Phonological Factors Affecting L1 Phonetic Realization of Proficient Polish Users of English

Acoustic phonetic studies examine the L1 of Polish speakers with professional level proficiency in English. The studies include two tasks, a production task carried out entirely in Polish and a phonetic code-switching task in which speakers insert target Polish words or phrases into an English carrier. Additionally, two phonetic parameters are studied: the oft-investigated VOT, as well as glottalization vs. sandhi linking of word-initial vowels. In monolingual Polish mode, L2 interference was observed for the VOT parameter, but not for sandhi linking. It is suggested that this discrepancy may be related to the differing phonological status of the two phonetic parameters. In the code-switching tasks, VOTs were on the whole more English-like than in monolingual mode, but this appeared to be a matter of individual performance. An increase in the rate of sandhi linking in the code-switches, except for the case of one speaker, appeared to be a function of accelerated production of L1 target items

Monitoring English Sandhi Linking – A Study of Polish Listeners’ L2 Perception

This paper presents a set of word monitoring experiments with Polish learners of English. Listeners heard short recordings of native English speech, and were instructed to respond when they recognized an English target word that had been presented on a computer screen. Owing to phonological considerations, we compared reaction times to two types of vowel-initial words, which had been produced either with glottalization, or had been joined via sandhi linking processes to the preceding word. Results showed that the effects of the glottalization as a boundary cue were less robust than expected. Implications of these findings for models of L2 speech are discussed. It is suggested that the prevalence of glottalization in L1 production makes listeners less sensitive to its effects as a boundary cue in L2

Prosodically Conditioned Realization of Voiced Stops and Vowels in Yucatecan Spanish

This dissertation investigates the acoustic nature and distribution of prosodic strengthening in relation to the Prosodic Word domain and prosodic prominence in Yucatecan Spanish. In order to do so, phonologically voiced stops and word-initial vowels were examined in a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews and a read speech task with 16–21 speakers of the variety. The results provide evidence for prosodic strengthening of both voiced stops and word-initial vowels. The acoustic manifestations of prosodic strengthening of voiced stops are (i) longer duration, (ii) greater change in intensity, and, in extreme cases of strengthening, (iii) presence of a release burst. Strengthening of word-initial vowels is manifested through glottalization, which is present in the first portion of the vowel. Prosodic strengthening occurs in PW-initial position and especially under lexical stress, although accentuation may also play a role. Thus, prosodic strengthening is used to indicate (post)lexical prominence and boundaries at the PW level. In terms of speaker-specific variation, Yucatec Maya language dominance does not appear to favor more strengthened realizations either of voiced stops or word-initial vowels, while gender has no effect on the distribution of strengthened realizations. Finally, a proposal is made for the strengthening of voiced stops and glottalization of word-initial vowels being used to mark the left edges of a recursive PW in Yucatecan Spanish

Word-level prosodic and metrical influences on Hawaiian glottal stop realization

Previous research on the phonetic realization of Hawaiian glottal stops has shown that it can be produced several ways, including with creaky voice, full closure, or modal voice. This study investigates whether the realization is conditioned by word-level prosodic or metrical factors, which would be consistent with research demonstrating that segmental distribution and phonetic realization can be sensitive to word-internal structure. At the same time, it has also been shown that prosodic prominence, such as syllable stress, can affect phonetic realization. Data come from the 1970s–80s radio program Ka Leo Hawaiʻi. Using Parker Jones’ (Parker Jones, Oiwi. 2010. A computational phonology and morphology of Hawaiian. University of Oxford DPhil. thesis) computational prosodic grammar, words were parsed and glottal stops were automatically coded for word position, syllable stress, and prosodic word position. The frequency of the word containing the glottal stop was also calculated. Results show that full glottal closures are more likely at the beginning of a prosodic word, especially in word-medial position. Glottal stops with full closure in lexical word initial position are more likely in lower frequency words. The findings for Hawaiian glottal stop suggest that prosodic prominence does not condition a stronger realization, but rather, the role of the prosodic word is similar to other languages exhibiting phonetic cues to word-level prosodic structure

