Production and perception of speaker-specific phonetic detail at word boundaries

Experiments show that learning about familiar voices affects speech processing in many tasks. However, most studies focus on isolated phonemes or words and do not explore which phonetic properties are learned about or retained in memory. This work investigated inter-speaker phonetic variation involving word boundaries, and its perceptual consequences. A production experiment found significant variation in the extent to which speakers used a number of acoustic properties to distinguish junctural minimal pairs e.g. 'So he diced them'—'So he'd iced them'. A perception experiment then tested intelligibility in noise of the junctural minimal pairs before and after familiarisation with a particular voice. Subjects who heard the same voice during testing as during the familiarisation period showed significantly more improvement in identification of words and syllable constituents around word boundaries than those who heard different voices. These data support the view that perceptual learning about the particular pronunciations associated with individual speakers helps listeners to identify syllabic structure and the location of word boundaries

What tone teaches us about language

In ‘Tone: Is it different?’ (Hyman 2011a), I suggested that ‘tone is like segmental phonology in every way—only more so’, emphasizing that there are some things that only tone can do. In this presidential address my focus extends beyond phonology, specifically addressing what tone tells us about the integration (vs. compartmentalization) of grammar. I discuss some rather striking examples that demonstrate problems for the strict separation of phonology, morphology, and syntax, each time posing the question, ‘What else is like this outside of tone?’. A particularly interesting property that is strictly limited to tone is what I term syntagmatic relativity. I suggest that the uniqueness of tonal phenomena is due to the versatility of pitch, which can be manipulated with a wide range of linguistic functions. Given this versatility, I end by considering the question, ‘Why isn’t tone universal?’.*

Pupillometry registers toddlers’ sensitivity to degrees of mispronunciation

AbstractThis study introduces a method ideally suited for investigating toddlers’ ability to detect mispronunciations in lexical representations: pupillometry. Previous research has established that the magnitude of pupil dilation reflects differing levels of cognitive effort. Building on those findings, we use pupil dilation to study the level of detail encoded in lexical representations with 30-month-old children whose lexicons allow for a featurally balanced stimulus set. In each trial, we present a picture followed by a corresponding auditory label. By systematically manipulating the number of feature changes in the onset of the label (e.g., baby∼daby∼faby∼shaby), we tested whether featural distance predicts the degree of pupil dilation. Our findings support the existence of a relationship between featural distance and pupil dilation. First, mispronounced words are associated with a larger degree of dilation than correct forms. Second, words that deviate more from the correct form are related to a larger dilation than words that deviate less. This pattern indicates that toddlers are sensitive to the degree of mispronunciation, and as such it corroborates previous work that found word recognition modulated by sub-segmental detail and by the degree of mismatch. Thus, we establish that pupillometry provides a viable alternative to paradigms that require overt behavioral response in increasing our understanding of the development of lexical representations

Consonants, vowels and levels of specification in the phonological representations of the first lexicon: a review.

A review of the main studies on the format of lexical representation in the initial stages of language development is presented. Current investigations reveal a significant level of phonological specificity in the representation of words in the first lexicon, even before age two years. These results can be explained from a theoretical framework that posits the existence of multiple levels of encoding and suggests differences in accessing the represented information as a function of task demands or vocabulary size. The existence of possible differences in the degree of specification of vowels and consonants represented in the lexicon is an area of current debate. This article discusses the present state of this debate in the light of recent findings from research with different languages, in populations with different linguistic environments (monolingual and bilingual) and from experimental approaches that involve varying degrees of cognitive demands

Theoretical historical phonology : a unified account of consonant lenition and vowel reduction in English within the framework of element and optimality theory

PhD ThesisThis thesis is intended to provide a unified and coherent theoretical analysis of phonological weakening processes of vowels and consonants in English within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). The analysis of weakening phenomena may vary according to the theory you adopt and the language you choose, but in this thesis, vowel reduction and consonant lenition in English will be explored in a constraint-based approach. In addition, most importantly, I seek to show which generalisations can equally be applied to both consonant lenition and vowel reduction in terms of a phonological theory. The key questions to be investigated in this thesis are as follows. 1) How do we represent phonological weakening phenomena in terms of segmental features or elements? 2) How can these representational elements be integrated into the constraint ranking and evaluation mechanisms in Optimality Theory? 3) Do the historical data such as the initial fricative voicing and vowel reduction in Old and Middle English give us any insight in this regard? There seems to be a similarity between consonant lenition and vowel reduction in terms of their phonological behaviour. For instance, both consonant lenition and vowel reduction can be treated as loss of some element or reduction of complexity in Element Theory (e.g. Harris 1994). This is an interesting point of my PhD project because this kind of representational approach to weakening phenomena has rarely been applied in Optimality Theoretic analysis. Therefore, what is intended to do in this thesis is that melodic representation will be used for modelling weakening phenomena within the framework of Optimality Theory. iv In this regard, I suggest a combined theoretic account of weakening phenomena involving the combination of two approaches namely Element Theory and Optimality Theory, which differentiates this account from previous analyses. I argue that the constraint *COMPLEX[Element], where ‘element’ refers to one of the primitives of Element Theory, plays a central role in analysing phonological weakening processes in this thesis. In addition, it will be shown throughout the thesis that these processes can be accounted for within the constraint interaction between positional faithfulness constraints such as IDENT[Element] and the integrated constraint *COMPLEX[Element] which I propose in this thesis

The Application of English Theories to Sorani Phonology

This thesis investigates phonological processes in Sorani Kurdish within the framework of Element Theory. It studies two main varieties of Sorani spoken in Iraq which are Slemani and Hawler. Since the phonology of SK is one of the least studied areas in Kurdish linguistics and the available studies provide different accounts of its segments, I start by introducing the segmental system of the SK dialect group. I present a list of consonants and vowels and discuss the variation between Hawler and Slemani. I then present an Element Theory analysis of the segmental system of SK which reflects the phonological behaviour of each segment and how it patterns with other sounds. For example, š and ž are post-alveolar articulatorily while they behave like palatals in phonological processes and hence have a headed |I| element. I then study processes of place assimilation in SK. The process of palatalization is one area that sets Hawler and Slemani varieties apart. In SK, velar stops, k g, are palatalized before front vocoids. However, in Hawler, the output of velar palatalization is an affricate consonant while in Slemani, palatalization is secondary and adds a secondary articulation to the velar stops. Similarly, both varieties have a set of emphatic consonants which have caused considerable debate in the literature as there is no agreement on their distribution in SK. In this study, I present the first detailed account of the emphatic consonants in SK and argue that their triggers differ between Slemani and Hawler and I also argue that they differ phonologically from emphatics in Arabic. Another place assimilation process that is discussed briefly is nasal place assimilation. Other processes discussed in the thesis relate to laryngeal contrasts in SK. The data show that word-initial obstruents have a typologically uncommon laryngeal contrast that utilizes the extreme points on the VOT continuum. That is, SK has a pre-voiced set of obstruents that contrasts with an aspirated set in word-initial position. In word-final position, however, the pre-voiced set is devoiced, and the contrast is between an aspirated set and a neutral set. I also discuss the process of voicing assimilation that occurs in both Hawler and Slemani. The study also accounts for such processes as metathesis and deletion and presents data to show variations between Hawler and Slemani. The study ends with an evaluation of the main findings and asserts the importance of this thesis and how it can be used as a basis for future work