Acoustic evidence for high vowel devoicing in Lezgi

International audienceThis study uses acoustic analysis to determine whether unstressed pretonic high vowels in Lezgi are deleted or devoiced. We argue that the vowel gesture is not deleted, but it is overlapped and consequently devoiced by the preceding [s] gesture. We use spectral analysis to test the increased gestural overlap hypothesis. Three results support this hypothesis and consequently the devoicing interpretation: lower average energy in [s] before [u], higher energy in [s] before [i] in contrast to [a], and higher energy in [s] before unstressed [i] in contrast to stressed [a]

Phonetic variability and grammatical knowledge: an articulatory study of Korean place assimilation.

The study reported here uses articulatory data to investigate Korean place assimilation of coronal stops followed by labial or velar stops, both within words and across words. The results show that this place-assimilation process is highly variable, both within and across speakers, and is also sensitive to factors such as the place of articulation of the following consonant, the presence of a word boundary and, to some extent, speech rate. Gestures affected by the process are generally reduced categorically (deleted), while sporadic gradient reduction of gestures is also observed. We further compare the results for coronals to our previous findings on the assimilation of labials, discussing implications of the results for grammatical models of phonological/phonetic competence. The results suggest that speakers’ language-particular knowledge of place assimilation has to be relatively detailed and context-sensitive, and has to encode systematic regularities about its obligatory/variable application as well as categorical/gradient realisation

Labial-Coronal vs. Labial-Vélaire : étude du phasage des gestes en Français

International audienceStudies have shown a Labial-Coronal order preference over Coronal-Labial both in children's production at the first-words stage and in the lexicons of various world languages while a similar Labial-Velar order preference has not been observed. The Labial-Coronal effect (LC effect) has recently been studied in EMA experiments, in order to better understand the origin of this effect. In our study, we compare in a production task the stability of: (i) CVCV sequences in Labial-Coronal order vs. Coronal-Labial order and, (ii) CVCV sequences with Labial-Velar vs. Velar-Labial order. Participants performed a repetition task at an increasing speech rate. We recorded trajectories and timing of articulatory movements with the EMA 2D articulograph. In this paper are presented our preliminary results.Différentes études ont mis en avant la surreprésentation de séquences Labial-Coronal par rapport à Coronal-Labial dans les productions d'enfants au stade des premiers mots ainsi que dans les unités lexicales de plusieurs langues du monde, alors que les structures avec Labiale et Vélaire ne montrent pas de tendance à favoriser les séquences avec une première consonne Labiale. L'effet LC a été l'objet de recherches récentes en phonétique expérimentale, à l'aide notamment de protocoles EMA, pour permettre de mieux comprendre les origines de ce phénomène. Notre travail consiste à observer la stabilité articulatoire de séquences CVCV de patrons Labial-Coronal et Coronal-Labial ainsi que Labial-Vélaire et Vélaire-Labial à partir d'une tâche de répétition, sous la contrainte d'un paradigme de vitesse. Les déplacements des articulateurs ont été enregistrés à l'aide d'un EMA 2D. Nous présentons les premiers résultats de ce travail

Labial-Coronal vs. Labial-Vélaire : étude du phasage des gestes en Français

International audienceStudies have shown a Labial-Coronal order preference over Coronal-Labial both in children's production at the first-words stage and in the lexicons of various world languages while a similar Labial-Velar order preference has not been observed. The Labial-Coronal effect (LC effect) has recently been studied in EMA experiments, in order to better understand the origin of this effect. In our study, we compare in a production task the stability of: (i) CVCV sequences in Labial-Coronal order vs. Coronal-Labial order and, (ii) CVCV sequences with Labial-Velar vs. Velar-Labial order. Participants performed a repetition task at an increasing speech rate. We recorded trajectories and timing of articulatory movements with the EMA 2D articulograph. In this paper are presented our preliminary results.Différentes études ont mis en avant la surreprésentation de séquences Labial-Coronal par rapport à Coronal-Labial dans les productions d'enfants au stade des premiers mots ainsi que dans les unités lexicales de plusieurs langues du monde, alors que les structures avec Labiale et Vélaire ne montrent pas de tendance à favoriser les séquences avec une première consonne Labiale. L'effet LC a été l'objet de recherches récentes en phonétique expérimentale, à l'aide notamment de protocoles EMA, pour permettre de mieux comprendre les origines de ce phénomène. Notre travail consiste à observer la stabilité articulatoire de séquences CVCV de patrons Labial-Coronal et Coronal-Labial ainsi que Labial-Vélaire et Vélaire-Labial à partir d'une tâche de répétition, sous la contrainte d'un paradigme de vitesse. Les déplacements des articulateurs ont été enregistrés à l'aide d'un EMA 2D. Nous présentons les premiers résultats de ce travail

