Voice Onset Time Measurements Research Articles

An investigation of acoustic cues to tonal registers and voicing in Donglei Kama).

The Kam language has experienced historical tonal splits, resulting in the development of a complex tonal system. However, there is still limited knowledge regarding the acoustic characteristics associated with aspiration-based tone splitting. This study aims to investigate the acoustic cues related to the tonal registers and laryngeal configurations in Donglei Kam, a dialect of Southern Kam. Sixteen native speakers of Donglei Kam participated, producing lexical tones. Statistical analyses were conducted to examine the acoustic distinctions between tonal registers, using measurements of voice onset time, spectral tilt, noise, and energy. The results indicated that Donglei Kam retained a two-way contrast of aspiration, albeit with a trend toward gradual loss. Additionally, a breathy voice was detected in the Ciyin tonal register, characterized by elevated spectral tilt values and spectral noise throughout the vowels. Moreover, machine learning classifiers effectively identified tonal registers using voice-quality data, suggesting that the phonation contrast between breathy and modal voice could contribute to the tonal split alongside pitch contrast. In summary, these findings enhance our understanding of the acoustic implementation of breathiness in Kam and offer valuable insights into the role of laryngeal contrast in tonal splits.

Comparison the Voice Onset Time (VOT) of Postlingual Cochlear Implant Users and Normal Peers in the CAPE_V Sentences as Continues Speech Task

BackgroundAuditory perception plays a crucial role in speech and language development, emphasizing concerns about hearing loss. While cochlear implantation nearly tackles challenges associated with post-lingual hearing loss in adults, the importance of "auditory feedback" and acoustic assessment becomes crucial for evaluating speech disorders and devising effective treatments. This study aims to address the gap in assessing Voice Onset Time (VOT) as an indicator of nuanced variations in the speech of cochlear implant users during a continuous speech task. MethodRecordings of Persian CAPE-V sentences were obtained from 25 cochlear implant (CI) users and 25 healthy speakers, with a mean age of 33.2 years (SD=11.5, range=18-55 years). Ten words, incorporating both voiced and voiceless consonants, were selected from the CAPE-V sentences. VOT measurements for the specified stop consonants at the initial syllables of these chosen words were computed using PRAAT. A comparative analysis between the two age- and gender-matched groups was conducted using an independent sample t-test. Subsequently, ANCOVA was employed to examine the influence of demographic factors on VOT values among CI participants. ResultsUnvoiced consonant /p/ in /po/, /pɑ/, /pe/, and /pa/ syllables had higher VOT values in the healthy group, while the voiced consonant /d/ in /da/ and /di/ syllables demonstrated higher VOT values in the CI group. (P<0.05) Apart from /po/ and /di/ syllables, no significant impacts of demographic factors on VOT values were observed (P≥0.8). ConclusionDespite the improvement in speech quality after cochlear implantation, subtle differences persist. The motor theory, which underscores the impact of auditory inputs on temporal coordination, highlights the role of VOT in speech discrimination. Various linguistic factors affect VOT, including articulation position, vowel context, and raised vowels. While CI enhances syllable distinction, challenges in articulation for adults suggest a need for targeted training in rehabilitation programs, ultimately enhancing the quality of life for CI users.

Phonemic and pitch variability in bilingual preschoolers: A comparison of Jamaican Creole and English

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the cross-linguistic influences of Jamaican Creole (JC) and English on phonemic and vocal development in bilingual JC-English-speaking preschoolers. Method Sixteen typically developing children (12 females, M = 4 years; 4 months) completed the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation in Phonology Word Inconsistency Assessment subtest in JC and in English. Acoustic measures of voice onset time (VOT), VOT variability (VOT SD), mean fundamental frequency (f o), and f o variability (f o SD) were extracted from each target word. Prevoicing was noted. Mixed models and regression models were analysed to understand the patterns of acoustic measures in each language, and the relationship between phonemic and vocal variability, respectively. Result Analyses showed a significant effect of language on f o SD, wherein SD was greater in English than JC. JC spoken (percentage) was a significant positive predictor of VOT SD for voiced (short lag) productions. There was no relationship between phonemic and vocal variability measures. Conclusion Greater f o SD in English may be due to linguistic f o differences and speaking environment. Variability for voiced VOT is likely due to the continued maturation of vocal and articulatory control when children are developing adult-like productions, though longitudinal studies are needed.

