A novel hybrid method for vocal fold pathology diagnosis based on russian language

In this paper, first, an initial feature vector for vocal fold pathology diagnosis is proposed. Then, for optimizing the initial feature vector, a genetic algorithm is proposed. Some experiments are carried out for evaluating and comparing the classification accuracies which are obtained by the use of the different classifiers (ensemble of decision tree, discriminant analysis and K-nearest neighbours) and the different feature vectors (the initial and the optimized ones). Finally, a hybrid of the ensemble of decision tree and the genetic algorithm is proposed for vocal fold pathology diagnosis based on Russian Language. The experimental results show a better performance (the higher classification accuracy and the lower response time) of the proposed method in comparison with the others. While the usage of pure decision tree leads to the classification accuracy of 85.4% for vocal fold pathology diagnosis based on Russian language, the proposed method leads to the 8.5% improvement (the accuracy of 93.9%)

Lili Wu Chinese

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Phonemic and tonal analysis of the Pianding dialect of Naxi (Dadong County, Lijiang Municipality)

International audienceThis article sets out a phonemic and tonal analysis of the second author's native language: the (heretofore undescribed) Naxi dialect spoken in the village of Pianding (Dadong County, Lijiang Municipality, Yunnan). A distributional inventory brings out two pairs of phonemes that are of special interest to Naxi dialectology: (i) two apicalized vowels, /ɿ ̟ / and /ɿ ̠ /, and (ii) two rhotic vowels, /ɚ/ and /ɯ˞/, instead of only one apicalized vowel and one rhotic vowel in Lijiang Old Town (Dayanzhen), the best-described dialect to date. These observations confirm and complement reports from other dialects; information on the lexical distribution of these conservative oppositions enriches the empirical basis for comparative-historical studies within the Naish subgroup of Sino-Tibetan. In the course of the discussion, observations about the Pianding dialect are placed in cross-dialect perspective; this article can thus serve as an introduction to key aspects of Naxi phonemics

ON THE ACOUSTIC AND PERCEPTUAL CHARACTERIZATION OF REFERENCE VOWELS IN A CROSS-LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVE

Due to the difficulty of a clear specification in the articulatory or the acoustic space, the same IPA symbol is often used to transcribe phonetically different vowels across different languages. On the basis of the acoustic theory of speech production, this paper aims to propose a set of focal vowels characterized by an almost complete merging of two adjacent formants: F1 and F2, F2 and F3, and F3 and F4 (sometimes F4 and F5 for some speakers). These reference vowels constitute a subset of Jones‟s Cardinal Vowels (CVs); they are the only vowels that can be called “quantal ” in Stevens ‟ sense. Formant merging creates a vowelspecific sharp concentration of spectral energy in a narrow region of the frequency scale. This acoustic result results from very specific articulatory configurations and entails special perceptual characteristics

Prototype modeling of vowel perception and production in a quantity language

Vowel prototypes refer to the psychological memory representations of the best exemplars of a vowel category. This thesis examines the role of prototypes in the perception and production of Finnish short and long vowels. A comparison with German as a linguistically different language with a similar vowel system is also made. The thesis reports on a series of four experiments in which prototypes are examined by means of behavioral psychoacoustic measurements and compared with vowel productions in quiet and in noise. In the perception experiments, Finnish and German listeners were asked to identify and evaluate the goodness of synthesized vowels representing either the entire vowel space or selected subareas of the space. In the production experiments, only Finnish speakers were recruited, but earlier reported production data were used for the comparison of Finnish and German. The new concept of the weighted prototype (Pω) is introduced in Study I, and its usability in contrast to absolute prototypes (Pa) and category centroids (Pc) is examined in Study IV. Generally, the results support the finding that vowel categories are not homogenous in quality, but have an internal structure, and that there are significant quality differences between category members in terms of goodness ratings. The results of Studies I, II and III support the identity group interpretation of the Finnish quantity opposition by showing that the differences in the perceived quality and in the produced short and long vowels are not demonstrably dependent on the physical duration of the stimuli, although the production experiments in Studies I and III indicated that the short peripheral vowels, especially /u/ in Study III, are more centralized in the vowel space than the long vowels. On the basis of the results of Study II, the spectral and durational local effective vowel indicators of the initial auditory theory of vowel perception appear to be independent of each other, thus suggesting that the auditory vowel space (AVS) is orthogonal in terms of the measures used in the experiment. Furthermore, the reaction time results of Study II indicate that stimulus typicality in terms of vowel quantity affects the categorization process of quality but not its end result. The noise masking of production in Study III indicated that both of the noise types applied in the experiment, pink noise and babble noise, resulted in a prolongation of all vowel durations as reported earlier on the Lombard effect. However, the noise masking did not affect the Euclidean distances between the short and long vowels, but caused a minor systematic drift on F1–F2 space in both vowel types. The minor differences suggest that prototypes act as articulatory targets in a fire-and-forget manner without the auditory feedback affecting the immediate articulation. The results concerning the different prototype measures indicated that the Pa and Pω differ significantly from the Pc, with the Pa being most peripheral. This gives some support to the adaptive dispersion effect in perception. The individual variations of the measures were normally distributed, with some exceptions for Pa in Finnish, and were, in terms of the coefficient of variation (CV), of the order of difference limen (DL) of frequency. These results suggest that, for normally distributed prototypes, and especially for Pω, which showed the least variation, two thirds of the subjects detected the best category representatives from a subset of stimuli that lie within the limits of DL of frequency from each other in the F1–F2 space. This finding can be regarded as a strong evidence for prototype theories, in other words, the best category representatives play a role by acting as templates in vowel perception. The listeners were able to recognize quality differences between and within vowel categories, but the majority of them ranked the best category exemplars from a subset of stimuli that were hardly distinguishable from each other. There were some minor differences in the vowel systems of Finnish and German as indicated by the different prototype measures: the absolute prototypes showed the largest differences between the languages in /e/, / ø/ and /u/. This is in line with the earlier investigations on produced vowels in Finnish and German. Generally, the vowel systems of these two linguistically unrelated languages were strikingly similar, especially in the light of the Pω measure. As presented in this thesis, the prototype approach provides a feasible tool for research and the results lend support to the idea that speech comprehension on the auditory, phonetic, and even on phonological processing levels is based on the memory representations of typical speech sounds of one’s native tongue, formed during the early language acquisition phase, and these representations may be similar for the speakers and listeners of two different languages with comparable vowel systems

