inadequate for fulfilling the descriptive goals of phonetic theory. One possible alternative descriptive strategy is proposed, based on incorporating aspects of the parametric organisation of speech into the descriptive framework. Within the domain of speech production modelling, no satisfactory account has been given of fine-grained variability of the timing of voicing not capable of explanation in terms of general properties of motor programming and utterance execution. The experimental results support claims In the literature that the phonetic control of an utterance may be somewhat less abstract than has been suggestdd in some previous reports. A schematic outline is given, of one way in which the timing of voicing could be controlled in speech production. The success of a speech synthesis-by-rule system depends to a great extent on a comprehensive encoding of the systematic phonetic characteristics of the target language. Only limited success has been achieved in the past thirty years. A set of rules is proposed for generating more naturalistic patterns of voicing in obstruents, reflecting those observed in the experimental component of this study. Consideration Is given to strategies for evaluating the effect of fine-grained phonetic rules In speech synthesis

Aerodynamic and durational cues of phonological voicing in whisper

International audienceThis study concerns the phonologization process of fine phonetic details in French, such as segmental durations used as a secondary phonetic information in obstruents voicing. Phonologization is expected when phonetic properties are at least partly dissociated from their physical conditioning. Due to a lack of a physical voicing constraint, the whisper could provide a new paradigm to study this process, by assessing the weight of physical vs linguistic conditioning of the segmental duration of obstruents as function of their phonological voicing. In many languages, the voiced obstruents show shorter durations than unvoiced ones. On the one hand, this phonetic durational difference is usually attributed to the Aerodynamic Voicing Constraint in the vibration of the vocal folds during obstruents. However, this duration contrast due to voicing specification is also phonetically preserved in production in whispered phonation, i.e. without any physical voicing due to the open glottis. On the other hand, it is largely seen as linguistically controlled, because of the important durational difference observed and the role of C duration in the perception of voicing contrast in modal or whispered speech. It is assumed that if the durational contrast of voicing in whisper is produced in absence of a physiological constraint, it would be the evidence of the phonologization of such fine phonetic details

The importance of early vocalizations in infants born with cleft palate

Includes bibliographical references.Research has proven that early vocalizations are a crucial component of normal language development in children. While there is a considerable body of research about the significance of early vocalizations in normal language acquisition, very little research exists about the presence and importance of early vocalizations in infants born with cleft palate. This paper provides a review of studies that focus on early vocalizations in normally developing children. This is followed by a review of the research comparing the development of early vocalizations in children with cognitive impairments or hearing impairments. Finally, research that studied early vocalization development in infants born with cleft palate is reviewed and discussed. As a result of the review of research, further implications about remaining issues and future areas of research are discussed.B.S. (Bachelor of Science

What type of corrective feedback for French learners' intrusive aspirations in L2 English?

International audienc

Consonants in spontaneous speech of five Danish children with operated cleft palate - an impressionistic analysis

This paper examines consonants in spontaneous speech&nbsp;of five 4-5 year old Danish children with persisting&nbsp;speech problems after primary cleft palate surgery.&nbsp;Based on phonetic transcriptions from video-recordings&nbsp;the phonetic and phonological behaviour is described&nbsp;for each child and related to the target&nbsp;norm. The findings are discussed in the light of&nbsp;strategies in cleft palate speech. Furthermore,&nbsp;some aspects of universal and language dependent&nbsp;characteristics in cleft palate speech are treated