The Effect of Speaking Rate on the Voice Onset Time (VOT) of Bahdini Kurdish Stops

This research examines the effect of speaking rate on the voice onset time (VOT) of stop consonants in Bahdini Kurdish. 30 native speakers are chosen to take part in this study. VOT values are measured for all 10 Kurdish stop consonants produced by participants in carrier words in initial prevocalic onset position. The duration of the carrier word is also measured by using the Web MAUS service (Munich Automatic Segmentation), which is used for word duration measurements. Word duration measurements are compared to the VOT measurements to check whether they are both correlated or not based on laryngeal state and place of stop articulation (POA). Results reveal that there is an effect of speaking rate on VOT based on the three-way laryngeal contrast between the categories of voiced, voiceless aspirated and voiceless unaspirated stops in Bahdini Kurdish. VOT increases as word durations increase, which is inversely related to speaking rate. This means that VOT increases as speaking rate decreases. There is a systematic correlation between VOT and word duration based on different laryngeal states of voiced, voiceless aspirated and voiceless unaspirated stop categories. However, Place of Articulation (POA) does not show such an effect.

CONSTRAINTS ON THE VARIABILITY IN ENGLISH VOICE ONSET TIME PRODUCTION: EVIDENCE FROM SPONTANEOUS SPEECH

Voice onset time (VOT) - an aspect of stop production, is known to be constrained by a number of word-level and speaker-level factors. While there has been extensive experimental research on VOT production, few studies have situated this aspect in naturally-occurring spontaneous speech. The goal of this study is twofold. First, we determine if the factors that affect VOT production in experimental studies conducted in speech laboratories are also relevant for VOT production in spontaneous speech. Second, we explore the possible interactions among those factors. In this study, a spoken corpus consisting of clips from a reality TV show was analyzed using a semi-automatic VOT measurement method that allows for the quick and reliable processing of large numbers of VOT measures. The findings confirm the effects of word-level constraints in the expected directions; however, we find negligible effects of speakers' individual differences, namely speech rate and speaker’s gender, on VOTs. The current study sheds new light on a range of factors that were previously identified as significantly affecting the patterning of VOTs found in experimentally-elicited data.

Voice Onset Time in Children With and Without Vocal Fold Nodules.

Voice onset time (VOT) of voiceless consonants provides information on the coordination of the vocal and articulatory systems. This study examined whether vocal-articulatory coordination is affected by the presence of vocal fold nodules (VFNs) in children. The voices of children with VFNs (6-12 years) and age- and gender-matched vocally healthy controls were examined. VOT was calculated as the time between the voiceless stop consonant burst and the vocal onset of the vowel. Measures of the average VOT and VOT variability, defined as the coefficient of variation, were calculated. The acoustic measure of dysphonia, cepstral peak prominence (CPP), was also calculated. CPP provides information about the overall periodicity of the signal, with more dysphonic voices having lower CPP values. There were no significant differences in either average VOT or VOT variability between the VFN and control groups. VOT variability and average VOT were both significantly predicted by the interaction between Group and CPP. There was a significant negative correlation between CPP and VOT variability in the VFN group, but no significant relationship was found in the control group. Unlike previous studies with adults, there were no group differences in average VOT or VOT variability in this study. However, children with VFNs who were more dysphonic had increased VOT variability, suggestive of a relationship between dysphonia severity and control of vocal onset during speech production.

