Adjacent Vowels Research Articles

The Effect of the Arabic Syllabic Prosodic Features on the Production of English CV Sequences

The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of the Arabic minimal prosodic unit (the syllable) on the production of English L2 CV sequences. To study the influence of phonetic context upon a given segment and the overall effect the Arabic syntagmatic features on the Arab learner's ability to reorganize in terms of English patterns, samples of conversational exchanges of some native speakers of adult/child Jordanian Arabic were recorded over a two month period. The syllable patterns that regulate the phonological organization of the conversational exchanges were described. To study the effect of the preceding and following consonants on the adjacent vowel sounds, two sets of consonantal contexts were examined: 'emphatic' vs. 'non-emphatic'. The objectives of this study are the following: (i) to identify prosodic features which span the internal structure of the Arabic word templates, e.g. the vocalic melody of frontness vs. backness (ii) to explore the Arabic language-specific phonological constraints and to determine their effect on the production of English sound patterns (iii) to study the Arabic templates which are similar in shape to English equivalents, because contrastive linguistics studies, to date, have so far focused on phonological negative interlingual transfer to the effective exclusion of positive interlingual transfer . (vi) to demonstrate how English utterances are restructured so that the constituent syllables follow typical Arabic syllabication.

(Non)-Adjacent Vowel Harmony in Korean: Pro-Serial OT Account

(Non)-Adjacent Vowel Harmony in Korean: Pro-Serial OT Account

Voicing, aspiration, and vowel duration in Hindi

There is extensive evidence that consonantal laryngeal features modulate adjacent vowel duration (Chen 1970). However, it is not clear if both consonant voicing and aspiration affect vowel duration. Previous studies (on Hindi) produced inconsistent results with respect to the effect of consonant aspiration on vowel duration, while finding a clear positive correlation with consonant voicing (Maddieson & Gandour 1976; Ohala & Ohala 1992; Lampp & Reklis 2004). We conducted an experiment on 7 native standard Hindi speakers, who produced 10 repetitions of 12 nonsense words ending in [d̪, d̪h, t̪, t̪h] that had 3 different CVCVV contexts. The results of the experiment show that there is a statistically significant main effect of coda voicing on vowel duration and a marginally significant main effect of aspiration on vowel duration. Furthermore, the effect of the aspirated coda consonants on vowel duration appears to be modulated by the surrounding segmental context. The results suggest that both consonant voicing and aspiration increase adjacent vowel duration. The results also suggest that the inconsistent findings in previous studies with respect to the effect of aspiration could be the result of differing phonetic contexts of the relevant segments.

Effects of preceding consonant features on /Ð/ assimilation

Sociolinguists have occasionally mentioned regressive assimilation of the voiced interdental fricative /Ð/ to a preceding consonant as a feature of some dialects. However, little research has been published on the topic. This study examines effects of preceding consonant features on /Ð/ assimilation, using interviews with residents of Robeson County, NC. Tokens of phonemic /Ð/ were examined in spectrogram form to identify which ones were assimilated. Impressionistic judgment was used in conjunction with the spectrograms. Discontinuities within consonant clusters served as evidence of unassimilated tokens. For manner of articulation, features such as stop bursts and frication noise were identified. When necessary, measurements of F2 and F3 at adjacent vowel transitions and midpoints were compared to determine place of articulation. Place, manner, voicing, and nasality of preceding consonants were then recorded. A logistic regression indicated the significance of each variable. This showed that preceding consonants affect /Ð/ assimilation. Preceding alveolars are most likely to result in assimilation, which was shown to be significant. The difference in manner between fricatives and stops is also significant, as /Ð/ is more likely to assimilate to a fricative. Nasality is highly significant, with /Ð/ more likely to assimilate to a nasal than to an oral consonant.

Morpheme-Based Rendaku as a Rhythmic Stabilizer in Eastern Old Japanese Poetry

This paper explores the functions of morpheme-based rendaku, or “sequential voicing”, in Eastern Old Japanese poetry, with a focus on its function of maintaining rhythmic stability in poetic verse. It is argued that this function is implemented to avoid a hypermetrical line when no adjacent vowels exist as candidates for synchronic elision. Furthermore, a comparison with synchronic vowel elision is conducted. Based on the results, it is argued that morpheme-based rendaku is preferred to synchronic vowel elision when both are available options for maintaining the rhythmic stability of a line. Linguistic constraints blocking morpheme-based rendaku are also discussed to explain hypermetrical examples with potential, yet unrealized, morpheme-based rendaku.