Consonant colour and vocalism in the history of Irish

Wydział AnglistykiNiniejsza praca poświęcona jest związanym ze sobą kwestiom barwienia spółgłosek i wokalizmu w historii języka Irlandzkiego, ze szczególną uwagą na okres staro-irlandzki. Głównym twierdzeniem pracy jest to, że język staro-irlandzki miał trzy odrębne serie spółgłosek, polegających na barwieniu, oraz minimalny (wertykalny) system samogłosek składający się z dwóch tylko komponentów. Obrona głównego twierdzenia ma podwójny charakter: empiryczny i typologiczny. Część typologiczna bazuje na kompleksowym przeglądzie minimalnych systemów samogłosek w językach świata. Część empiryczna oparta jest na opisie morfologii czasownika staro-irlandzkiego, w którym występują trzy barwy spółgłoskowe, ale tylko dwie samogłoski.This dissertation deals with the related questions of consonant colour and vocalism in the history of Irish, focusing particularly on the Old Irish period. It argues that Old Irish had three distinct series of consonant colour, and a vertical vowel system of only two members. This position is defended typologically, by means of a comprehensive survey of minimal and vertical vowel systems in the cross-linguistic literature, and also empirically, through a detailed description of Old Irish verbal morphology in terms of a phonological system with three consonant colours and only two vowels

Perception auditive, visuelle et audiovisuelle des voyelles nasales par les adultes devenus sourds. Lecture labiale, implant cochléaire, implant du tronc cérébral.

This thesis focuses on the visual, auditory and auditory-visual perception of french nasal vowels [ɑ̃](« lent »), [ɔ̃] (« long ») and [ɛ̃] (« lin ») by Cochlear Implant (CI) and Auditory Brainstem Implant(ABI) adults users. The study on visual perception of vowels, with 22 deafened adults, redefines thelip configuration of french nasal vowels and provides an update of the classification of vocalic visualphonemes. Three studies on auditory identification of nasal vowels with 82, 15 and 10 CI usershighlight their difficulty in recognizing the three nasal vowels, which they perceive as oral vowels.Acoustic and perceptual analyzes suggest that adults with CI rely on frequency informations of thefirst two spectral peaks but miss the informations of relative intensity of these peaks. The study with13 ABI users show that some linguistic acoustic cues are transmitted by the ABI but the fusion ofauditory and visual features could be optimized for the identification of vowels. Finally, a survey of179 Speech Language and Hearing Therapists show the need of an update on the phonetic articulationof french nasal vowels [ɑ̃] and [ɛ̃].Cette thèse porte sur la perception visuelle, auditive et audiovisuelle des voyelles nasales [ɑ̃] (« lent »),[ɔ̃] (« long ») et [ɛ̃] (« lin ») par des adultes devenus sourds, implantés cochléaires et implantés dutronc cérébral. L’étude sur la perception visuelle des voyelles, auprès de 22 adultes devenus sourds,redéfinit les sosies labiaux des voyelles nasales et propose une mise à jour de la classification desvisèmes. Trois études sur l’identification auditive des voyelles nasales auprès de 82, 15 et 10 adultesimplantés cochléaires mettent en évidence leur difficulté à reconnaitre les trois voyelles nasales, qu’ilsperçoivent comme des voyelles orales. Les analyses acoustiques et perceptives suggèrent que lesadultes implantés cochléaires s’appuient sur les informations fréquentielles des deux premiers picsspectraux mais négligent les informations d’intensité relative de ces pics. D’après l’étude menéeauprès de 13 adultes implantés du tronc cérébral, des informations acoustiques linguistiques sonttransmises par l’implant du tronc cérébral mais la fusion entre les informations auditives et visuellespourrait être optimisée pour l’identification des voyelles. Enfin, une enquête auprès de 179orthophonistes pointe le besoin d’une information sur la définition phonétique articulatoire actualiséedes voyelles [ɑ̃] et [ɛ̃]