영어 어미 ‘-ge’에서 보이는 마찰음의 무성음화 현상: 파열음의 기음화와 모음의 비음화

In English, the pronunciation of the suffix ‘-ge’ is generally allocated between fricative /ʒ/ and affricate /dʒ/. However, sometimes they are devoiced to /ʃ/ and /tʃ/, respectively. So far, this phenomenon has been well known as ‘articulatory reduction’ or ‘lenition’: the devoicing from /z/ to /s/, for example. This paper analyzes the examples containing the suffix ‘-ge’ (e.g. ‘camouflage’, ‘sabotage’, and ‘bricolage’), which show these phonological phenomena frequently. Two of the main parameters are considered as primary causes: ‘plosive aspiration’ and ‘vowel nasalization’ around the adjacent syllable. Praat is used for the measurement of voice onset time and spectrum analysis based on a fast Fourier transformation (FFT) and linear prediction coding (LPC) filter. For the normalization of aspirated plosive prefix sounds, a novel concept of ‘specific impulse’ is proposed and utilized for the assessment of aerodynamic load. It is also explained that the bypass of airflow at the vowels involving nasal consonants enhanced the devoicing. Therefore, we constructed a guideline for the predictive criteria of sound in the suffix containing fricatives, /ʒ/ and /ʃ/.

The onset of voice onset time: Measuring the emergent timing of laryngeal and oral gestures in early speech development

Voicing contrasts in stop consonants are predominantly signaled by manipulation of voice onset time (VOT), the relative timing of oral and laryngeal gestures responsible for the release of the oral constriction and the onset of phonation. VOT is usually measured from the acoustic signal and defined by the time between the stop consonant burst and the following glottal period. Although this works well in adult speech, the same measure can be problematic when applied to child vocalizations. Infant productions of closant-vocant sequences perceived as consonant-vowel syllables by adults often do not exhibit full closure and are voiced throughout. Traditional measures of VOT cannot then be employed, even though evidence from the acoustic signal can still be used to deduce the presence and timing of precursors of the oral and laryngeal gestures from which adult voicing contrasts later emerge. This study illustrates these issues using data derived from home audio recordings made monthly from birth to three years as part of a large-scale, longitudinal study of infant vocal development. New methods for measuring VOT are proposed, using the relative amplitude, frequency and phase of the harmonics in the acoustic signal to infer the timing of underlying articulatory gestures.

Non-nutritive suck and voice onset time: Examining infant oromotor coordination.

The variability of a child's voice onset time (VOT) decreases during development as they learn to coordinate upper vocal tract and laryngeal articulatory gestures. Yet, little is known about the relationship between VOT and other early motor tasks. The aims of this study were to evaluate the relationship between infant vocalization and another early oromotor task, non-nutritive suck (NNS). Twenty-five full-term infants (11 male, 14 female) completed this study. NNS was measured with a customized pacifier at 3 months to evaluate this early reflex. Measures of mean VOT and variability of VOT (measured via coefficient of variation) were collected from 12-month-old infants using a Language Environmental Analysis device. Variability of VOTs at 12 months was significantly related to NNS measures at 3-months. Increased VOT variability was primarily driven by increased NNS intraburst frequency and increased NNS burst duration. There were no relationships between average VOT or range of VOT and NNS measures. Findings from this pilot study indicate a relationship between NNS measures of intraburst frequency and burst duration and VOT variability. Infants with increased NNS intraburst frequency and NNS burst duration had increased VOT variability, suggesting a relationship between the development of VOT and NNS in the first year of life. Future work is needed to continue to examine the relationship between these early oromotor actions and to evaluate how this may impact later speech development.

Longitudinal Developments in Bilingual Second Language Acquisition and First Language Attrition of Speech: The Case of Arnold Schwarzenegger

The purpose of this investigation was to trace first (L1) and second language (L2) segmental speech development in the Austrian German–English late bilingual Arnold Schwarzenegger over a period of 40 years, which makes it the first study to examine a bilingual’s speech development over several decades in both their languages. To this end, acoustic measurements of voice onset time (VOT) durations of word-initial plosives (Study 1) and formant frequencies of the first and second formant of Austrian German and English monophthongs (Study 2) were conducted using speech samples collected from broadcast interviews. The results of Study 1 showed a merging of Schwarzenegger’s German and English voiceless plosives in his late productions as manifested in a significant lengthening of VOT duration in his German plosives, and a shortening of VOT duration in his English plosives, closer to L1 production norms. Similar findings were evidenced in Study 2, revealing that some of Schwarzenegger’s L1 and L2 vowel categories had moved closer together in the course of L2 immersion. These findings suggest that both a bilingual’s first and second language accent is likely to develop and reorganize over time due to dynamic interactions between the first and second language system.

An acoustic description of Mixean Basque.