The Production of English Voiceless Sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ by Young Korean Children

Lee, Kyunghee, Lee, Shinsook, & Cho, Mi-Hui. 2012. The Production of English Voiceless Sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ by Young Korean Children. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 37-1, 199-221. This study explored the acquisition of English voiceless sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ by young Korean children by conducting production experiments. For this purpose, 30 male and 23 female Korean children aged 3 to 6 years produced 32 English nonce words either beginning or ending with /s/ and /ʃ/ in two vowel contexts /i/ and /u/. The results showed that English /ʃ/ showed early acquisition relative to English /s/ across all the age groups, similar to the results obtained by Smit et al. (1990) for English children. There was an age effect in that the difference in mean accuracy between 3-year olds and 6-year olds was statistically significant even though there was no gender effect. Further, there was a partial positional effect as Korean children's production of English /s/ was poor in onset compared to coda but their production of /ʃ/ was much better in onset than in coda. Although there was no effect of adjacent vowels, the children's production of the target sound /s/ showed the lowest percentage correct in the context of the vowel /i/. Importantly, the results were partly attributed to the effects of Korean s-palatalization and coarticulations between the target sounds and neighboring vowels on the basis of the children's error patterns. Implications for the acquisition of English voiceless sibilants by young Korean children were also drawn. (Korea University & Kyonggi University)

Prienų šnektos sprogstamųjų priebalsių spektro sklaida ir kitos skiriamosios ypatybės

THE SPECTRA AND OTHER DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF PLOSIVE CONSONANTS IN THE SUBDIALECT OF PRIENAI SummaryEvery plosive consonant has a similar impact on both the beginning (when preced­ing a vowel) and the end (when following a vowel) of the spectrum of respective vowels. Second and third formant differences of consonants have special prominence, including their initial position in the spectrum and the dynamics of adjacent vowel formant begin­nings, as well as intensity, height and shortness of their spectra.In the articulation of voiced plosive consonants a significant role is played by friction and voice. At the moment of plosion, vibrations are distributed throughout a wider range of frequencies compared with the pronunciation of respective voiceless consonants. The main role in the pronunciation of voiceless plosive consonants belongs to the source of noise or friction. They are characterised by a pause and a burst of low energy which is seen in spectrograms as a certain kind of a column. It is the widest in the case of the consonants [k] and [k̑], and the narrowest – with [p] and [p̑].The labial plosives [p] and [p̑] are pronounced with the least noise;regarding the qualitative differences of adjacent vowels, it is possible to attribute these sounds to the class of low sounds. Concerning the voiced consonants, the least intense and lowest ones are [b] and [b̑] respectively. When comparing [p], [p̑] and [b], [b̑], it should be noted that they differ in sonority;a slightly lower pitch is typical of the voiced consonants respec­tively. These labial plosives differ clearly from other plosives in the height of their pitch, i.e. as low consonants from high ones.The front-tongue consonants [t] and [t̑] are more intense sounds in comparison with [p] and [p̑];regarding the spectrum of their adjacent vowels, it is possible to attribute them to the class of high sounds. Respectively, the voiced consonants [d], [d̑] are also more intense than the labial [b], [b̑]. Besides, voiced sounds differ from their voiceless correlates [t] and [t̑] in sonority, yet [d] and [d̑] are more intense and have a slightly lower pitch than [t] and [t̑] respectively. Regarding the spectral dispersion of adjacent sounds, it should be noted that the hard consonants [t] and [d] noticeably increase the pitch of adjacent back vowels at their beginning and the end respectively.The most intense consonants in the subdialect of Prienai are the front-tongue (front-palate) and mid-tongue (mid-palate) sounds [k] and [k̑], as well as [g] and [g̑];they are also attributable to high-pitch consonants, except for being compact sounds. As in the case of [t] and [d], the hard [k] and [g] also noticeably increase the height of pitch in the articulation of adjacent back vowels.It should be noted that the spectra of respective voiced and voiceless plosives are similar, except for the fact that at word-initial positions, the spectrum of voiceless con­sonants is much more dispersed and not so prominent from the moment of plosion until the beginning of sonority because vocal folds do not vibrate during the pronunciation of a voiceless consonant.Palatalised plosive consonants differ from their counterpart hard plosives in the height of pitch: the following plosives of raised pitch should be regarded as sharp consonants: [b̑], [d̑], [g̑], [p̑], [t̑] and [k̑]. Pitch height differences are particularly noticeable between [k] and [k̑] as well as [g] and [g̑].The duration of plosive consonants has been noticed to be related to the place of consonant articulation: the shortest duration in the subdialect is typical of labial plosives. Perhaps the obstruction caused by speech organs at the front of the mouth is overcome faster than the one existing deeper in the mouth cavity.The prominence of aspiration depends both on the type of the syllable and adjacent consonants, their type, etc. The clearest aspiration is found with short stressed and cir­cumflex syllables. Aspiration is also amplified by a penultimate consonant of the same type, i.e. a plosive (nulùpkʽ ~ nulùpk ‘please peel’).Experimental investigation of the plosive consonant spectra has shown that phono­logical peculiarities and distinctive features of [p], [p̑], [t], [t̑], [k], [k̑], [b], [b̑], [d], [d̑], [g] and [g̑] are determined by the initial or final part of the spectrum of adjacent vowels, the duration, intensity and height of consonant spectrum. Plosive consonants are especially different in the character of dynamics that the second and the third formants in the initial or final sections of adjacent vowels possess, as well as in the tempo of shifting and in the position in their spectrum.The strongest impact of all the plosive (and other) consonants is on the initial or final section of the formants of adjacent vowels. For example, the influence of palatalised and non-palatalised consonants on the adjacent vowels is increasingly stronger the closer the vowel stands to the consonant.

