Front Vowels Research Articles

Production Variability and Categorical Perception of Vowels Are Strongly Linked.

Theoretical models of speech production suggest that the speech motor system (SMS) uses auditory goals to determine errors in its auditory output during vowel production. This type of error calculation indicates that within-speaker production variability of a given vowel is related to the size of the vowel’s auditory goal. However, emerging evidence suggests that the SMS may also take into account perceptual knowledge of vowel categories (in addition to auditory goals) to estimate errors in auditory feedback. In this study, we examined how this mechanism influences within-speaker variability in vowel production. We conducted a study (n = 40 adults), consisting of a vowel categorization task and a vowel production task. The vowel categorization task was designed—based on participant-specific vowels—to estimate the categorical perceptual boundary (CPB) between two front vowels (/ε/ and /æ/). Using the vowel production data of each participant, we calculated a variability-based boundary (VBB) located at the “center of mass” of the two vowels. The inverse of the standard deviation of a vowel distribution was used as the “mass” of the vowel. We found that: (a) categorical boundary was located farther from more variable vowels; and (b) the calculated VBB (i.e., the center of mass of the vowels) significantly and positively correlated with the estimated categorical boundary (r = 0.912 for formants calculated in hertz; r = 0.854 for formants calculated in bark). Overall, our findings support a view that vowel production and vowel perception are strongly and bidirectionally linked.

Investigating the conditions on target-context assimilation in speech sound categorization

Many studies have shown that listeners perceptually differentiate target sounds in categorization tasks from their neighboring context sounds, but some have shown that targets are perceptually assimilated to their contexts. We test the hypothesis that differentiation occurs in context-target order because the context is taken as the criterion for categorizing the target, but assimilation occurs in target-context order because the context's acoustics are parsed as target information. In our experiments, the target was a labial-to-coronal consonant continuum or a front-to-back vowel continuum in VC and CV strings, and the contexts were the other continuum's endpoints. As the second sound in VC or CV, the target differentiated from the preceding context: listeners responded "labial" or "back" more often after front vowels and coronal consonants, respectively. With a target V in VC, the target assimilated to the following context: listeners responded "back" more often before labial consonants. For C in CV, some listeners assimilated the consonant to the following vowel: they responded "labial" more often before back vowels. Others instead differentiated the consonant from the vowel: they responded "coronal" more often before back vowels. Follow-up experiments will determine the conditions in which a consonant assimilates to or differentiates from a following vowel.

The southern shift and regional identity in Appalachia

The Southern Vowel Shift (SVS) historically occurred across the Southern U.S. (e.g., Labov et al., 1972; Feagin, 1986). Several recent studies document the retreat of the SVS in the urban (Fridland, 1999; Prichard, 2010; Dodsworth and Kohn, 2012). However, Irons (2007) found the SVS advancing in rural Kentucky. Thus, Fridland notes the SVS might not be supra-regional norm, serving rather as ecological distinction within the South (2012:187). As an ecological distinction, SVS features might reflect a speaker’s orientation toward differing ecologies. Thus, a speaker with a rural orientation might use more SVS features than a speaker who is less rurally oriented. The present paper investigates the SVS in rural speech examining three features: monophthongization of /aI/, rotation of /E/ and /e/, and rotation of /I/ and /i/. Data come from sociolinguistic interviews, reading passages, and words lists from 25 speakers from rural northeast Tennessee. Additionally, every participant completed a Rootedness Metric, a psychometric survey that quantifies place-based orientation. Results indicate that speakers exhibit SVS features, with reversals of the relative front vowel positions and monophthongization of /aI/ in all positions (cf. Irons, 2007). However, more rooted speakers exhibited the most advanced SVS features. Thus, the central difference of SVS features may not merely be ecological, rather the speaker’s relationship to the differing regional ecologies.The Southern Vowel Shift (SVS) historically occurred across the Southern U.S. (e.g., Labov et al., 1972; Feagin, 1986). Several recent studies document the retreat of the SVS in the urban (Fridland, 1999; Prichard, 2010; Dodsworth and Kohn, 2012). However, Irons (2007) found the SVS advancing in rural Kentucky. Thus, Fridland notes the SVS might not be supra-regional norm, serving rather as ecological distinction within the South (2012:187). As an ecological distinction, SVS features might reflect a speaker’s orientation toward differing ecologies. Thus, a speaker with a rural orientation might use more SVS features than a speaker who is less rurally oriented. The present paper investigates the SVS in rural speech examining three features: monophthongization of /aI/, rotation of /E/ and /e/, and rotation of /I/ and /i/. Data come from sociolinguistic interviews, reading passages, and words lists from 25 speakers from rural northeast Tennessee. Additionally, every participant completed a Roo...