This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Mixean Low Navarrese, an endangered variety of Basque. The manuscript includes an overview of previous acoustic studies performed on different Basque varieties in order to synthesize the sparse acoustic descriptions of the language that are available. This synthesis serves as a basis for the acoustic analysis performed in the current study, in which the various acoustic analyses given in previous studies are replicated in a single, cohesive general acoustic description of Mixean Basque. The analyses include formant and duration measurements for the six-vowel system, voice onset time measurements for the three-way stop system, spectral center of gravity for the sibilants, and number of lingual contacts in the alveolar rhotic tap and trill. Important findings include: a centralized realization ([ʉ]) of the high-front rounded vowel usually described as /y/; a data-driven confirmation of the three-way laryngeal opposition in the stop system; evidence in support of an alveolo-palatal to apical sibilant merger; and the discovery of a possible incipient merger of rhotics. These results show how using experimental acoustic methods to study under-represented linguistic varieties can result in revelations of sound patterns otherwise undescribed in more commonly studied varieties of the same language.

Effect of emphasis spread on coronal stop articulation in Qatari Arabic

Emphasis (contrastive uvularisation) in Arabic spreads from an emphatic consonant to neighboring segments (Davis 1995). The effect of emphasis spread on a consonant is manifested as lowering of its spectral mean (Jongman et al. 2011). Although stop consonants reveal a strong effect of emphasis, it is not known how emphasis spread affects other acoustic properties of stops, e.g. voice onset time (VOT). Previous studies (Kulikov 2018) showed that VOT and emphasis are linked in speech production: plain /t/ in Gulf Arabic is aspirated; emphatic /ṭ/ has short-lag VOT. Phonological theory predicts that plain /t/ should become more emphatic in emphatic context, which might reduce stop VOT as well. The current study investigates the effect of emphasis spread on VOT in word-initial coronal stops in Qatari Arabic. The stimuli, produced by sixteen native speakers of Qatari Arabic, contained target plain and emphatic stops /t/, /ṭ/ followed by short or long low vowel, and plain coronal obstruents /t, s, ð/ or their emphatic counterparts /ṭ, ṣ, ð̣/. The acoustic analysis included measurements of VOT and spectral mean of burst in the stop, and F1, F2, F3 frequencies at the vowel beginning, middle and end. The results showed that final emphatic obstruent triggered emphasis spread across the syllable. The effect of emphasis on the vowel was stronger next to the emphatic obstruent (p &lt; .01). Spectral mean of burst in plain /t/ was lower in the emphatic context (D = 276 Hz, p = .05). VOT, however, was not affected by emphasis spread. Plain /t/ had long-lag VOT averaging 52 ms; emphatic /ṭ/ had short-lag VOT averaging 17 ms. These values were not different in emphatic context (p = .743). The findings demonstrate that emphasis spread within a syllable affects only spectral characteristics of a coronal stop. Emphaticness of plain /t/ did not affect its VOT and did not result in complete transformation of the stop category

Voice Onset Time in Individuals With Hyperfunctional Voice Disorders: Evidence for Disordered Vocal Motor Control

Purpose This study examined vocal hyperfunction (VH) using voice onset time (VOT). We hypothesized that speakers with VH would produce shorter VOTs, indicating increased laryngeal tension, and more variable VOTs, indicating disordered vocal motor control. Method We enrolled 32 adult women with VH (aged 20-74 years) and 32 age- and sex-matched controls. All were speakers of American English. Participants produced vowel-consonant-vowel combinations that varied by vowel (ɑ/u) and plosive (p/b, t/d, k/g). VOT-measured at the release of the plosive to the initiation of voicing-was averaged over three repetitions of each vowel-consonant-vowel combination. The coefficient of variation (CoV), a measure of VOT variability, was also computed for each combination. Results The mean VOTs were not significantly different between the two groups; however, the CoVs were significantly greater in speakers with VH compared to controls. Voiceless CoV values were moderately correlated with clinical ratings of dysphonia (r = .58) in speakers with VH. Conclusion Speakers with VH exhibited greater variability in phonemic voicing targets compared to vocally healthy speakers, supporting the hypothesis for disordered vocal motor control in VH. We suggest future work incorporate VOT measures when assessing auditory discrimination and auditory-motor integration deficits in VH.