Variation in Glottalization at Prosodic Boundaries in Clear and Plain Lab Speech

Previous research on glottalization shows that this voice quality occurs more frequently at prosodic boundaries than in the middle of prosodic phrases. This study investigates ten speakers’ use of glottalization at prosodic boundaries in five passages read in both clear and plain lab speech. I analyzed each syllable in every passage for its voice quality (glottalized or modal) and for its prosodic boundary strength using the ToBI system. I found that glottalization is used regularly in phrase-final syllables, and that speakers use glottalization marginally more when preceded by a prosodic boundary than when phrase-medial. I found no evidence of a significant effect of speaking style on glottalization use.This work was partially supported by an Undergraduate Research Scholarship.This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (BCS-1056409).No embargoAcademic Major: AnthropologyAcademic Major: Linguistic

Perception of Glottalization in Varying Pitch Contexts Across Languages

Glottalization is often associated with low pitch in intonation languages, but evidence from many languages indicates that this is not an obligatory association. We asked speakers of German, English and Swedish to compare glottalized stimuli with several pitch contour alternatives in an AXB listening test. Although the low F0 in the glottalized stimuli tended to be perceived as most similar to falling pitch contours, this was not always the case, indicating that pitch perception in glottalization cannot be predicted by F0 alone. We also found evidence for cross-linguistic differences in the degree of flexibility of pitch judgments in glottalized stretches of speech. Index Terms: prosody, voice quality, perception, glottalizatio

Not all geminates are created equal : evidence from Maltese glottal consonants

Many languages distinguish short and long consonants or singletons and geminates. At a phonetic level, research has established that duration is the main cue to such distinctions but that other, sometimes language-specific, cues contribute to the distinction as well. Different proposals for representing geminates share one assumption: The difference between a singleton and a geminate is relatively uniform for all consonants in a given language. In this paper, Maltese glottal consonants are shown to challenge this view. In production, secondary cues, such as the amount of voicing during closure and the spectral properties of frication noises, are stronger for glottal consonants than for oral ones, and, in perception, the role of secondary cues and duration also varies across consonants. Contrary to the assumption that gemination is a uniform process in a given language, the results show that the relative role of secondary cues and duration may differ across consonants and that gemination may involve language-specific phonetic knowledge that is specific to each consonant. These results question the idea that lexical access in speech processing can be achieved through features.peer-reviewe

How speakers of different languages extend their turns : Word linking and glottalisation in French and German

A speaker who issues a confirming turn starting with particles like yes, oui, ja, and so on, may mean to extend it and provide further material. This study shows that French and German speakers employ the same phonetic contrast to indicate the nature of that turn continuation. In spite of the typological difference between the German use of glottalization and the French use of linking phenomena for word boundaries involving word-initial vowels, speakers of both languages exploit this contrast systematically in their design of multiunit turns. Initial confirmations are joined directly to subsequent vowel-fronted turn components when speakers respond with an internally cohesive multiunit confirming turn. The components are separated by glottalization when responses involve multiple actions or departures from a trajectory projected by the turn-initial confirmation. This is further evidence that sound patterns shape interaction and are not solely determined by language-specific phonologies. Data are in French and German with English translation

Perception of allophonic cues to English word boundaries by Polish learners: Approximant devoicing in English

The study investigates the perception of devoicing of English /w, r, j, l/ after /p, t, k/ as a word-boundary cue by Polish listeners. Polish does not devoice sonorants following voiceless stops in word-initial positions. As a result, Polish learners are not made sensitive to sonorant devoicing as a segmentation cue. Higher-proficiency and lower-proficiency Polish learners of English participated in the task in which they recognised phrases such as buy train vs. bite rain or pie plot vs. pipe lot. The analysis of accuracy scores revealed that successful segmentation was only above chance level, indicating that sonorant voicing/devoicing cue was largely unattended to in identifying the boundary location. Moreover, higher proficiency did not lead to more successful segmentation. The analysis of reaction times showed an unclear pattern in which higher-proficiency listeners segmented the test phrases faster but not more accurately than lower-proficiency listeners. Finally, #CS sequences were recognised more accurately than C#S sequences, which was taken to suggest that the listeners may have had some limited knowledge that devoiced sonorants appear only in word-initial positions, but they treated voiced sonorants as equal candidates for word-final and word-initial position