Paradigms in the Mental Lexicon: Evidence From German

Previous research showed that the mental lexicon is organized morphologically, but the evidence was limited to words that differ only in subphonemic detail. We investigated whether word forms that are related through morphology but have a different stem vowel affect each other's processing. We focused on two issues in two auditory lexical decision experiments. The first is whether the number of morphologically related word forms with the same stem vowel matters. The second is whether the source of similarity matters. Word recognition experiments have shown that word forms that are phonologically embedded and related through inflection speed up each other's recognition, suggesting the word forms are represented within one unit in the mental lexicon. Research has further shown that words that are related through derivation, but that are phonologically different, are affected in a different way than words that are related through inflection. We conducted two experiments to further investigate this. We used three subtypes of one inflectional class of German nouns, which allowed us to study different word forms with a phonological difference, while keeping the morphological relations among the word forms constant. All of these nouns have a plural form that ends in a \textipa{-@}. They differ in the distribution of front and back vowels in the singular, plural and diminutive. This allows us to investigate the question whether word forms with different phonemes are processed differently with regard to (a) the number of word forms that share a vowel, and (b) the source of the similarity among the word forms; is the processing among word forms related through inflection different from the processing of word forms that are related through derivation? We found that nonces that are based on word forms with a fronted vowel are mistaken for words when they resemble words in the word family, but not when they are unrelated to words in the word family. This shows that morphological effects in word auditory recognition studies are also found when the word forms differ in a full phoneme. We argue that this can be captured with a network representation, instantiated as a frame.

The augment in Tonga

Tonga (M64) is one of the Bantu languages with the augment morpheme. In Tonga, little research has been carried out on this morpheme, specifically on the shapes it takes, its use and constraints. What is known about this morpheme is mostly drawn from what is known about the augment in proto-Bantu, but a careful examination of this morpheme reveals that there is much more than what is currently known about this morpheme in Tonga. For example, it is widely thought that the augment in Tonga is only found in nouns, when in fact it is found in many other parts of speech such as pronouns, adjectives, possessives and numerals. This study is mainly descriptive, specifically focusing on the shapes the augment takes, its use and constraints. Data collected from both the young and older generation shows that the augment in Tonga is not only found in nouns, but also in most of the substantives in their definite and/or emphatic forms. The data also reveals that the augment in Tonga takes the shape of the front vowels and the low vowel, with the high front vowel being more productive.

Fricative vowels as an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization

Abstract Diphthongization and apicalization are two commonly detected phonetic and/or phonological processes for the development of high vowels, with the process of apicalization being of particular importance to the phonology of Chinese dialects. This paper describes acoustics and articulation of fricative vowels in the Suzhou dialect of Wu Chinese. Acquiring frication initiates the sound change. The production of fricative vowels in Suzhou is characterized by visible turbulent frication from the spectrograms, and a significant lower Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio vis-à-vis the plain counterparts. The acoustic study suggests that spectral characteristics of fricative vowels play a more important role in defining the vowel contrasts. The fricative high front vowels have comparatively greater F1 and smaller F2 and F3 values than their plain counterparts, and in the acoustic F1/F2 plane, the fricative vowels are located in an intermediate position between their plain and apical counterparts. The articulatory study revealed that that not only tongue dorsum but also tongue blade are involved in the production of fricative high front vowels in Suzhou. Phonologically, plain high front vowels, fricative high front vowels, and apical vowels distinguish in active place of articulation, namely being anterodorsal, laminal, and apical respectively; and frication becomes a concomitant and redundant feature in the production of fricative or apical vowels. It is concluded that the fine-grained phonetic details suggest that the fricative high front vowels in Suzhou is at an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization in terms of both acoustics and articulation.

