Perceptual characteristics and learning of Japanese phonemic length contrast by non-native listeners

制度:新 ; 報告番号:甲3515号 ; 学位の種類:博士(国際情報通信学) ; 授与年月日:2012/2/8 ; 早大学位記番号:新585

Speaking rate normalization across different talkers in the perception of Japanese stop and vowel length contrasts

7 pagesPerception of duration is critically influenced by the speaking rate of the surrounding context. However, to what extent this speaking rate normalization is talker-specific is understudied. This experiment investigated whether Japanese listeners’ perception of temporally contrastive phonemes is influenced by the speaking rate of the surrounding context, and more importantly, whether the effect of the contextual speaking rate persists across different talkers for different types of contrasts: a singleton-geminate stop contrast and short-long vowel contrast in Japanese. The results suggest that listeners generalized their rate-based adjustments to different talkers’ speech regardless of whether the target contrasts depended on silent closure duration or vowel duration. Our results thus support the view that speaking rate normalization is an obligatory process that happens in the early phase of perception

Effects of tonal alignment on lexical identification in Italian

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of tonal alignment in Italian variety spoken in Naples. We focused on the effects of intonation in the perception of minimal pairs contrasting in consonant duration. Spectrographic analyses show that the timing of pitch accent varies with the syllable structure (see also [1]). In open syllable (CV), the pitch peak is realized within the stressed vowel, while in the closed syllable (CVC) the peak is reached at the end of the accented syllable, associated with the last consonant. In order to analyze these effects, series of words contrasting in consonant duration and inserted in the same segmental environment were produced by a native speaker. Two kinds of manipulation were performed. First, we modified the length of the stressed vowel and the following consonant in five steps; then, the timing of the pitch peak was modified in four steps, too. Finally, a set of resynthesized stimuli was created by the combination of all the different steps of duration and pitch: this set constituted our basis for the perception experiments. We asked thirteen Neapolitan people to listen to the stimuli, and to identify them with either one word or the other of each pair. Our results show that manipulation of intonation was significant for the stimuli coming from the CVC words. That is, a garden path effect (or: a shift in responses) related to the timing of the pitch peak was found. These results lend support to the hypothesis that the listeners use temporal alignment for the perception of segmental identity and that the contribution of intonation both in production and in perception is a fundamental source of linguistic information

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

Effects of tonal alignment on lexical identification in Italian

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of tonal alignment in Italian variety spoken in Naples. We focused on the effects of intonation in the perception of minimal pairs contrasting in consonant duration. Spectrographic analyses show that the timing of pitch accent varies with the syllable structure (see also [1]). In open syllable (CV), the pitch peak is realized within the stressed vowel, while in the closed syllable (CVC) the peak is reached at the end of the accented syllable, associated with the last consonant. In order to analyze these effects, series of words contrasting in consonant duration and inserted in the same segmental environment were produced by a native speaker. Two kinds of manipulation were performed. First, we modified the length of the stressed vowel and the following consonant in five steps; then, the timing of the pitch peak was modified in four steps, too. Finally, a set of resynthesized stimuli was created by the combination of all the different steps of duration and pitch: this set constituted our basis for the perception experiments. We asked thirteen Neapolitan people to listen to the stimuli, and to identify them with either one word or the other of each pair. Our results show that manipulation of intonation was significant for the stimuli coming from the CVC words. That is, a garden path effect (or: a shift in responses) related to the timing of the pitch peak was found. These results lend support to the hypothesis that the listeners use temporal alignment for the perception of segmental identity and that the contribution of intonation both in production and in perception is a fundamental source of linguistic information

Vowel and consonant quantity in two Swiss German dialects and their corresponding varieties of Standard German: effects of region, age, and tempo

The diglossic situation in German-speaking Switzerland entails that both an Alemannic dialect and a Swiss standard variety of German are spoken. One phonological property of both Alemannic and Swiss Standard German (SSG) is contrastive quantity not only in vowels but also in consonants, namely lenis and fortis. This study aims to compare vowel and plosive closure durations as well as articulation rate (AR) between Alemannic and SSG in the varieties spoken in a rural area of the canton of Lucerne (LU) and an urban area of the canton of Zurich (ZH). In addition to the segment durations, an additional measure of vowel-to-vowel + consonant duration (V/(V + C)) ratios is calculated in order to account for possible compensation between vowel and closure durations. Stimuli consisted of words containing different vowel-consonant (VC) combinations. The main differences found are longer segment durations in Alemannic compared to SSG, three phonetic vowel categories in Alemannic that differ between LU and ZH, three stable V/(V + C) ratio categories, and three phonetic consonant categories lenis, fortis, and extrafortis in both Alemannic and SSG. Most importantly, younger ZH speakers produced overall shorter closure durations, calling into question a possible reduction of consonant categories due to a contact to German Standard German (GSG)

