Durational correlates of Japanese phonemic quantity contrasts by Cantonese-speaking L2 learners

This paper reports a production study of Japanese phonemic quantity contrasts by native speakers, beginner learners, and advanced learners speaking Cantonese as L1. The three groups were compared using various standard durational measures. It was found that both learner groups successfully distinguished all the quantity conditions, although they did so differently from their Japanese peers. Specifically, whereas the short vs. long contrasts were enhanced in slow speech by native speakers, such enhancement was absent in both learner groups. The pedagogical and typological implications of these data are discussed.published_or_final_versio

Perception and Production of Geminate Timing in Hungarian Voiceless Stops

Hungarian is a language that expresses semantic differences using contrastive consonant length. Previous research in many languages confirmed that duration is the most important acoustic correlate of the singleton-geminate contrast. The present study aims to examine the acoustic and perceptual correlates which distinguish single stops from their geminate counterparts in Hungarian. The main question is how closure duration contributes to the perception and production of the length contrast of voiceless stops? Results confirmed that closure duration is the main acoustic attribute that distinguishes between singletons and geminate stops in Hungarian, and it is a sufficient cue for discriminating them in perception as well. Analysis of the relationship between consonant and preceding vowel duration did not support the strategy of temporal compensation. Findings are supposed to explore the relationship between the acoustic and perceptual domains and shed light on the primary/secondary acoustic features of consonant length opposition in Hungarian

Context-dependent articulation of consonant gemination in Estonian

Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)The three-way quantity system is a well-known phonological feature of Estonian. In a number of studies it has been shown that quantity is realized in a disyllabic foot by the stressed-to-unstressed syllable rhyme duration ratio and also by pitch movement as the secondary cue. The stressed syllable rhyme duration is achieved by combining the length of the vowel and the coda consonant, which enables minimal septets of CVCV-sequences based on segmental duration. In this study we analyze articulatory (EMA) recordings from four native Estonian speakers producing all possible quantity combinations of intervocalic bilabial stops in two vocalic contexts (/alpha-i/ vs. /i-alpha/). The analysis shows that kinematic characteristics (gesture duration, spatial extent, and peak velocity) are primarily affected by quantity on the segmental level: Phonologically longer segments are produced by longer and larger lip closing gestures and, in reverse, shorter and smaller lip opening movements. Tongue transition gesture is consistently lengthened and slowed down by increasing consonant quantity. In general, both kinematic characteristics and intergestural coordination are influenced by non-linear interactions between segmental quantity levels as well as vocalic context.Peer reviewe

Identifying the locus of L2 pronunciation: an exploratory study of geminate production by Chinese L2 learners of Japanese

Chinese L2 learners of Japanese are identified as showing difficulties in the production of Japanese geminates. The idea of being difficult-to-listen is embodied in the concept Comprehensibility (Derwing & Munro 2015). This study first reviews the native pronunciation of Japanese singleton vs. geminate contrast. Then, we report findings based on the pronunciation by 20 Chinese learners of Japanese and discuss the issue of comprehensibility in geminate production. While the contrast in the closure duration between singleton and geminate consonants shows a similar pattern to reported Japanese speech, the learners show large differences in the vowel duration preceding and following consonants. We report findings from a linear mixed model that was run with speaker as a random effect. The results show that participants do not make differences in vowel duration, or the difference in vowel duration is reversed from L1 Japanese speakers. Identifying the locus of the source of an L2 accent should be accompanied with intelligibility and comprehensibility. Such identification is important in increasing comprehensibility in speech that is already intelligible

Geminated Liquids in Japanese: A production study

While the Japanese language makes use of consonant length contrast abundantly, liquid geminates are disfavored. The status of geminated liquids in Japanese is marginal, only appearing in particular loanwords and through emphatic gemination. However, to the extent that they are attested, geminated liquids in Japanese offer a unique window into the abstract representation of geminates and liquids in general.The foremost goal of this dissertation is to fill the gap in the literature by providing a detailed documentation of the production of geminated liquids in Japanese. Based on the results of an experiment using EMA (electromagnetic articulography), I report the acoustic and articulatory characteristics of geminated liquids in Japanese, focusing on the variability and similarity across productions.The acoustic results indicate that while the local durational correlates for geminated liquids are quite variable, their durational contrast with singletons is strikingly robust and similar to that of more established geminates at a global level. Furthermore, while the non-durational acoustic correlates exhibit a wide range of inter- and intra-speaker variability, all the productions of geminated liquids demonstrate prolonged duration and high sonority in one way or another.The articulatory results suggest that liquids in Japanese are gesturally complex, as has been pointed out for other languages. Singleton and geminate liquids can be characterized with a rising tongue tip gesture and relatively retracted tongue body. Otherwise, speakers use variable strategies to produce liquids, with lateral and retroflex flavors. Results also show that liquids take up a lateral flavor of production in high-vowel environments, consistent with previous claims that rhotics are incompatible with palatalization. They also show that speakers and productions vary in terms of the gestural timing to lengthen liquids, suggesting multiple gestural strategies for the process of gemination.The acoustic and articulatory variability demonstrated in the results are consistent with the view that Japanese liquid /r/ is highly underspecified. An alternative explanation appealing to the marginal status of geminated liquids is discussed. The acoustic and articulatory results, taken together, also suggest that the production of geminates is governed by acoustic targets rather than a universal gestural target shared by all speakers

Phonotactic information in the temporal organization of Standard Austrian German and the Viennese dialect

a b s t r a c t The current contribution analyses quantifying prosodic aspects in two Middle Bavarian varieties, Standard Austrian German and the Viennese dialect. State of the art phonological accounts of the Middle Bavarian dialects assume a mutual interaction between vowel and consonant length: long vowels are followed by lenis consonants, short vowels are followed by fortis consonants, further vowel þ consonant sequences are proscribed in the Middle Bavarian dialects. In this analysis, this assumption was tested by incorporating the allegedly disallowed sequences long vowel þ fortis consonant. Results show that this sequence is not integrated into the presumed Middle Bavarian temporal patterns, but have to be dealt with separately. These results shed a new light on the Middle Bavarian quantity relationships which are discussed within two possible theoretical frameworks, one assuming a two-way opposition in consonants, the other a three-way opposition. Generally, the necessary integration of a third category brings about a revision of the Middle Bavarian quantity relations which is more easily reconcilable with the complex phonotactic structures observable in the Middle Bavarian varieties than the previously assumed pattern of a mutual interaction between vowel and consonant length

A rövid és hosszú zöngétlen explozívák észlelése felnőtteknél és kisiskolás gyermekeknél

There has been much research indicating that a specific speech sound is characterized by wide variability in timing of articulation. Despite the wide variability and the considerable overlap in the duration of singleton and geminate realisations, it is also confirmed by previous production studies that the primary acoustic attribute that distinguishes geminates from singletons is duration. In speech perception research, it is an essential question how listeners discriminate phonological categories of quantity along a continuous durational scale of the phonetic realisations. This perceptual task seems to be more difficult for children than for adults. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of duration as a perceptual distinction between single and geminate stops using a binary discrimination test of stops with systematically manipulated closure duration. The main question was what kind of similarities and differences can be found between 7-8-year-old children’ and adults’ perceptual shifts from singleton to geminate. Results confirmed that closure duration is a sufficient and adequate perceptual cue in the distinction of single and geminate stops both in children and adults; however, perceptual shifts differed between children and adults, and depended on the place of articulation. Moreover, displacement of the response curves based on the original quantity of stimuli (originally geminate or originally singleton) indicated that cues other than closure duration may contribute to the length contrast in Hungarian stops