Supralaryngeal articulatory signatures of three-way contrastive labial stops in Korean

This study investigates how the three-way contrastive bilabial stops (/p⁎,p h,p/, called fortis, aspirated and lenis, respectively) in word-medial position in Korean are distinct kinematically at the supralaryngeal articulatory level. Results of a magnetometer experiment with seven speakers of Seoul Korean showed that the three-way contrastive stops in VCV sequences (V=/i/ or /a/) are indeed manifested at the supralaryngeal level—not only in consonantal articulation, but also in vocalic articulation of their adjacent vowels. Several specific points have emerged. First, stops were three-way distinct in constriction degree and constriction duration (/p*/>/p h/>/p/). Second, their contrast was also evident in temporal dimensions of the vocalic tongue movement with a three-way distinct pattern (/p*/>/p h/>/p/), and of the lip opening movement with a two-way distinction (/p*,p h/>/p/). Third, consonantal strength was further reflected in V-to-V coarticulation, such that longer constriction triggered more reduction of V-to-V coarticulation. However, there was a case (for /i/ in carryover direction) in which coarticulatory reduction was still observed even when the duration was factored in, showing duration-independent V-to-V coarticulatory resistance associated with the fortis and aspirated stops. Fourth, stable coordination was observed between the lip constriction and the vocalic tongue movement which is in line with previous findings in Japanese and English, suggesting cross-linguistic similarities in consonant–vowel gestural coordination regardless of the rhythmic structure of a given language.

Coarticulation between tone and glottal consonants in Itunyoso Trique

This paper investigates the realization of contrastive tone in three non-modal phonation contexts (creaky phonation, glottal closure, and breathy phonation) in Itunyoso Trique, an Oto-Manguean language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico. The study examines how coarticulatory glottalization (creaky phonation, glottal closure) coincides with coarticulatory pitch perturbations and spectral tilt changes on neighboring vowels. The onset of laryngeally induced F 0 perturbation effects and the timing of changes in spectral tilt were examined using acoustic data from six speakers of the language. The results show that in contexts where substantial non-modal phonation spreads onto the adjacent vowel, greater pitch effects are observed. In contexts where abrupt glottal closure occurs, less coarticulatory changes in spectral tilt and pitch are observed on adjacent vowels. In addition, strong tonal effects are observed for certain spectral measures. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature on tonogenesis and coarticulatory pitch effects.

Effects of Gender on the Production of Emphasis in Jordanian Arabic: A Sociophonetic Study

Emphasis, or pharyngealization, is a distinctive phonetic phenomenon and a phonemic feature of Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew. The goal of this study is to investigate the effect of gender on the production of emphasis in Jordanian Arabic as manifested on the consonants themselves as well as on the adjacent vowels. To this end, 22 speakers of Jordanian Arabic, 12 males and 10 females, participated in a production experiment where they produced monosyllabic minimal CVC pairs contrasted on the basis of the presence of a word-initial plain or emphatic consonant. Several acoustic parameters were measured including Voice Onset Time (VOT), friction duration, the spectral mean of the friction noise, vowel duration and the formant frequencies (F1-F3) of the vowels. The results of this study indicated that VOT is a reliable acoustic correlate of emphasis in Jordanian Arabic only for voiceless stops whose emphatic VOT was significantly shorter than their plain VOT. Also, emphatic fricatives were shorter than plain fricatives. Emphatic vowels were found to be longer than plain vowels. Overall, the results showed that emphatic vowels were characterized by a raised F1 at the onset and midpoint of the vowel, lowered F2 throughout the vowel, and raised F3 at the onset and offset of the vowel relative to the corresponding values of the plain vowels. Finally, results using Nearey‟s (1978) normalization algorithm indicated that emphasis was more acoustically evident in the speech of males than in the speech of females in terms of the F-pattern. The results are discussed from a sociolinguistic perspective in light of the previous literature and the notion of linguistic feminism.

