47 research outputs found
Segmental intonation information in French fricatives
International audienceWe examined the "segmental intonation" hypothesis (Niebuhr, 2012), according to which voiceless consonants contain spectral information that may contribute to the percept of high or low pitch in the absence of fundamental frequency (F0). French speakers read target words embedded in a carrier phrase and containing fricatives in accentual phrase-initial,-medial or-final position (e.g. sidéré 'stunned', nécessite 'require', ressaisisse 'seize again'), expected to correspond to regions of low, intermediate or high F0, respectively, as well as control words containing only sonorants (e.g. laminé 'rolled'). Analyses show lower center of gravity (CoG) for word-initial (low F0 region) than for word-final (high F0 region) fricatives. For word-final fricatives, CoG is higher at the end than in the beginning of the fricative, which may contribute to the percept of the continuation of the F0 rise across the preceding vowel.ReferenceNiebuhr, Oliver. 2012. At the edge of intonation – The interplay of utterance-final F0 movements and voiceless fricative sounds. Phonetica 69, 7–27
Segments as carriers of prosodic information in word onsets
Research has shown that listeners exploit prosodic cues to carry out word segmentation, and that the choice of cues and how these are weighted are language specific. French accentual phrases are demarcated to the left edge with a phrase initial rising (LHi) accent. Listeners are sensitive to the start of the rise (from L to Hi) which is used for word segmentation and to disambiguate between segmentally identical pairs. However, it is unclear whether prosodic cues are only used when disambiguation is required or if they play a more general role. Additionally, it remains an open question as to how sensitive listeners are to prosodic information of the initial rise encoded at the segmental level. This study examines whether microprosodic variations influence word recognition in less well studied segmental environments such as consonant clusters. A manipulation of duration and fundamental frequency cues at the word onset was performed. Results show that lexical activation was significantly delayed for words with onsets containing voiced consonant clusters of the type /bl/. Lexical access was also delayed for onsets of the type /pl/, although the effect was weaker. These results provide preliminary evidence that French listeners are sensitive to fine-grained prosodic information on segments
La syllabification de séquences VCV en irlandais : une étude de perception
International audienceWe examined whether Irish speakers syllabify intervocalic consonants as codas (e.g., póca 'pocket' /po:k.@/ CVC.V), as claimed by many authors, but contrary to claims in phonological theory of a universal preference for syllables with onsets. We conducted a perception experiment using a part-repetition task and auditorily presented stimuli consisting of VCV items with a single medial consonant (Cm), varying in the length of V1 and the manner of articulation of Cm (e.g., póca /po:k@/ 'pocket', lofa /lof@/ 'rotten'), as well as VCCV items (e.g., masla /masl@/ 'insult', canta /ka:nt@/ 'chunk'). Response patterns were similar to those found for other languages: listeners preferred syllables with onsets, often treated Cm as ambisyllabic, syllabified Cm as a coda more often when V1 was short, and dispreferred stops as codas. Our findings are relevant to all research on Irish that makes reference to the syllable.Nous avons étudié la structure syllabique de l'irlandais, dont le caractère supposé exceptionnel est souvent évoqué. Nous avons testé l'hypothèse selon laquelle les locuteurs de l'irlandais syllabifieraient des consonnes intervocaliques comme des codas (par ex., póca 'poche' /po:k@/ CVC.V), malgré la préférence universelle proposée par de nombreuses théories phonologiques pour des syllabes commençant par une consonne d'attaque. Nous nous sommes appuyées sur la tâche de répétition de syllabe, une tâche de syllabification explicite classique. Nos participants ont écouté des items VCV consistant en des mots bisyllabiques qui variaient en fonction de la longueur phonologique de la première voyelle (V1 : longue ou courte) et du mode d'articulation de la consonne médiale (Cm : plosive, fricative, liquide ou nasale) (e.g., póca /po:k@/ 'poche', lofa /lof@/ 'pourri'), ainsi que des items VCCV (par ex., masla /masl@/ 'insulte', canta /ka:nt@/ 'morceau'). Nos résultats s'accordent en général avec les résultats des études antérieures sur d'autres langues. Par exemple, des consonnes plus sonantes (par ex., les nasales et les liquides) sont plus susceptibles que des obstruentes d'être considérées comme des codas ou des consonnes ambisyllabiques, et des voyelles courtes ont tendance à attirer des consonnes. Ces résultats ont des implications pour toute recherche sur l'irlandais utilisant la syllabe, concept central dans la phonologie
In search of intonational cues to content word beginnings in conversational speech
International audienceWe used an annotated conversational French speech corpus to 1. investigate whether the intonational rises that occur at the beginning of French content words in read speech (APRs) are also present in spontaneous speech and therefore available as cues to word segmentation and lexical access, and 2. test two measures of characterizing intonation patterns using automatically extracted F0 and time values. The two measures tested both proved problematic: they were sensitive to the segmental composition of the critical region. We found no evidence that APRs are reliably present in the corpus as a whole, although we suggest that they may be present in particular types of conversational speech
Are tones aligned with articulatory events? Evidence from Italian and French
