396 research outputs found
An exploration of the rhythm of Malay
In recent years there has been a surge of interest in speech rhythm. However we still lack a clear understanding of the nature of rhythm and rhythmic differences across languages. Various metrics have been proposed as means for measuring rhythm on the phonetic level and making typological comparisons between languages (Ramus et al, 1999; Grabe & Low, 2002; Dellwo, 2006) but the debate is ongoing on the extent to which these metrics capture the rhythmic basis of speech (Arvaniti, 2009; Fletcher, in press). Furthermore, cross linguistic studies of rhythm have covered a relatively small number of languages and research on previously unclassified languages is necessary to fully develop the typology of rhythm. This study examines the rhythmic features of Malay, for which, to date, relatively little work has been carried out on aspects rhythm and timing.
The material for the analysis comprised 10 sentences produced by 20 speakers of standard Malay (10 males and 10 females). The recordings were first analysed using rhythm metrics proposed by Ramus et. al (1999) and Grabe & Low (2002). These metrics (∆C, %V, rPVI, nPVI) are based on durational measurements of vocalic and consonantal intervals. The results indicated that Malay clustered with other so-called syllable-timed languages like French and Spanish on the basis of all metrics. However, underlying the overall findings for these metrics there was a large degree of variability in values across speakers and sentences, with some speakers having values in the range typical of stressed-timed languages like English.
Further analysis has been carried out in light of Fletcher’s (in press) argument that measurements based on duration do not wholly reflect speech rhythm as there are many other factors that can influence values of consonantal and vocalic intervals, and Arvaniti’s (2009) suggestion that other features of speech should also be considered in description of rhythm to discover what contributes to listeners’ perception of regularity. Spectrographic analysis of the Malay recordings brought to light two parameters that displayed consistency and regularity for all speakers and sentences: the duration of individual vowels and the duration of intervals between intensity minima.
This poster presents the results of these investigations and points to connections between the features which seem to be consistently regulated in the timing of Malay connected speech and aspects of Malay phonology. The results are discussed in light of current debate on the descriptions of rhythm
Challenges in analysis and processing of spontaneous speech
Selected and peer-reviewed papers of the workshop entitled
Challenges in Analysis and Processing of Spontaneous Speech (Budapest, 2017
Combining research methods for an experimental study of West Central Bavarian vowels in adults and children
The overall goal of this thesis was to systematically measure defining vowel characteristics of the West Central Bavarian (WCB) dialect for an acoustically based analysis of the Bavarian vowel system and simultaneously investigate to what extent these characteristics are being preserved across generations and if there is a sound change in progress observable in which young speakers show more characteristics of Standard German (SG) than old on some Bavarian vowel attributes. In order to address these aims we conducted acoustic recordings of WCB speaking adults and WCB speaking primary school children which were then compared to each other with an apparent-time analysis. For a more accurate view of changes in progress we combined this apparent-time comparison with longitudinal data from the WCB children, obtained at annually intervals expanding over three years. The acoustic data was enhanced by articulatory data gained from ultrasound recordings of a subset of the same WCB speaking children at two timepoints with one year interval.
Analyses of the acoustic data revealed both adult/child and longitudinal changes in the direction of the standard in the children’s tendency towards a merger of two open vowels and a collapse of a long/short consonant contrast, neither of which exist in SG. There was some evidence that children in comparison with adults were beginning to develop both tensity and rounding contrasts which occur in SG but not WCB. There were no observed changes to the pattern of opening and closing diphthongs which differ markedly between the two varieties. Also, within the WCB front vowel that resulted historically from /l/-vocalization and for which articulatory data from a subset of the children was put into relation with the acoustic measures no changes were observed.