Phonological Analysis on the Place Name ‘枳慕密地’, the Capital of Paek Je Dynasty

Phonological Analysis on the Place Name ‘枳慕密地’, the Capital of Paek Je Dynasty

Chapter 5: The Non-low(?) Short Front Vowels

Chapter 5: The Non-low(?) Short Front Vowels

The enregisterment of “Barnsley” dialect: Vowel fronting and being ‘broad’ in Yorkshire dialects

In this paper I investigate Yorkshire speakers' perceptions of Barnsley dialect. Interviews with speakers from different parts of Yorkshire revealed that the most frequently defined variety of “Yorkshire” dialect was “Barnsley”. When demonstrating how this variety differed from other Yorkshire varieties, informants produce a fronted vowel in the first syllable of ‘Barnsley’. I illustrate that this pronunciation has indexical links (Johnstone, Andrus, and Danielson 2006) to social values such as 'broad' and 'traditional', and that it is enregistered (Agha 2003) as a Barnsley feature. I conclude that language features can index multiple geographical areas simultaneously and that Yorkshire dialect is not only enregistered as a single variety, but also as sub-Yorkshire varieties.

English Vowel Hiatus and Consonant Epenthesis

Vowel hiatus arises when two vowels are locally adjacent but heterosyllabified within words or across word boundaries. In English, as well-described, vowel clash is resolved by two strategies; glide insertion and glottal stop insertion. In fact, these sounds are not underlyingly present but added for ease of articulation in casual or fast speech. Following sonority-driven prominence scale in V1-V2 sequences, the least marked glides are the most favored to fix vowel hiatus. Which glide is adopted is closely related to the feature of the first vowel; for a palatal /j/-glide, V1 is a high front vowel, for a labio-velar /w/-glide, a high back vowel and for a central liquid /r/-glide, also called the intrusive r, a non-high vowel, i.e. homorganic. Furthermore, provided that V2 gets stressed, a laryngeal plosive also fills an empty onset even though it is the most marked at the point of vowel hiatus. These hiatus resolution strategies are well-couched into Optimality Theory(OT) (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2004; McCarthy and Prince, 1995) where Dep[F] type constraints ranked over the sonority-driven markedness constraints determine the glide j/w-epenthesis the best and the intrusive r the second-best if the former is banned. Glottal stop addition is also employed as a rescue strategy to remove vowel clash when glides are all blocked, i.e. before V2 bearing stress.

An ultrasound study of contextual and syllabic effects in consonant sequences produced under heavy articulatory constraint conditions

The present ultrasound study investigates lingual coarticulatory resistance and differences in tongue configuration and contextual variability for consonants in syllable onset vs coda position in Catalan /iC#Ci/ sequences. In agreement with comparable ultrasound data for /aC#Ca/ sequences reported in an earlier study, coarticulatory resistance turned out to be less for /r/ (which is realized as a trill in onset position and exhibits a more tap-like realization in coda position), /l/ (which is not strongly dark), /s/ and the alveolopalatal /ɲ/ than for /p, t, n, k/. As expected, contextual variability was less for /iC#Ci/ than for /aC#Ca/ sequences due to the highly demanding requirements put on the tongue body by the high front vowel. Regarding the syllable-position-dependent differences, consonants were often longer but not less variable articulatorily in syllable initial than syllable final position. Syllable-position differences in lingual configuration could be ascribed to either a trend for consonants to be more prominent in onset vs coda position or to prominent coarticulatory effects from flanking /i/ rather than from the contextual consonant in the cluster. The conclusion is drawn that the reason why consonants may sound more reduced in coda vs onset position in heterosyllabic clusters is due less to their actual lingual configuration than to their being manifestly shorter and to specific production characteristics which depend not only on the upper articulators but on the jaw cycle as well.

Surface Velar Palatalization in Polish

This article investigates a palatalization process called Surface Velar Palatalization that turns /k g/ into [kj gj] before the front vowel e. What would appear to be a trivial rule, k g → kjgj/—ε, turns out to be a highly complex process. The complexity is caused by several independent factors. First, Surface Velar Palatalization, k g → kjgj, competes with Phonemic Velar Palatalization, k g → ʧ ʤ. Second, some but not all changes are restricted to derived environments. Third, some suffixes appear to be exceptions to one type of Palatalization but not to the other type. Fourth, /x/ behaves in an ambivalent way by undergoing one but not the other type of Palatalization. Fifth, Palatalization constraints interacting with segment inventory constraints yield different results in virtually the same contexts.I argue that the complexity of Surface Velar Palatalization motivates derivational levels in Optimality Theory. Further, the condition of derived environments is expressed as a constraint that is ranked differently at different levels of evaluation.A historical analysis of Surface Velar Palatalization tells the story of how the process came into being and operated for centuries in an unrestricted way. It subsequently became restricted to derived environments, which led to pronunciation reversals of the historical Duke of York type: gε → gjε → gε.*