Phonetic vowel hiatus in Spanish

Phonologically, Spanish tolerates sequences of adjacent vowels at a word boundary, but coalescence and deletion have been impressionistically identified at this juncture as phonetic resolution strategies (Alba, 2006). In other languages, phonetic measurements of vowels in hiatus show gradient distinctions between different prosodic environments, supporting a gestural overlap analysis that produces the perception of deletion or coalescence (for example, Igbo, Catalan, and Greek). The current experimental study investigates phonetic manifestations of vowel hiatus in four prosodic environments (IP, PP, Pwd, and clitic) in Spanish to determine whether hiatus resolution is accomplished by vowel deletion or gestural overlap. The study was conducted with nine native speakers of Peninsular Spanish. The duration and formant frequencies of vowel sequences was measured in read sentences that manipulated boundary strength separating the two vowels. Higher-level prosodic boundaries IP and PP produced no significant hi...

Representations for Phonotactic Learning in Infancy

Infants rapidly learn novel phonotactic constraints from brief listening experience. Four experiments explored the nature of the representations underlying this learning. 16.5- and 10.5-month-old infants heard training syllables in which particular consonants were restricted to particular syllable positions (first-order constraints) or to syllable positions depending on the identity of the adjacent vowel (second-order constraints). Later, in a headturn listening-preference task, infants were presented with new syllables that either followed the experimental constraints or violated them. Infants at both ages learned first- and second-order constraints on consonant position (Experiments 1 and 2) but found second-order constraints more difficult to learn (Experiment 2). Infants also spontaneously generalized first-order constraints to syllables containing a new, transfer vowel; they did so whether the transfer vowel was similar to the familiarization vowels (Experiment 3), or dissimilar from them (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that infants recruit representations of individuated segments during phonological learning. Furthermore, like adults, they represent phonological sequences in a flexible manner that allows them to detect patterns at multiple levels of phonological analysis.

Neuromagnetic reflections of harmony and constraint violations in Turkish

AbstractVowel harmony is a phonotactic principle that requires adjacent vowels to agree in certain vowel features. Phonological theory considers this principle to be represented in one's native grammar, but its abstractness and perceptual consequences remain a matter of debate. In this paper, we are interested in the brain's response to violations of harmony in Turkish. For this purpose, we test two acoustically close and two acoustically distant vowel pairs in Turkish, involving different kinds of harmony violations. Our measure is the Mismatch Negativity (MMN), an automatic change detection response of the brain that has previously been applied for the study of native phoneme representations in a variety of languages. The results of our experiment support the view that vowel harmony is a phonological principle with a language-specific long-term memory representation. Asymmetries in MMN responses support a phonological analysis of the pattern of results, but do not provide evidence for a pure acoustic or a pure probabilistic approach. Phonological analyses are given within Optimality Theory (OT) and within an underspecification account.

Vowel confusion patterns in adults during initial 4 years of implant use

This study investigated adult cochlear implant users' (n = 39) vowel recognition and confusions by an open-set syllable test during 4 years of implant use, in a prospective repeated-measures design. Subjects' responses were coded for phoneme errors and estimated by the generalized mixed model. Improvement in overall vowel recognition was highest during the first 6 months, showing statistically significant change until 4 years, especially for the mediocre performers. The best performers improved statistically significantly until 18 months. The poorest performers improved until 12 months and exhibited more vowel confusions. No differences were found in overall vowel recognition between Nucleus24M/24R and Med-ElC40+ device users (matched comparison), but certain vowels showed statistically significant differences. Vowel confusions between adjacent vowels were evident, probably due to the implant users' inability to discriminate formant frequencies. Vowel confusions were also dominated by vowels whose average F1 and/or F2 frequencies were higher than the target vowel, indicating a basalward shift in the confusions.

Articulation from acoustics: Estimating constriction degree from the acoustic signal.