CAN VOICE ONSET TIME EXPLAIN VOWEL DURATION VARIATION?

Vowel durations have been reported in many languages to vary before syllable final stops; these durations are shorter before voiceless stops and longer before voiced ones. One type of explanations to this phenomenon suggests prevocalic effect influencing vowel duration variation. The present study attempts at a preliminary investigation to find out whether the voice onset time (VOT) of a syllable initial stop can be correlated with this vowel duration variation in a CVC context in Arabic. Measurements of the VOT of the Arabic voiceless uvular stop /q/ are made where /q/ is the first C, V is one of /a:/, /u:/ and /i:/ and the final C is either /t/ or /d/. A Paired-Samples T-Test is used to compare between the VOT measurements of /q/ of the words containing /t/ and those containing /d/. The result of the comparison did not show any significant difference; no relationship could be found between the VOT of the initial stop and vowel duration variation.

A Contrastive Study of the Voice Onset Time (VOT) in English and Arabic Languages

تحتوي ألأصوات في اللغة على مختلف الخواص من هذه الخواص هي وقت استهلال الصوت VOT)) وهذه الصفة تشير الى ألأختلاف بين اللفظ للأصوات ألأنفجارية في اللغتين العربية وألأنكليزية ويمكن ان نميز بين ألأصوات ألأنفجارية المهموسة والمهموزة عن طريق (VOT) .&#x0D; قسمت الدراسة الى خمسة اجزاء:-&#x0D; الجزء ألأول يتضمن المقدمة, المشكلة, الفرضية, الهدف, حدود البحث وقيمة البحث.&#x0D; الجزء الثاني يوضح التعاريف وانواع VOT ودورها في اللغة.&#x0D; الجزء الثالث يتعامل مع قياس (VOT) وطريقة ادراكه.&#x0D; الجزء الرابع يبحث ال (VOT) في اللغتين العربية وألأنكليزية والمقارنة بينهما ونتائج البحث التي توصل لها الباحث.&#x0D; ينتهي البحث اخيرا في المصادر التي استخدمت في البحث&#x0D;

Impact of language dominance on phonetic transfer in Cantonese–English bilingual language switching

AbstractBilinguals are susceptible to interaction between their two phonetic systems during speech processing. Using a language-switching paradigm, this study investigated differences in phonetic transfer of Cantonese–English bilingual adults with various language dominance profiles (Cantonese-dominant, English-dominant, and balanced bilinguals). Measurements of voice onset time revealed that unbalanced bilinguals and balanced bilinguals responded differently to language switching. Among unbalanced bilinguals, production of the dominant language shifted toward the nondominant language, with no effect in the opposite direction. However, balanced bilinguals’ speech production was unaffected by language switching. These results are analogous to the inhibitory control model, suggesting an asymmetrical switch cost of language switching at the phonetic level of speech production in unbalanced bilinguals. In contrast, the absence of switch cost in balanced bilinguals implies differences in the mechanism underlying balanced bilinguals’ and unbalanced bilinguals’ speech production.

Comparison of plosive sounds in monolingual and bilingual children, using the voice onset time acoustic parameter: cases report

ABSTRACT The purpose was to compare differences in production of plosive phonemes through the voice onset time (VOT) measurement in the speech of monolingual children, speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and bilingual children, speakers of both Brazilian Portuguese and English. The sample consisted of three monolingual children and three bilingual children; average age was 7 years. A speech emission was recorded for the investigation, which had the following vehicle phrase: “Diga ‘papa’ baixinho” (“Say ‘papa’ quietly”). Papa was then replaced by “baba”, “tata”, “dada”, “caca” and “gaga”. The measurements of the acoustic signals were performed through broadband spectrograms, and VOT was descriptively analyzed for the non-voiced sounds [p, t, k] and voiced [b, d, g] plosive sounds. Monolingual children presented higher average VOT values for [p, t, k] compared to bilingual children. For the [b, d, g] sounds, monolingual children had lower average VOT values, as compared to bilingual children. It was concluded that in the comparison of VOT measures of the speech samples, the monolingual children of Brazilian Portuguese presented higher values for the non voiced ones and lower for the voiced ones in relation to the bilingual children speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and English.

