On The Linguistic Effects Of Articulatory Ease, With A Focus On Sign Languages

Spoken language has a well-known drive for ease of articulation, which Kirchner (1998, 2004) analyzes as reduction of the total magnitude of all biomechanical forces involved. We extend Kirchner\u27s insights from vocal articulation to manual articulation, with a focus on joint usage, and we discuss ways that articulatory ease might be realized in sign languages. In particular, moving more joints and/or joints more proximal to the torso results in greater mass being moved, and thus more articulatory force being expended, than moving fewer joints or moving more distal joints. We predict that in casual conversation, where articulatory ease is prized, moving fewer joints should be favored over moving more, and moving distal joints should be favored over moving proximal joints. We report on the results of our study of the casual signing of fluent signers of American Sign Language, which confirm our predictions: in comparison to citation forms of signs, the casual variants produced by the signers in our experiment exhibit an overall decrease in average joint usage, as well as a general preference for more distal articulation than is used in citation form. We conclude that all language, regardless of modality, is shaped by a fundamental drive for ease of articulation. Our work advances a cross-modality approach for considering ease of articulation, develops a potentially important vocabulary for describing variations in signs, and demonstrates that American Sign Language exhibits variation that can be accounted for in terms of ease of articulation. We further suggest that the linguistic drive for ease of articulation is part of a broader tendency for the human body to reduce biomechanical effort in all physical activities

Vocal intensity: acoustic and articulatory correlates

Analyses of jaw movement(obtained by Electromagnetic Articulography) and acoustics show that loud speech is an intricate phenomenon. Besides involving higher intensity and subglottal pressure it affects jaw movements as well as fundamental frequency and especially first formants. It is argued that all these effects serve the purpose of enhancing perceptual salience

Jaw and Order

It is well-accepted that the jaw plays an active role in influencing vowel height. The general aim of the current study is to further investigate the extent to which the jaw is active in producing consonantal distinctions, with specific focus on coronal consonants. Therefore, tongue tip and jaw positions are compared for the German coronal consonants Is, J, t, d, n, 1/, that is, consonants having the same active articulators (apical/laminal) but differing in manner of articulation. In order to test the stability of articulatory positions for each of these coronal consonants, a natural perturbation paradigm was introduced by recording two levels of vocal effort: comfortable, and loud without shouting. Tongue and jaw movements of five speakers of German were recorded by means of EMMA during /aCa/ sequences. By analyzing the tongue tip and jaw positions and their spatial variability we found that (1) the jaw's contribution to these consonants varies with manner of articulation, and (2) for all coronal consonants the positions are stable across loudness conditions except for those of the nasal. Results are discussed with respect to the tasks of the jaw, and the possible articulatory adjustments that may accompany louder speech

Practice in Child Phonological Disorders: Tackling some Common Clinical Problems

Goal of presentation is to identify areas of child phonology that clinicans have difficulty with

Sympathy and Positional Faithfulness

It has been observed in the literature that certain positions and segment types- which may be considered perceptually prominent- are more resistant to phonological changes, compared to less prominent counterparts. For instance, prevocalic consonants are rarely targeted in place assimilation, compared to preconsonantal ones. For a formal analysis of such asymmetries within the framework of Optimality Theory, Positional Faithfulness has been invoked as a main mechanism. In the present study, based on the discussion of consonant deletion typology, I will first show that the perceptibility differences motivating the projection of Positional Faithfulness constraints cannot be captured in the standard Positional Faithfulness approach, regardless of whether the constraints refer to the output or input. I will then propose an alternative approach based on the one adopting the formal mechanism of Sympathy Theory (McCarthy 1998, 1999)

Phonological and phonetic factors affecting the early consonantal development in Setswana

This dissertation focuses on the phonological and phonetic development of three typically developing children of age ranging between 1;10 and 3;02 who are learning Setswana as their first language. We provide a detailed analysis of these children’s early speech development patterns, with a primary focus on the potential origins of these patterns. The aim is not to provide normative data, but to understand early patterns of phonological development in Setswana, whose acquisition by young children is relatively under-documented within the literature. Our data display the following trends: (1) early acquisition of obstruent stops, nasals, and N̩ C sequences: (2) production of fricatives through various substitution patterns (e.g. stopping, affrication as well as debuccalization); (3) simplification of target affricates (e.g. deaffrication, deaspiration and delabialization). Non-lateral affricates also yielded fewer errors (and earlier mastery) than their lateral counterparts, whose production displayed patterns of delateralization and velarization to velar [k], in addition to deaffrication. The target approximants |j, w| and |l, r| were generally acquired early, with the exception of the rhotic |r|, whose production was the most variable of all consonants documented in this study, also characterized by the lowest accuracy rates for all the children. We analyze these phenomena through current models of phonological emergence (MacWhinney 2015), as conceived within the area of phonology through the A-map model (McAllister Byun, Inkelas & Rose 2016). We highlight how the substitution patterns observed in the data can be captured through a consideration of the auditory properties of the target speech sounds, combined with an understanding of the types of articulatory gestures involved in the production of these sounds. These considerations in turn highlight some of the most central aspects of the challenges faced by the child toward learning these auditory-articulatory mappings. Beyond theoretical issues, this dissertation sets an initial foundation towards developing speech-language pathology materials and services for Setswana learning children, an emerging area of public service in Botswana

