Testing for Frequency and Structural Effects in an English Stress Shift

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:This paper considers the English diatonic stress shift (DSS). We examine the role of frequency and phonological structure as conditioning factors for which of a set of noun/verb pairs have undergone the DSS between 1700 and the present. Previous work by Phillips (1984) has shown a role of frequency: on average, words which have undergone the DSS have lower frequency than those which have not. Using a new dataset, we show via multiple logistic regression that there is a significant effect of frequency in the direction shown by Phillips, as well as effects of phonological structure; for example, a closed initial syllable makes change more likely. There is also a strong interaction between the effects of frequency and structure; in particular, structure modulates the strength and direction of the frequency effect. Our use of multiple regression follows its widespread use in sociolinguistics (e.g., Labov 1994) for quantifying the relative effects of different conditioning factors in cases of language change

Subglottal coupling and vowel space: an investigation in quantal theory.

Thesis (S.B.)—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-73)This electronic version was prepared by the author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.NIH Grant DC00075. MIT UROP program.S.B

Structured Speaker Variability in Spontaneous Japanese Stop Contrast Production

Studies of speaker variability in the realisation of stop voicing contrasts have demonstrated that differences across speakers are highly structured both within and across phonetic categories. These studies have focused on languages with similar voicing systems in scripted speech; it remains unclear how stop realisation varies in spontaneous speech more generally. This study examines speaker variability in two acoustic cues to stop voicing–Voice Onset Time and Voicing During Closure–in a corpus of spontaneous Japanese, a language undergoing change in its voicing contrast. Whilst speakers vary in both measures, this variability is highly structured: speakers with less aspirated stops are more likely to initiate voicing during the closure. However, no corresponding relationship is observed between how the two cues are used to mark the contrast. These findings extend previous work to demonstrate the structure of speaker variability in spontaneous speech

Toward “English” phonetics: variability in the pre-consonantal voicing effect across English dialects and speakers

Recent advances in access to spoken-language corpora and development of speech processing tools have made possible the performance of “large-scale” phonetic and sociolinguistic research. This study illustrates the usefulness of such a large-scale approach—using data from multiple corpora across a range of English dialects, collected, and analyzed with the SPADE project—to examine how the pre-consonantal Voicing Effect (longer vowels before voiced thanvoiceless obstruents, in e.g., bead vs. beat) is realized in spontaneous speech, and varies across dialects and individual speakers. Compared with previous reports of controlled laboratory speech, the Voicing Effect was found to be substantially smaller in spontaneous speech, but still influenced by the expected range of phonetic factors. Dialects of English differed substantially from each other in the size of the Voicing Effect, whilst individual speakers varied little relative to their particular dialect. This study demonstrates the value of large-scale phonetic research as a means of developing our understanding of the structure of speech variability, and illustrates how large-scale studies, such as those carried out within SPADE, can be applied to other questions in phonetic and sociolinguistic research

Phonetic Imitation from an Individual-Difference Perspective: Subjective Attitude, Personality and “Autistic” Traits

Numerous studies have documented the phenomenon of phonetic imitation: the process by which the production patterns of an individual become more similar on some phonetic or acoustic dimension to those of her interlocutor. Though social factors have been suggested as a motivator for imitation, few studies has established a tight connection between language-external factors and a speaker’s likelihood to imitate. The present study investigated the phenomenon of phonetic imitation using a within-subject design embedded in an individual-differences framework. Participants were administered a phonetic imitation task, which included two speech production tasks separated by a perceptual learning task, and a battery of measures assessing traits associated with Autism-Spectrum Condition, working memory, and personality. To examine the effects of subjective attitude on phonetic imitation, participants were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions, where the perceived sexual orientation of the narrator (homosexual vs. heterosexual) and the outcome (positive vs. negative) of the story depicted in the exposure materials differed. The extent of phonetic imitation by an individual is significantly modulated by the story outcome, as well as by the participant’s subjective attitude toward the model talker, the participant’s personality trait of openness and the autistic-like trait associated with attention switching.</p

Toward “English” phonetics: variability in the pre-consonantal voicing effect across English dialects and speakers

Recent advances in access to spoken-language corpora and development of speech processing tools have made possible the performance of “large-scale” phonetic and sociolinguistic research. This study illustrates the usefulness of such a large-scale approach—using data from multiple corpora across a range of English dialects, collected, and analyzed with the SPADE project—to examine how the pre-consonantal Voicing Effect (longer vowels before voiced thanvoiceless obstruents, in e.g., bead vs. beat) is realized in spontaneous speech, and varies across dialects and individual speakers. Compared with previous reports of controlled laboratory speech, the Voicing Effect was found to be substantially smaller in spontaneous speech, but still influenced by the expected range of phonetic factors. Dialects of English differed substantially from each other in the size of the Voicing Effect, whilst individual speakers varied little relative to their particular dialect. This study demonstrates the value of large-scale phonetic research as a means of developing our understanding of the structure of speech variability, and illustrates how large-scale studies, such as those carried out within SPADE, can be applied to other questions in phonetic and sociolinguistic research