Acoustic correlates of the four-way laryngeal contrast in Marathi stops

As many of its geographical and typological neighbors, Marathi demonstrates a four-way laryngeal contrast in stop consonants, which includes plain voiced and voiceless stops as well as aspirated voiceless stops and typologically rare aspirated (breathy) voiced stops. The present study investigates the acoustic correlates of the laryngeal contrast in word-initial velar stops in Marathi. Thirty three native speakers of Marathi were recorded in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Positive and negative Voice Onset Time (VOT), fundamental frequency at the onset of voicing (onset f0), and spectral intensity as a measure of breathiness during the following vowel were investigated as correlates of laryngeal distinctions. Preliminary results show that all four stop categories are well-distinguished via VOT and onset f0 measures. Initial spectral intensity measurements suggest that breathiness in Marathi stops is largely contained in the release and does not extend far into the following vowel, unlike what has been found in Hindi (Dutta, 2007). The results will be discussed with respect to the typology of voicing contrast across languages, specifically the relevance of VOT distinctions and the use of onset f0, and compared to relevant findings for typologically similar languages.As many of its geographical and typological neighbors, Marathi demonstrates a four-way laryngeal contrast in stop consonants, which includes plain voiced and voiceless stops as well as aspirated voiceless stops and typologically rare aspirated (breathy) voiced stops. The present study investigates the acoustic correlates of the laryngeal contrast in word-initial velar stops in Marathi. Thirty three native speakers of Marathi were recorded in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Positive and negative Voice Onset Time (VOT), fundamental frequency at the onset of voicing (onset f0), and spectral intensity as a measure of breathiness during the following vowel were investigated as correlates of laryngeal distinctions. Preliminary results show that all four stop categories are well-distinguished via VOT and onset f0 measures. Initial spectral intensity measurements suggest that breathiness in Marathi stops is largely contained in the release and does not extend far into the following vowel, unlike what has been found i...

Voicing contrast of stop consonant production in the speech of individuals with Parkinson disease ON and OFF dopaminergic medication

ABSTRACTThe aims of this study were to: 1) compare voicing contrast in speakers with Parkinson disease (PD) and healthy controls by comparing the separation of voice onset time (VOT) distributions of voiced and voiceless stop consonants and 2) to determine whether the administration of dopaminergic medication affected VOT separation in speakers with PD. Data from a previous study by Fisher and Goberman (2010) were used to compare the VOT measures obtained from a group of speakers with PD with both ON and OFF medication, and a group of healthy controls. Supplementing the previous findings, the current analysis revealed that individuals with PD exhibited significantly less contrast between voiced and voiceless VOT than that observed in healthy speakers. Medication administration did not affect VOT contrast as no differences in VOT separation were observed between the ON and OFF medication states.

Second language attainment and first language attrition: The case of VOT in immersed Dutch-German late bilinguals.

Speech of late bilinguals has frequently been described in terms of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the native language (L1) to the second language (L2), but CLI from the L2 to the L1 has received relatively little attention. This article addresses L2 attainment and L1 attrition in voicing systems through measures of voice onset time (VOT) in two groups of Dutch–German late bilinguals in the Netherlands. One group comprises native speakers of Dutch and the other group comprises native speakers of German, and the two groups further differ in their degree of L2 immersion. The L1-German–L2-Dutch bilinguals (N = 23) are exposed to their L2 at home and outside the home, and the L1-Dutch–L2-German bilinguals (N = 18) are only exposed to their L2 at home. We tested L2 attainment by comparing the bilinguals’ L2 to the other bilinguals’ L1, and L1 attrition by comparing the bilinguals’ L1 to Dutch monolinguals (N = 29) and German monolinguals (N = 27). Our findings indicate that complete L2 immersion may be advantageous in L2 acquisition, but at the same time it may cause L1 phonetic attrition. We discuss how the results match the predictions made by Flege’s Speech Learning Model and explore how far bilinguals’ success in acquiring L2 VOT and maintaining L1 VOT depends on the immersion context, articulatory constraints and the risk of sounding foreign accented.