The articulation of /ɹ/ in New Zealand English

This paper investigates the articulation of approximant /ɹ/ in New Zealand English (NZE), and tests whether the patterns documented for rhotic varieties of English hold in a non-rhotic dialect. Midsagittal ultrasound data for 62 speakers producing 13 tokens of /ɹ/ in various phonetic environments were categorized according to the taxonomy by Delattre & Freeman (1968), and semi-automatically traced and quantified using the AAA software (Articulate Instruments Ltd. 2012) and a Modified Curvature Index (MCI; Dawson, Tiede & Whalen 2016). Twenty-five NZE speakers produced tip-down /ɹ/ exclusively, 12 tip-up /ɹ/ exclusively, and 25 produced both, partially depending on context. Those speakers who produced both variants used the most tip-down /ɹ/ in front vowel contexts, the most tip-up /ɹ/ in back vowel contexts, and varying rates in low central vowel contexts. The NZE speakers produced tip-up /ɹ/ most often in word-initial position, followed by intervocalic, then coronal, and least often in velar contexts. The results indicate that the allophonic variation patterns of /ɹ/ in NZE are similar to those of American English (Mielke, Baker & Archangeli 2010, 2016). We show that MCI values can be used to facilitate /ɹ/ gesture classification; linear mixed-effects models fit on the MCI values of manually categorized tongue contours show significant differences between all but two of Delattre & Freeman's (1968) tongue types. Overall, the results support theories of modular speech motor control with articulation strategies evolving from local rather than global optimization processes, and a mechanical model of rhotic variation (see Stavness et al. 2012).

A quantitative analysis of the phonemic status of the Russian vowel y

One of the constant controversies among scholars of Russian phonology is the phonological status of the vowel y. The Moscow School regards the middle vowel y as an allophone of the front vowel phoneme /i/. On the other hand, the Saint Petersburg School argues that the vowel y is a phoneme that has an opposing relationship with all other vowels, including i. The reason why these two Schools argue over this vowel’s identity is that the vowel y has an ambiguous status in the Russian vowel system. The concept of a phoneme in traditional phonology cannot explain these borderline examples. In this paper, the Probabilistic Phonological Relationship Model (PPRM) of information theory is used to reveal the phonological status of the Russian vowel y. Our analysis shows that the status of the vowels y and i in the Russian language system is closer to the opposition of different phonemes than to the relationship of a phoneme and one of its allophones.

Sub-articulatory interactions in palatalization processes

Palatalization is a widespread phenomenon across the world’s languages and is typically conceived articulatorily as a tongue body raising and/or fronting gesture that is spread from high and/or front vowels to neighboring consonants. Oddly, palatalization of labial consonants (which allow the greatest degree of gestural overlap with neighboring high and/or front vowels) is typologically least common, suggesting that palatalization processes do not primarily result from gestural overlap, but instead arise from the resolution of incompatible lingual “sub-articulations.” In particular, articulatory data from Polish and Russian palatalized consonants point to a critical role for tongue root interactions with tongue blade and dorsum gestures. The products of these resolved sub-articulatory interactions can become lexicalized and reconfigured by later generations of language-learners in response to the interaction of phonological pressure to maintain contrasts and new palatalization processes. The etymological history of the Proto-Slavic stems *menk- and *ment- illustrates these interactions. The velar consonant in *menk- was palatalized by a following high, front vowel to a “soft” posterior affricate. Subsequently, the coronal consonant in *ment- was palatalized as well (Modern Polish mącić). To maintain the contrast between the sound categories, the palatalized velar was reconfigured as a post-alveolar “hard” consonant (męczyć).

Vowel confusion patterns in children and adults with cochlear implants

Suboptimal interfaces between cochlear implant (CI) electrodes and their target neurons may distort the spectral information that is important for vowel identification. The goal of this investigation was to relate vowel confusion patterns of CI users to their site-specific (i.e., frequency-specific) variation in electrode-neuron interface across the electrode array. The electrode-neuron interface is estimated using single-channel detection thresholds with a spatially focused electrode configuration; elevated thresholds indicate channels with relatively poorer frequency transmission. We hypothesized that higher focused thresholds on channels transmitting low frequency (<983 Hz) information would be associated with errors in vowel height, whereas higher thresholds on channels transmitting mid- and high-frequency (>984 Hz) information would be related to vowel advancement errors. Vowel recognition was assessed with a closed set of medial vowels in 4-talker babble noise. Focused thresholds were measured on electrodes 2–15. Vowel confusions were examined according to the direction of errors in 2-dimensional physical articulatory and acoustic F1-F2 space. Results showed that higher average focused thresholds on the 3 most basal electrodes tested (2327–4630 Hz) were associated with perception of front vowels as more back. These findings suggest that suboptimal electrode-neuron interfaces could systematically affect CI listeners’ perception of vowel characteristics.