Approche plurielle des liens musique-parole pour la didactique de la prononciation du français comme langue étrangère/seconde

This work deals with the use of instrumental music in the teaching and learning of French as a foreign language. It is part of a pluralistic theoretical framework and an integrated approach of emergentism and social cultural theories. The topic is discussed through three studies: (1) a psychosocial study, (2) a psychoacoustic study and (3) an applied linguistics study – questioning at different levels the potentially developmental intake of instrumental music for French pronunciation as a foreign language.The aim is a contribution to applied linguistics in order to bring empirical data to long-lasting pedagogical practices but also to question recent neurocognitive results in an applied perspective. The first study, which is psychosocial and was led by questionnaires, shows that music learning and teaching can help us to have students focus on sound rather than meaning. The second study, which is psychoacoustic, reveals that, among learners of French, musicians have better reaction times than non-musicians to an AXB discrimination test of close French vowels. The third study, which is quasi- experimental and in intervention, suggests that associating piano notes and vowel aperture doesn’t lead to bigger developmental intake compared to more conventional approaches. However, it seemsto point out to the fact that some learners experience cognitive input even if such impact evokes bimodal tendencies. These three studies prove that instrumental music can be a tool to assist teachers.Cette thèse s’intéresse aux utilisations de la musique instrumentale pour la didactique de la prononciation du français comme langue étrangère/seconde (FLES). Elle s’inscrit dans une perspective plurielle et un cadre théorique émergentiste et socioconstructiviste. La thématique est abordée par trois études (1) psychosociale, (2) psychoacoustique et (3) didactique permettant de questionner à plusieurs niveaux les apports potentiellement développementaux de la musique instrumentale pour la prononciation du français en contexte FLES.Le but de cette thèse est une contribution à la didactique des langues afin d’apporter des réponses empiriques à des pratiques pédagogiques présentes depuis longtemps mais peu questionnées scientifiquement. Elle permet également de prendre du recul sur les récents résultats en neurocognition et notamment leurs applications pour un développement langagier.L’étude 1 psychosociale, par questionnaire, montre que la didactique de la musique peut nous aider à amener les apprenants à se focaliser sur le son plutôt que sur le sens des unités sonores langagières. L’étude 2 psychoacoustique révèle que les musiciens ont de meilleurs temps de réaction que les non- musiciens chez des apprenants du français pour un test AXB d’oppositions fines des phonèmesvocaliques du français. Grâce à l’étude 3, didactique interventionniste et quasi-expérimentale, nous avons montré qu’une association entre notes de piano et aperture suggère une potentialité développementale des phonèmes vocaliques du français mais que cette dernière n’est pas supérieure à d’autres approches plus conventionnelles. Cependant, elle semble être un apport cognitif pour certains apprenants même si cet apport montre une tendance bimodale. Ces trois études permettent de montrer que la musique instrumentale peut trouver sa place dans la « boîte à outils » de l’enseignant

Perception et production des voyelles orales du français par des futures enseignantes tchèques de Français Langue Etrangère (FLE)

This acoustic-perceptual study concerns the limits of perception and production of French oral vowels [i, e, ɛ, a, u, o, ɔ, y, ø, œ], in isolation and in different consonantal contexts, in ten pre-service Czech teachers of French as a Foreign Language (FFL). The results show that (1) Phonetic proficiency in vowels depends on their spellings and consonantal context. (2) Vowels [i, y, u] and [a] are generally mastered with authenticity. (3) The ability to hear contrasts between the vowels e/ɛ, ø/œ and o/ɔ and pronounce them is limited. These results are only partially consistent with the predictions established in the Speech Learning Model (SLM) by Flege (1995), based on the notion of phonetic similarity between the mother tongue (MT) and the foreign language (FL).Cette étude acoustico-perceptive concerne les limites de la perception et de la production des voyelles orales du français [i, e, ɛ, a, u, o, ɔ, y, ø, œ], en isolation et en contextes consonantiques divers, chez dix tchécophones, futures enseignantes de Français Langue Étrangère (FLE). Les résultats montrent que (1) La maîtrise phonétique des voyelles dépend de leurs graphies et de l’entourage consonantique. (2) Les voyelles fermées [i, y, u] et le [a] sont globalement maîtrisées avec authenticité. (3) Les capacités de perception des contrastes entre les voyelles moyennes e/ɛ, ø/œ et o/ɔ ainsi que leur production sont limitées. Ces résultats ne sont que partiellement en accord avec les prédictions établies à partir du Speech Learning Model (SLM) de Flege (1995), basé sur la notion de similarité phonétique qui existe entre la langue maternelle (LM) et la langue étrangère (LE)