The general conclusion is that WCB change is most likely to occur as a consequence of exaggerating phonetic variation that already happens to be in the direction of the standard and therefore internal factors motivated by general principles of vowel change might play a more decisive role in inducing a shift than external factors like dialect contact
The Development Of Glide Deletion In Seoul Korean: A Corpus And Articulatory Study
This dissertation investigates the pathways and causes of the development of glide
deletion in Seoul Korean. Seoul provides fertile ground for studies of linguistic
innovation in an urban setting since it has seen rapid historical, social and demographic
changes in the twentieth century. The phenomenon under investigation is the variable
deletion of the labiovelar glide /w/ found to be on the rise in Seoul Korean (Silva, 1991;
Kang, 1997). I present two studies addressing variation and change at two different
levels: a corpus study tracking the development of /w/-deletion at the phonological
level and an articulatory study examining the phonetic aspect of this change. The corpus
data are drawn from the sociolinguistic interviews with 48 native Seoul Koreans
between 2015 and 2017. A trend comparison with the data from an earlier study of /w/-
deletion (Kang, 1997) reveals that /w/-deletion in postconsonantal position has begun
to retreat, while non-postconsonantal /w/-deletion has been rising vigorously. More
importantly, the effect of preceding segment that used to be the strongest constraint on
/w/-deletion has weakened over time. I conclude that /w/-deletion in Seoul Korean is
being reanalyzed with the structural details being diluted over time. I analyze this
weakening of the original pattern as the result of linguistic diffusion induced by a great
influx of migrants into Seoul after the Korean War (1950-1953). In an articulatory study,
ultrasound data of tongue movements and video data of lip rounding for the production
of /w/ for three native Seoul Koreans in their 20s, 30s and 50s were analyzed using
Optical Flow Analysis. I find that /w/ in Seoul Korean is subject to both gradient
reduction and categorical deletion and that younger speakers exhibit a significantly
larger articulatory gestures for /w/ after a bilabial than older generation, which is
consistent with the pattern of phonological change found in the corpus study. This
dissertation demonstrates the importance of using both corpus and articulatory data in
the investigation of a change, finding the coexistence of gradient and categorical effects
in segmental deletion processes. Finally, it advances our understanding of the outcome
of migration-induced dialect contact in contemporary urban settings
The relation between acoustic and articulatory variation in vowels : data from American and Australian English
In studies of dialect variation, the articulatory nature of vowels is sometimes inferred from formant values using the following heuristic: F1 is inversely correlated with tongue height and F2 is inversely correlated with tongue backness. This study compared vowel formants and corresponding lingual articulation in two dialects of English, standard North American English and Australian English. Five speakers of North American English and four speakers of Australian English were recorded producing multiple repetitions of ten monophthongs embedded in the /sVd/ context. Simultaneous articulatory data were collected using electromagnetic articulography. Results show that there are significant correlations between tongue position and formants in the direction predicted by the heuristic but also that the relations implied by the heuristic break down under specific conditions. Articulatory vowel spaces, based on tongue dorsum (TD) position, and acoustic vowel spaces, based on formants, show systematic misalignment due in part to the influence of other articulatory factors, including lip rounding and tongue curvature on formant values. Incorporating these dimensions into our dialect comparison yields a richer description and a more robust understanding of how vowel formant patterns are reproduced within and across dialects
Rhotics.New Data and Perspectives
This book provides an insight into the patterns of variation and change of rhotics in different languages and from a variety of perspectives. It sheds light on the phonetics, the phonology, the socio-linguistics and the acquisition of /r/-sounds in languages as diverse as Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Kuikuro, Malayalam, Romanian, Slovak, Tyrolean and Washili Shingazidja thus contributing to the discussion on the unity and uniqueness of this group of sounds
Revisiting the Maori English Vowel Space:Exploring variation in /ɪ/ and /u/ vowel production in Auckland, New Zealand