Voiced stops in Spanish (/b/, /d/, /g/) are often realized as approximants with incomplete supralaryngeal closure. A number of studies have shown that these are not allophonic variants but rather form part of a continuum of productions, influenced by a number of segmental and prosodic factors. Most work on this topic has used indirect acoustic measurements to estimate articulatory constriction degree. These methods include energy difference in CV (intensity minimum of the consonant over intensity maximum of adjacent vowels), spectral tilt, and maximum rising velocity of the intensity envelope in the CV transition [Kingston, LASP 3, (2008)]. These acoustic measures of constriction, while generally showing the same overall patterns, at times show significant differences in exact results [Hualde et al., LSRL (2010)]. The current study tests the accuracy of all three measures by comparing the acoustic results with articulatorily constriction degree, measured via electromagnetic articulometry (EMA). Comparisons are conducted using only /b/, as calculation of articulatory constriction degree using EMA is more accurate for bilabials than for coronals or velars. The results show for the first time the relative accuracy of three widely used acoustic tools for estimating articulatory constriction degree.

Inducing Epenthesis: Phonetic, Phonological and Morphological Considerations

No abstract.

Performance of phonemically targeted processing in conjunction with compression processing with spectral enhancement.

The goal of the present study is to test, individually and in combination, two signal-processing strategies designed to improve both consonant and vowel perception. In the first strategy, specific consonants were targeted for processing to increase amplitude and duration. For consonants with a duration increase, the adjacent vowel was decreased proportionately in order to maintain overall word and sentence duration. Second, Coliga, an adaptive compression-processing strategy incorporating spectral enhancement, was used to process stimuli. Hearing-in-noise-test sentences were presented monaurally to normal-hearing and hearing-impaired adults in the presence of speech-shaped noise. For normal-hearing listeners, it appears that Coliga is improving intelligibility in certain conditions. Conservative amounts of duration and amplitude processing need to be applied in combination rather than when applied independently in order to provide benefit. For the hearing-impaired listeners, Coliga with spectral enhancement resulted in poorer performance than without, for all conditions except for the Coliga-only conditions, where the intelligibility was the same. It appears that phonemically-targeted speech processing and Coliga are working antagonistically due to either 1) the processing method negating the benefits when the two are combined, or 2) combining the duration and amplitude components leading to no benefit despite documented benefit of each when employed individually.

An acoustic study of front rounded vowels in Shetland dialect.

This paper presents an acoustic analysis of front rounded vowels (FRVs) in the dialect spoken in the Shetland Islands, the northernmost locality of the British Isles. FRVs are typologically marked and estimated to occur in only 6.6% of the world’s languages [I. Maddieson, in Haspelmath et al. The World Atlas of Language Structures (2005)]. Their occurrence in the Shetland dialect is, at least partly, attributable to a Scandinavian substratum language. There is significant variation across the archipelago regarding several aspects such as (1) the number of lexically contrastive FRVs, (2) phonetic quality (close to half-close), (3) contrastive length, and (4) lexical distribution and support. This paper presents an investigation of three speakers from one locality in which FRVs have retained firm lexical support. The issues addressed concern the dialect’s overall acoustic vowel space (based on F1, F2, and F3), the position of FRVs within the acoustic space, and what the contrasts among FRVs and other adjacent vowels appear to rest on acoustically. Special focus is directed to phonetic contexts that support the greatest number of vowel contrasts and display the most crowded acoustic vowels spaces.

Acoustic vowel space in pre‐/r/ contexts: Shetland and American English.

The acoustic space available to vowel systems in pre‐/r/ contexts commonly differs from that of other phonetic contexts. In English this space has gradually shrunk, which relates to changes in the phonetic nature of /r/, having gone from more consonantal articulations (tap, trill) to approximant and often complex articulations that have a stronger effect on the production and perception of adjacent vowels (e.g., “bunched” and retroflex /r/). This paper contains an acoustic study of pre‐/r/ vowel systems in Shetland and American English. F1–F3 values were obtained from steady state vowel portions from words spoken in isolation. The acoustic vowel spaces and the positions of contrastive items within these are compared and discussed in relation to the phonetic nature of /r/ and its effects on vowel formants. In contrast to American English, Shetland maintains a trill or tap as the principal realization of /r/, and the full range of vowel contrasts found elsewhere is supported before /r/. As Shetland is one of the most conservative English dialects in this respect, the study may also offer some insight into the acoustic characteristics of English pre‐/r/ vowel systems of earlier periods and the pressures affecting such systems.

Identification of synthetic vowels based on selected vocal tract area functions.

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which synthetic vowel samples based on previously reported vocal tract area functions of eight speakers could be accurately identified by listeners. Vowels were synthesized with a wave-reflection type of vocal tract model coupled to a voice source. A particular vowel was generated by specifying an area function that had been derived from previous magnetic resonance imaging based measurements. The vowel samples were presented to ten listeners in a forced choice paradigm in which they were asked to identify the vowel. Results indicated that the vowels [i], [ae], and [u] were identified most accurately for all of speakers. The identification errors of the other vowels were typically due to confusions with adjacent vowels.