Perceptual assimilation of Mandarin non-sibilant fricatives by speakers of Quanzhou Southern Min

Non-native speech sounds are often assimilated to native sound categories. According to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), non-native speech sounds are classified as exemplars of native sound categories. The present study examines the perception of Mandarin non-sibilant fricatives by Quanzhou Southern Min (QSM) native speakers. We explore the perceptual assimilation of non-sibilant fricatives by QSM speakers through an experimental study of contextual effects. QSM is one of the most widely spoken regional languages in China. QSM speakers mainly use QSM in daily life and learn Mandarin in school. This study examines perceptual assimilation between Mandarin and QSM, and looks at how QSM speakers perceive and assimilate a non-native contrast in different phonetic contexts and according to their degree of exposure to Mandarin

Approaches to Phonological Complexity

International audienceThe proposed volume draws on an interdisciplinary sketch of the phonetics-phonology interface in the light of complexity. Composed of several first-order contributions, it will consequently be a significant landmark at the time of the rise of several projects linking complexity and linguistics around the world

A Comparison of Cepstral Coefficients and Spectral Moments in the Classification of Romanian Fricatives

In this paper we explore two methods for the classification of fricatives. First, for the coding of the speech, we compared two sets of acoustic measures obtained from a corpus of Romanian fricatives: (a) spectral moments and (b) cepstral coefficients. Second, we compared two methods of determining the regions of the segments from which the measures would be extracted. In the first method, the phonetic segments were divided into three regions of approximately equal duration. In the second method, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) were used to divide each segment into three regions such that the variances of the measures within each region were minimized. The corpus we analyzed consists of 3674 plain and palatalized word-final fricatives from four places of articulation, produced by 31 native speakers of Romanian (20 females). We used logistic regression to classify fricatives by place, voicing, palatalization status, and gender. We found that cepstral coefficients reliably outperformed spectral moments in all classification tasks, and that using regions determined by HMM yielded slightly higher correct classification rates than using regions of equal duration

INTER-GESTURAL TIMING BETWEEN VOCALIC GESTURES AS A FUNCTION OF SYLLABLE POSITION: ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIAN

International audienceThis study investigates the relative timing of vocalic gestures as a function of syllable position, manifested in the traditional distinction between hiatus and diphthong. The hiatus-diphthong distinction has been treated as one in syllable affiliation, therefore differences in their production can be interpreted as phonetic correlates of the syllable. I compare the acoustic realization of Romanian diphthongs [jV] and similar hiatus sequences [iV]. The latter have variable pronunciation, occasionally realized as diphthongs. A contrast is maintained between them, although individual speakers show tendencies toward a merger. Differences between diphthongs and hiatus sequences are found in: the vocalic portion duration, the F2 value at the onset of the vocalic portion, the duration of high energy frication at the release of a preceding [p]. I propose that all of these differences result from differences in articulatory timing between [i]/[j] and V. Inter-gestural timing in [jV] is tightly controlled, producing a short vocalic gesture for [j]. In a hiatus sequence [iV] timing is loose, allowing for variation. An occasional early onset of the V gesture can produce a glide percept. The results are interpreted in the framework of Browman and Goldstein's (2000) Bonding Strength Model

A perception-production study of Romanian diphthongs and glide-vowel sequences

This study compares two diphthongs ([ea], [oa]) and two glide-vowel sequences ([ja], [wa]) in Romanian. The diphthongs and the sequences are auditorily very similar, but they differ in their phonological patterning. An integrated production and perception experiment is conducted in search of perceptual and acoustic evidence for the different phonological representations proposed for the diphthongs and the sequences. Four acoustic parameters of the diphthongs and sequences are measured and compared in a production study. In addition, a perception experiment tests native speakers ’ ability to correctly identify the two types of vocalic sequences. The results support the different representations proposed for [ea] vs. [ja], but not necessarily for [oa] vs. [wa]. This asymmetry is interpreted in the context of language-specific frequency differences, and of contrast maintenance. The study shows that detailed phonetic description is needed for a complete understanding of the phonological facts.

Prominence vs. rhythm: The predictability of stress in Romanian

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