Production of Estonian quantity contrasts by Japanese speakers

Estonian and Japanese are quantity languages both exploiting the duration cue to implement phonological contrasts. However, the quantity systems of the two languages are different – Estonian features a three-way quantity contrast while Japanese has a binary contrast. This paper studies how L2 subjects with Japanese-language background (L2-JP) produce the Estonian quantity contrasts. For the acoustic analysis the speech recordings by six L2-JP subjects and 12 native Estonian (L1-EE) subjects were used. The material analyzed consists of read sentences comprising triplets of segmentally identical disyllabic target words in the quantities Q1 (short), Q2 (long) and Q3 (overlong). In their production, the L2-JP subjects successfully produced the Q1/Q2 contrast but failed in contrasting vocalic Q2 and Q3 (CVVCV vs. CVVːCV) oppositions; however, the subjects managed to produce the Q2/Q3 consonantal quantity contrasts (CVCCV vs. CVCːCV). The L2-JP subjects’ segment durations differing from those of the L1-EE subjects, reveal the role of native durational patterns on the acquisition of Estonian quantity oppositions.Kokkuvõte. Einar Meister, Rena Nemoto, Lya Meister: Eesti välted jaapani emakeelega keelejuhtide häälduses. Eesti ja jaapani keel on kvantiteedikeeled, st mõlemad keeled kasutavad kestust fonoloogiliste vastanduste väljendamiseks. Kvantiteedisüsteemid kahes keeles on siiski erinevad – eesti keelt iseloomustab kolmene vältevastandus, jaapani keeles on kestusvastandus binaarne. Artiklis uuriti eesti väldete hääldust jaapani emakeelega keelejuhtide kõnes ja võrreldi seda eesti emakeelega keelejuhtide hääldusega. Akustiliseks analüüsiks kasutati kuue eesti keelt võõrkeelena kõneleva jaapanlase ja 12 eesti emakeelega keelejuhi etteloetud lausete salvestusi, milles esinesid vältevastandusi kandvad kahesilbilised sõnad. Tulemused näitasid, et jaapani keelejuhid hääldasid kontrastiivselt esma- ja teisevältelisi sõnu, kuid ei eristanud teise- ja kolmandavältelisi vokaalikeskse vastandusega (CVVCV vs CVVːCV) sõnu. Samas hääldasid nad erinevalt teise- ja kolmandavältelisi konsonandikeskse vastandusega (CVCCV vs CVCːCV) sõnu. Leitud segmendikestuste erinevused jaapanlaste ja eestlaste kõnes peegeldavad emakeelsete kestusmustrite erinevusi kahes keeles.Märksõnad: eesti keel, jaapani keel, aktsendiga kõne, fonoloogiline kestus, välte

L2 acquisition of Spanish allophonic and Italian phonemic contrasts

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. May 2017. Major: Hispanic Linguistics. Advisor: Timothy Face. 1 computer file (PDF); xii, 208 pages.Although Spanish and Italian voiced stops are similar in articulatory (place of articulation) and acoustic (prevoicing) terms, there are important contrasts associated with these sounds in each language that may affect second language (L2) learners’ acquisition. Spanish maintains an allophonic alternation between word-initial voiced stops and intervocalic voiced approximants, which involves a variation in manner of articulation. Italian maintains a phonemic contrast between intervocalic voiced singleton and geminate stops, which involves a variation in duration. Given these differences, the present study investigates whether the sounds associated with the allophonic alternation in Spanish or those associated with the phonemic contrast in Italian are acquired more easily by L2 learners of each language who share the same L1 (American English) via production and perception tasks. Students enrolled in first-, third-, and fourth-year courses, at the same university, in their respective L2 of Spanish or Italian were recruited for the study. 23 L2 Spanish learners, 20 L2 Italian learners, and five native speakers each of Spanish and Italian participated in the study. Production was assessed with a reading task, while perception was assessed with discrimination and identification tests. The results of the acoustic analyses indicate that learners struggle to produce target sounds in a target-like fashion, as L2 Spanish learners produced word-initial [b d g] with significantly less prevoicing than native speakers and they infrequently produced target approximants as such. L2 Italian learners struggled to precisely implement the phonetic cues that distinguish geminate stops from their singleton counterparts (e.g., preceding vowel duration and consonant duration). In addition, correlation analyses revealed that L2 Spanish and L2 Italian learners’ production and perception are related, although not strongly. Therefore, it is possible that learners’ production difficulties have a perceptual basis, as L2 Spanish learners struggled to discriminate voiced approximants from voiced stops and L2 Italian learners struggled to identify the length difference between voiced singleton and geminate stops. This finding constitutes a valuable contribution to L2 Spanish and L2 Italian phonology, as the role of perception as a basis for learners’ production difficulty of these target sounds has been understudied and not well-understood