REVISITING THE MAORI ENGLISH VOWEL SPACE: EXPLORING VARIATION IN /ɪ/ AND /u/ VOWEL PRODUCTION IN AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALANDFawn T. Draucker, M.A.University of Pittsburgh, 2009This study examines the correlation of proposed features of Maori Vernacular English (MVE)with ethnicity, gender, and Maori language ability. Earlier studies propose "decentralized" /ɪ/ and "extremely fronted" /u/ as features distinguishing MVE speech from a more standard form of New Zealand English (Bell, 1997, 1999). Bell (1997) also suggests that a high, close production of /ɪ/ could be the result of language transfer and would likely be correlated with Maori language ability. In this work, I investigate these claims within a generation of speakers born between 1915-1937. Interviews were used from a group of participants in an oral history project conducted by the Auckland Public Library in 1990, and include background on the participants' lives, including information about their ethnicity and languages used in their homes. Tokens of target vowels, /ɪ/ and /u/, were collected from the speech produced during these interviews, along with tokens of all other English monophthongal vowels. First and second formant measurements were taken from these tokens in Praat and the data were then normalized. Data were tested for correlation with ethnicity, Maori language ability, and gender using linear mixed effects regression and generalized linear modeling. Results showed that high, close productions of /ɪ/ are correlated with English-Maori bilingualism. This correlation is discussed within both a language transfer framework and a community-based sociolinguistic framework, with the proposal of a sound change in progress at different stages in different communities being the preferred interpretation. Results for the /u/ vowel show that extremely fronted production of /u/ could not be correlated with Maori ethnicity, but instead could be identified as a Pakeha female variant. These results are again discussed within a sociolinguistic framework, focusing on the /u/ variable as a possible sound change in progress. Ultimately, it is determined that neither decentralized /ɪ/ or fronted /u/ can be established as identifying features of the MVE dialect for this group of speakers
Towards a silent speech interface for Portuguese: Surface electromyography and the nasality challenge
A Silent Speech Interface (SSI) aims at performing Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) in the absence of an intelligible acoustic signal. It can be used as a human-computer interaction modality in high-background-noise environments, such as living rooms, or in aiding speech-impaired individuals, increasing in prevalence with ageing. If this interaction modality is made available for users own native language, with adequate performance, and since it does not rely on acoustic information, it will be less susceptible to problems related to environmental noise, privacy, information disclosure and exclusion of speech impaired persons. To contribute to the existence of this promising modality for Portuguese, for which no SSI implementation is known, we are exploring and evaluating the potential of state-of-the-art approaches. One of the major challenges we face in SSI for European Portuguese is recognition of nasality, a core characteristic of this language Phonetics and Phonology. In this paper a silent speech recognition experiment based on Surface Electromyography is presented. Results confirmed recognition problems between minimal pairs of words that only differ on nasality of one of the phones, causing 50% of the total error and evidencing accuracy performance degradation, which correlates well with the exiting knowledge.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio
Russian assimilatory palatalization is incomplete neutralization
Incomplete neutralization refers to phonetic traces of underlying contrasts
in phonologically neutralizing contexts. The present study examines one such
context: Russian assimilatory palatalization in C+j sequences. Russian
contrasts plain and palatalized consonants, with the plain consonants having a
secondary articulation involving retraction of the tongue dorsum
(velarization/uvularization). However, Russian also has stop-glide sequences
that form near-minimal pairs with palatalized stops. In the environment
preceding palatal glides, the contrast between palatalized and plain consonants
is neutralized, due to the palatalization of the plain stop (assimilatory
palatalization). The purpose of the study is to explore whether the
neutralization is complete. To do so, we conducted an electromagnetic
articulography (EMA) experiment examining temporal coordination and the spatial
position of the tongue body in underlyingly palatalized consonants and those
derived from assimilatory palatalization. Articulatory results from four native
speakers of Russian revealed that gestures in both conditions are coordinated
as complex segments, i.e., they are palatalized consonants. However, there are
differences across conditions consistent with the residual presence of a tongue
dorsum retraction gesture in the plain obstruents. We conclude that
neutralization of the plain-palatal contrast in Russian is incomplete;
consonants in the assimilatory palatalization condition exhibit inter-gestural
coordination characteristic of palatalized consonants along with residual
evidence of an underlying tongue dorsum retraction (velarization/uvularization)
gesture
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