The production and perception of peripheral geminate/singleton coronal stop contrasts in Arabic

Gemination is typologically common word-medially but is rare at the periphery of the word (word-initially and -finally). In line with this observation, prior research on production and perception of gemination has focused primarily on medial gemination. Much less is known about the production and perception of peripheral gemination. This PhD thesis reports on comprehensive articulatory, acoustic and perceptual investigations of geminate-singleton contrasts according to the position of the contrast in the word and in the utterance. The production component of the project investigated the articulatory and acoustic features of medial and peripheral gemination of voiced and voiceless coronal stops in Modern standard Arabic and regional Arabic vernacular dialects, as produced by speakers from two disparate and geographically distant countries, Morocco and Lebanon. The perceptual experiment investigated how standard and dialectal Arabic gemination contrasts in each word position were categorised and discriminated by three groups of non-native listeners, each differing in their native language experience with gemination at different word positions. The first experiment used ultrasound and acoustic recordings to address the extent to which word-initial gemination in Moroccan and Lebanese dialectal Arabic is maintained, as well as the articulatory and acoustic variability of the contrast according to the position of the gemination contrast in the utterance (initial vs. medial) and between the two dialects. The second experiment compared the production of word-medial and -final gemination in Modern Standard Arabic as produced by Moroccan and Lebanese speakers. The aim of the perceptual experiment was to disentangle the contribution of phonological and phonetic effects of the listeners’ native languages on the categorisation and discrimination of non-lexical Moroccan gemination by three groups of non-native listeners varying in their phonological (native Lebanese group and heritage Lebanese group, for whom Moroccan is unintelligible, i.e., non-native language) and phonetic-only (native English group) experience with gemination across the three word positions. The findings in this thesis constitute important contributions about positional and dialectal effects on the production and perception of gemination contrasts, going beyond medial gemination (which was mainly included as control) and illuminating in particular the typologically rare peripheral gemination

Vowel Production in Mandarin Accented English and American English: Kinematic and Acoustic Data from the Marquette University Mandarin Accented English Corpus

Few electromagnetic articulography (EMA) datasets are publicly available, and none have focused systematically on non-native accented speech. We introduce a kinematic-acoustic database of speech from 40 (gender and dialect balanced) participants producing upper-Midwestern American English (AE) L1 or Mandarin Accented English (MAE) L2 (Beijing or Shanghai dialect base). The Marquette University EMA-MAE corpus will be released publicly to help advance research in areas such as pronunciation modeling, acoustic-articulatory inversion, L1-L2 comparisons, pronunciation error detection, and accent modification training. EMA data were collected at a 400 Hz sampling rate with synchronous audio using the NDI Wave System. Articulatory sensors were placed on the midsagittal lips, lower incisors, and tongue blade and dorsum, as well as on the lip corner and lateral tongue body. Sensors provide five degree-of-freedom measurements including three-dimensional sensor position and two-dimensional orientation (pitch and roll). In the current work we analyze kinematic and acoustic variability between L1 and L2 vowels. We address the hypothesis that MAE is characterized by larger differences in the articulation of back vowels than front vowels and smaller vowel spaces compared to AE. The current results provide a seminal comparison of the kinematics and acoustics of vowel production between MAE and AE speakers

Effects of Phonological Contrast on Within-Category Phonetic Variation

This dissertation investigates an often assumed hypothesis in phonetics and phonology: that there should be relatively less within-category phonetic variation in production in languages which have relatively more phonological contrasts (Lindblom, 1986, on vowels). Although this hypothesis is intuitive, there is little existing evidence to support the claim and it is difficult to generalize outside of vowels. In this dissertation, I argue that this hypothesis is not trivially true and needs additional specification. I propose an extension of this hypothesis, Contrast-Dependent Variation, which predicts relative differences in extent of within-category variation between languages and individual speakers. Contrast-Dependent Variation can make predictions across multiple phonetic spaces as it considers individual phonetic dimensions to be the relevant units of comparison, rather than phonological inventory subsets (stops, vowels, etc.). Relative differences in extent of within-category variation are predicted by differences in cue weight, rather than differences in number of phonemes. The dissertation tests this hypothesis by examining two between-language case studies: stops in Hindi and English and sibilants in French and Polish. I also consider a within-language case study: individual differences in extent of within-category variation in Mandarin sibilants. The results here show that differences in extent of phonetic variability between languages and speakers are systematic; they are structured according to the system of phonological contrasts

English in South Asia and Pedagogical Implications

English at present maintains a significant role as a second or foreign language in the region of South Asia as well as globally. In a discussion of this topic, it is important to explore a brief history of the expansion of English and its origins in South Asia. It is also essential to provide a background of South Asian English and its unique linguistic characteristics as well as its use in different contexts of South Asia. The perspectives of linguists and educators who are native to the region of South Asia should be included as much as possible in this research. The most crucial element in this discussion is the various implications of the role of English in South Asia on English language pedagogical practices. The numerous options for how to teach the language and the diverse contexts in which the language may be used have a profound effect on the English language educational approach. These implications lead to examining and suggesting the seemingly most relevant and effective approaches to English language instruction in South Asia. The main question in response to these considerations is what variety of English or instructional model should be taught or used in a South Asian classroom. Based on the diverse cultural context of South Asia and the global state of our world, this research endorses a polymodel of English pedagogy that incorporates the use of an established variety of English primarily for instruction while also exposing students to many more existing varieties that they may encounter as well as the cultures that use them