Markedness and implicational relationships in phonological development: a longitudinal, cross-linguistic investigation

This dissertation sets out to evaluate theoretical and empirical issues involved in referring to implicational relationships (i.e., that a marked or complex sound or phonological process implies the presence of an unmarked or simpler sound or process) for the treatment of speech sound disorders (e.g., Gierut 2007). Due to the relatively untested and unexplored nature of implicational relationships, and because of their potential relevance to Speech-Language Pathology practice, I investigated the following research questions: (1) Are implicational relationships warranted cross-linguistically in the description of phonological development? (2) Can factors outside of universal markedness account for attested patterns of phonological development? I conducted six detailed longitudinal case studies documenting typical phonological systems in English, French, German, and Portuguese, as well as atypical development in one English-learning child. Based on these studies, I claim that implicational relationships based on universal markedness are theoretically and empirically questionable. The results from my investigation highlight the influence of speech phonetics and phonological distributions in all aspects of development. Additionally, the few implicational relationships that appear to make valid predictions can be described in terms of articulatory complexity: the sounds that the children acquired first are easier to articulate for a number of reasons (e.g., motoric, perceptual, grammatical). As claims based on universal markedness generally do not account for the data, I investigate whether a phonetically driven view of markedness could apply. This inquiry led me to advocate for a markedness-through-mechanism (Hume 2011) approach to phonological development, which combines perceptual distinctiveness, phonetic variability, and articulatory simplicity; which, in child language, can be rather salient due to anatomical and motor properties of child speech production. I combine this view of phonetically conditioned markedness with the A-map model (McAllister Byun, Inkelas & Rose 2016), which provides a formal link relating perceptual targets and the dimensions involved in the motor-acoustic mappings of these objects on to patterns of speech production. In a nutshell, combining markedness-through-mechanism with the A-map provides a way to frame the phonological patterns that we observe in child phonological development that is both theoretically consistent and clinically applicable. This approach expands on our understanding of the underpinnings of speech sound disorders and provides a new model that can guide Speech- Language Pathologists in their selection of treatment approaches to speech disorders

Segmental phonology and Black South African English speakers : communicative success with standard dialect listeners

The study investigated the nature of the listener confusion which occurs when Black South African English (BSAE) speakers communicate a list of common English words to speakers of standard South African (StdSAE) English. BSAE and StdSAE subjects were grouped into 10 dyads. BSAE subjects read 120 monosyllabic English words to StdSAE subjects. Written data of StdSAE subjects were analysed to determine patterns of success and failure in the communication of single word items by BSAE subjects. Specific difficulties with vowels, dipthongs and consonants are discussed in terms of their effect on intelligibility. Findings are evaluated in the light of previous research, and in terms of Flege's Speech Learning Model (1987, 1991, 1995). It is suggested that all segmental features of BSAE relate to two distinct levels: a functional (meaning) level and an aesthetic level. This study focussed on the functional level, and aimed to describe the segmental features of BSAE speech which affect meaning. Such a distinction has particular relevance for speech and language therapists who need to have a clear rationale for their work with BSAE-speaking clients. Clinical implications specific to this emerging client group within South Africa are discussed

The articulatory basis of positional asymmetries in phonological acquisition

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-276).Child phonological processes that lack counterparts in adult phonological typology have long posed a problem for formal modeling of phonological acquisition. This dissertation investigates child-specific processes with a focus on the phenomenon of neutralization in strong position, whereby children preferentially neutralize phonemic contrast in precisely those contexts seen to support maximal contrast in adult systems. These processes are difficult to model without making incorrect predictions for adult typology. Here, it is argued that all genuinely child-specific processes are driven by constraints rooted in child-specific phonetic factors. In a phonetically-based approach to phonology, if there are areas of divergence in phonetic pressures across immature and mature systems, differences across child and adult phonologies are predicted rather than problematic. The phonetically-based approach also explains the developmental elimination of child-specific processes, since in the course of typical maturation, the phonetic pressures driving these effects will cease to apply. Because children's speech-motor control capabilities are known to diverge from those of the skilled adult speaker, it is posited that articulatory factors play the dominant role in shaping child-specific phonological processes. Here it is argued that children have difficulty executing discrete movements of individual articulators, notably the tongue. By moving the tongue-jaw complex as a single unit, the child speaker can reduce the number of degrees of movement freedom and also rely on the action of the motorically simpler mandible to achieve articulatory targets.(cont.) The effects of mandibular dominance have previously been argued to play a role in shaping sound patterns in babbling and early words (MacNeilage & Davis, 1990). The preference for jaw-dominated movement can be seen to recede over time as the child establishes more reliable articulatory control. However, here evidence from the productions of older children is presented indicating that these effects continue to have an influence in later stages of development than has been previously documented. The pressure to use simultaneous movements of the tongue-jaw complex, formalized in a constraint MOVE-AS-UNIT, is argued to play a role in shaping child-specific processes including positional velar fronting, prevocalic fricative gliding, and consonant harmony. In the present approach, children's tendency to neutralize contrast in strong positions arises as MOVE-AS-UNIT interacts with asymmetries in the force and duration of articulatory gestures across different prosodic contexts. The incorporation of child-specific phonetic factors makes it possible to account for complex patterns of conditioning in child speech processes that would under other assumptions be extremely challenging to model.by Tara K. McAllister.Ph.D