International audienceTonal alignment work has suggested that the temporal location of tonal targets relative to segmental "anchors" might be governed by principles of synchrony and stability (Arvaniti et al 1998, Ladd et al. 1999, inter alia). However, a number of discrepancies have emerged in the cross-linguistic study of alignment. For instance, despite some regularities in the alignment of L targets (Caspers and van Heuven 1993; Prieto et al. 1995), the alignment of H targets appears to be quite controversial. In fact, it is sometimes difficult to find definite segmental landmarks to which such targets might be aligned. Also, most of the alignment proposals so far inherently assume that if some anchors for tonal alignment do exist they must be acoustic in nature. A plausible alternative would be to assume that such anchors are primarily articulatory, which would explain why in some cases the underlying regularities would be masked. Hence, we adopt a new experimental paradigm for alignment research in which articulatory measures are performed simultaneously with acoustic measures. In order to test the constant alignment hypothesis, a preliminary study (D'Imperio et al. 2003) was conducted in which various latency measures, both acoustically and articulatorily based, were analyzed. Specifically, the kinematics of OPTOTRAK markers attached to the speaker's upper and lower lip was tracked over time during the production of the corpus sentences. The melodic target considered is the H tone of LH nuclear rises in Neapolitan Italian. In this variety, yes/no question LH rises are systematically later than (narrow focus) statement LH rises (D'Imperio 2000, 2001, 2002; D'Imperio and House 1997). In order to test the hypothesis of constant anchoring of H targets, the materials were produced with two different rates of speech, i.e. normal and fast. Summarizing the results, H targets of nuclear rises in Neapolitan statements and questions appear to be more closely phased with the articulatory dimension of between-lip distance than with two of the most commonly employed acoustic segmental landmarks for tonal alignment (i.e., onset and offset of stressed vowel). Statement H tones are phased with maximum between-lip distance within the stressed syllable. Note that this location does not correspond to any identifiable segmental boundary, acoustic event or phonological unit, and does not overlap with RMS peak amplitude. In fact, RMS peaks were generally much earlier than articulatory peaks, hence further away from H peaks. This calls for the collection and analysis of more articulatory data (especially jaw and tongue movements) to shed light on tonal alignment issues.In a second study, a French corpus was collected on the basis of the alignment contrast found by Welby (2003, in press). Welby's results show that listeners use the alignment of the initial rise (LHi) in French Accentual Phrases as a cue to speech segmentation. Specifically, listeners exploit the presence of an early rise to demarcate the beginning of a content word. In the present study, a corpus was built with a set of utterances displaying this specific alignment contrast. The kinematics of 10 pellets (8 on the face and tongue, 2 references) was tracked over time using an electromagnetometer (EMA, Carstens). The phasing of several articulatory events relative to the L and H part of the early rise were examined. The preliminary results seem to point to some kind of fine alignment specification for the L and H target. Specifically, we hypothesize that tonal target commands of Neapolitan as well as French rises are phased with commands of the supralaryngeal articulator involved to produce the segments to which the tone is associated. Regarding the word segmentation issue for French, it is important to study alignment in a diachronic perspective since we know of case of speech segmentation errors that can lead to lexical reinterpretation and change (l'abondance "abundance" > la bondance, from Welby 2003). We also take these results to suggest that not all rises align in the same way with the associated syllable. Though the role of articulatory constraints is important, the exact phasing properties of prosodic events are language-specific. Since prosody has recently become the realm of investigation of the Task Dynamics program (Byrd and Saltzman 2003), our alignment work will be cast under such a perspective
Traumatic brain injury in England and Wales: prospective audit of epidemiology, complications and standardised mortality.
OBJECTIVES: To provide a comprehensive assessment of the management of traumatic brain injury (TBI) relating to epidemiology, complications and standardised mortality across specialist units. DESIGN: The Trauma Audit and Research Network collects data prospectively on patients suffering trauma across England and Wales. We analysed all data collected on patients with TBI between April 2014 and June 2015. SETTING: Data were collected on patients presenting to emergency departments across 187 hospitals including 26 with specialist neurosurgical services, incorporating factors previously identified in the Ps14 multivariate logistic regression (Ps14n) model multivariate TBI outcome prediction model. The frequency and timing of secondary transfer to neurosurgical centres was assessed. RESULTS: We identified 15 820 patients with TBI presenting to neurosurgical centres directly (6258), transferred from a district hospital to a neurosurgical centre (3682) and remaining in a district general hospital (5880). The commonest mechanisms of injury were falls in the elderly and road traffic collisions in the young, which were more likely to present in coma. In severe TBI (Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) ≤8), the median time from admission to imaging with CT scan is 0.5 hours. Median time to craniotomy from admission is 2.6 hours and median time to intracranial pressure monitoring is 3 hours. The most frequently documented complication of severe TBI is bronchopneumonia in 5% of patients. Risk-adjusted W scores derived from the Ps14n model indicate that no neurosurgical unit fell outside the 3 SD limits on a funnel plot. CONCLUSIONS: We provide the first comprehensive report of the management of TBI in England and Wales, including data from all neurosurgical units. These data provide transparency and suggests equity of access to high-quality TBI management provided in England and Wales.AH is supported by the University of Cambridge, UK and Medical Research Council/Royal College of Surgeons of England Clinical Research Training Fellowship (Grant no. G0802251). P.J.H. is supported by National Institute for Health Research Professorship, Academy of Medical Sciences/Health Foundation Senior Surgical Scientist Fellowship and the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre, Cambridge.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the BMJ Publishing Group. via https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016- 01219