Talker‐specific contextual influences on voice‐onset‐time

Abstract

Research has shown robust contextual influences on voice‐onset‐time (VOT) in speech production. The current work examines talker‐specificity for two such cases: speaking rate (VOT increases as syllable duration increases) and place of articulation (VOT increases as place moves from anterior to posterior position). Tokens of /pi/ (labial) and /ki/ (velar) were elicited from talkers across a range of rates. VOT and syllable duration were measured for each token. For each talker, separate labial and velar linear functions relating VOT to syllable duration were calculated. Ongoing analyses indicate that (1) for both the labial and velar functions there is significant variability across talkers’ slopes [see also Theodore et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120, 3293 (2006)], but there is no significant variability in the difference between labial and velar slopes for a given talker. Thus the effect of speaking rate is talker‐specific, and stable across place of articulation. (2) For each talker, the velar intercept is located at a longer VOT than the labial intercept, with significant variability in the magnitude of displacement across talkers. Thus the effect of place is also talker specific. These findings support the view that phonetic properties of speech include talker‐specific contextual influences. [Work supported by NIH/NIDCD.]