Modeling of oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation to compensate for the acoustic effects of nasalization

Hypernasality is one of the most detrimental speech disturbances that lead to declines of speech intelligibility. Velopharyngeal inadequacy, which is associated with anatomic defects such as cleft palate or neuromuscular disorders that affect velopharygneal function, is the primary cause of hypernasality. A simulation study by Rong and Kuehn [J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 55(5), 1438–1448 (2012)] demonstrated that properly adjusted oropharyngeal articulation can reduce nasality for vowels synthesized with an articulatory model [Mermelstein, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 53(4), 1070–1082 (1973)]. In this study, a speaker-adaptive articulatory model was developed to simulate speaker-customized oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation to compensate for the acoustic effects of nasalization on /a/, /i/, and /u/. The results demonstrated that (1) the oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation effectively counteracted the effects of nasalization on the second lowest formant frequency (F2) and partially compensated for the effects of nasalization on vowel space (e.g., shifting and constriction of vowel space) and (2) the articulatory adaptation strategies generated by the speaker-adaptive model might be more efficacious for counteracting the acoustic effects of nasalization compared to the adaptation strategies generated by the standard articulatory model in Rong and Kuehn. The findings of this study indicated the potential of using oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation as a means to correct maladaptive articulatory behaviors and to reduce nasalit

Comparing methods for locating pitch 'elbows'

Contains fulltext : 221099.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)ICPhS XVI, 6 augustus 200

Dialect typology: recent advances

This chapter provides an overview of recent innovative approaches that focus on the distributional patterns of linguistic phenomena in dialects across different languages. We set the stage by discussing a number of geographical factors that are assumed in the literature to have a bearing on the structural make-up of different languages and dialects such as world region, altitude, contact with speakers of other languages or dialects, etc. We then move on to sketch the extent to which dialects of a language exhibit common features (e.g., “vernacular universals” à la Chambers 2004) and identify structural dichotomies and continua that are regularly invoked when it comes to explaining the structural diversity of languages, namely, analyticity versus syntheticity, explicitness versus economy, complexity versus simplicity, and innovativeness versus conservativeness, all within the context of geographic space