Acoustic features of intelligible speech produced under reverberant environments

Clear speech has been shown to have an intelligibility advantage over conversational speech in reverberant environments. Speech produced in reverberant environments is also reported to be more intelligible than ones produced in normal environments. Speakers adapt to the environments by modifying their articulation, and acoustics of speech. The speech produced under reverberant conditions should be modified similarly with the clear speech. Identifying the distinctive features which are shared between these speech types gives insights into which acoustic features are robust cues even in reverberant environments. In the present study, we investigated voices uttered by speakers who produced Japanese words under reverberant conditions (T60 = 1 s–5 s). Speech intelligibility tests, and acoustic analyses were performed. The results showed that, first, speech produced under long T60 is more intelligible in reverberant environments. Second, the intelligible speech has expanded vowel space with high F2 for front vowels and low F2 for back vowels, and high F1 for open vowels and low F1 for close vowels. Brief formant transitions were also found. These articulatory/acoustic modifications are likely to be enhancements of significant perceptual cues. The acoustic/articulatory features of each vowel become clearer (hyper-articulated speech; i.e., clear speech.) Moreover, perceptual compensation to reduce co-articulation effects should become easier.

Spectral change and duration as cues in Australian English listeners' front vowel categorization.

Australian English /iː/, /ɪ/, and /ɪə/ exhibit almost identical average first (F1) and second (F2) formant frequencies and differ in duration and vowel inherent spectral change (VISC). The cues of duration, F1 × F2 trajectory direction (TD) and trajectory length (TL) were assessed in listeners' categorization of /iː/ and /ɪə/ compared to /ɪ/. Duration was important for distinguishing both /iː/ and /ɪə/ from /ɪ/. TD and TL were important for categorizing /iː/ versus /ɪ/, whereas only TL was important for /ɪə/ versus /ɪ/. Finally, listeners' use of duration and VISC was not mutually affected for either vowel compared to /ɪ/.

Vowels and tones in Poula

AbstractThis paper presents a sketch of the vowels and tones in the Poula language as spoken in the Naamai (Koide) village of Manipur. Acoustic studies on the vowels and tones are conducted in this work, and it is concluded that Poula has a six vowel inventory like many of the languages in the vicinity; however the distribution of vowels in Poula is quite peculiar, with the absence of high back vowels and presence of two high front vowels. In case of tones, this study reports four tones in Poula, namely, High-falling, Rising-falling, Mid and Low. The paper concludes with a short discussion on tones in Poula underived words.

Accent-induced bias in linguistic transcriptions

Many linguistic analyses rely on phonetic transcriptions. Two factors that might affect the accuracy of transcriptions are perceived accent and the listener's linguistic knowledge about that accent. This article focuses on the susceptibility of transcribers to such accent-induced bias, based on speaker's accent, transcriber's variety, and the transcriber's knowledge about the language variety they are transcribing. We offer a method to statistically detect accent-induced biases in linguistic transcriptions.This article investigates accent-induced bias in transcriptions of Reference French and Laurentian French (in Canada). In Reference French, high front vowels are phonologically tense /i y/, but they may be phonetically realised as lax [ɪ ʏ]. In Laurentian French, lax [ɪ ʏ] occur as allophones of /i y/. We compare transcriptions of different groups of coders: native speakers of Reference French, native speakers of Laurentian French, and advanced L2 learners of French who are native speakers of Dutch. Half of the Dutch group was informed about the native variety of the speakers and the other half was not.Results show that perceived accent among the native transcribers is a relatively strong predictor for transcribed sounds. In addition, the Dutch transcribers who were informed about the speaker's variety transcribed more lax vowels in Laurentian French and more tense vowels in Reference French than the Dutch transcribers who were not informed. Native transcribers also showed contextual effects related to the allophonic distribution of the vowels in Laurentian French. These results are indicative of accent-induced bias. The results are analysed in a predictive top-down model to explain the effect of prior experience and information about the language variety in speech perception.