A Review of Accent-Based Automatic Speech Recognition Models for E-Learning Environment

The adoption of electronics learning (e-learning) as a method of disseminating knowledge in the global educational system is growing at a rapid rate, and has created a shift in the knowledge acquisition methods from the conventional classrooms and tutors to the distributed e-learning technique that enables access to various learning resources much more conveniently and flexibly. However, notwithstanding the adaptive advantages of learner-centric contents of e-learning programmes, the distributed e-learning environment has unconsciously adopted few international languages as the languages of communication among the participants despite the various accents (mother language influence) among these participants. Adjusting to and accommodating these various accents has brought about the introduction of accents-based automatic speech recognition into the e-learning to resolve the effects of the accent differences. This paper reviews over 50 research papers to determine the development so far made in the design and implementation of accents-based automatic recognition models for the purpose of e-learning between year 2001 and 2021. The analysis of the review shows that 50% of the models reviewed adopted English language, 46.50% adopted the major Chinese and Indian languages and 3.50% adopted Swedish language as the mode of communication. It is therefore discovered that majority of the ASR models are centred on the European, American and Asian accents, while unconsciously excluding the various accents peculiarities associated with the less technologically resourced continents

The phonetics and phonology of retroflexes : Fonetiek en fonologie van retroflexen (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands)

At the outset of this dissertation one might pose the question why retroflex consonants should still be of interest for phonetics and for phonological theory since ample work on this segmental class already exists. Bhat (1973) conducted a quite extensive study on retroflexion that treated the geographical spread of this class, some phonological processes its members can undergo, and the phonetic motivation for these processes. Furthermore, several phonological representations of retroflexes have been proposed in the framework of Feature Geometry, as in work by Sagey (1986), Pulleyblank (1989), Gnanadesikan (1993), and Clements (2001). Most recently, Steriade (1995, 2001) has discussed the perceptual cues of retroflexes and has argued that the distribution of these cues can account for the phonotactic restrictions on retroflexes and their assimilatory behaviour. Purely phonetically oriented studies such as Dixit (1990) and Simonsen, Moen & Cowen (2000) have shown the large articulatory variation that can be found for retroflexes and hint at the insufficiency of existing definitions

Temporal articulatory stability, phonological variation, and lexical contrast preservation in diaspora Tibetan

This dissertation examines how lexical tone can be represented with articulatory gestures, and the ways a gestural perspective can inform synchronic and diachronic analysis of the phonology and phonetics of a language. Tibetan is chosen an example of a language with interacting laryngeal and tonal phonology, a history of tonogenesis and dialect diversification, and recent contact-induced realignment of the tonal and consonantal systems. Despite variation in voice onset time (VOT) and presence/absence of the lexical tone contrast, speakers retain a consistent relative timing of consonant and vowel gestures. Recent research has attempted to integrate tone into the framework of Articulatory Phonology through the addition of tone gestures. Unlike other theories of phonetics-phonology, Articulatory Phonology uniquely incorporates relative timing as a key parameter. This allows the system to represent contrasts instantiated not just in the presence or absence of gestures, but also in how gestures are timed with each other. Building on the different predictions of various timing relations, along with the historical developments in the language, hypotheses are generated and tested with acoustic and articulatory experiments. Following an overview of relevant theory, the second chapter surveys past literature on the history of sound change and present phonological diversity of Tibetic dialects. Whereas Old Tibetan lacked lexical tone, contrasted voiced and voiceless obstruents, and exhibited complex clusters, a series of overlapping sound changes have led to some modern varieties that are tone, lack clusters, and vary in the expression of voicing and aspiration. Furthermore, speakers in the Tibetan diaspora use a variety that has grown out of the contact between diverse Tibetic dialects. The state of the language and the dynamics of diaspora have created a situation ripe for sound change, including the recombination of elements from different dialects and, potentially, the loss of tone contrasts. The nature of the diaspora Tibetan is investigated through an acoustic corpus study. Recordings made in Kathmandu, Nepal, are being transcribed and forced-aligned into a useful audio corpus. Speakers in the corpus come from diverse backgrounds across and outside traditional Tibetan-speaking regions, but the analysis presented here focuses on speakers who grew up in diaspora, with a mixed input of Standard Tibetan (spyi skad) and other Tibetan varieties. Especially notable among these speakers is the high variability of voice onset time (VOT) and its interaction with tone. An analysis of this data in terms of the relative timing of oral, laryngeal, and tone gestures leads to the generation of hypotheses for testing using articulatory data. The articulatory study is conducted using electromagnetic articulography (EMA), and six Tibetan-speaking participants. The key finding is that the relative timing of consonant and vowel gestures is consistent across phonological categories and across speakers who do and do not contrast tone. This result leads to the conclusion that the relative timing of speech gestures is conserved and acquired independently. Speakers acquire and generalize a limited inventory of timing patterns, and can use timing patterns even when the conditioning environment for the development of those patterns, namely tone, has been lost