Nasal Words Research Articles

Correlation of subjective and objective assessment of hypernasality in children with repaired cleft lip and palate

Introduction: Correlational studies between subjective and objective evaluations in the area of cleft lip and palate might provide evidence on the reliability and validity of subjective evaluations. This will, in turn, help in deciding to use subjective evaluations in remote areas. Such correlational studies are scanty in Indian languages. Aims: The present study aimed at correlating the perceptual rating of hypernasality with its instrumental measure in Kannada speaking children with repaired cleft lip and palate (RCLP) across different stimuli. The study also discusses various aspects that affect nasality (the type of speech stimuli and age of first palatal surgery) which helps in better understanding of RCLP cases and their characteristics. Settings and Design: This study was based on correlational research designs. Subjects and Methods: Twenty-three Kannada speaking children with RCLP served as participants. Speech samples (vowels, oral words, nasal words, oral sentences, nasal sentences, and oronasal sentences) of children with RCLP were recorded using a sound level meter and were perceptually evaluated using Henningsson's rating scale by three experienced speech-language pathologists. Furthermore, nasalance values were objectively obtained using a nasometer. Statistical Analysis: This study was statistically analyzed using the Shapiro–Wilk test of normality and Spearman's correlation. Results: The results revealed a high positive correlation (0.78) between the subjective and objective assessment. The different degrees of perceptually rated hypernasality were in a positive correlation with nasometry scores of vowels (0.766), words (0.785), and sentences (0.819). Conclusions: A good correlation was obtained between the subjective and objective measurement of nasality indicating the high utility of perceptual evaluation in remote areas.

Context effects on the acoustic realization of stops and affricates in Northern Pwo Karen

Studies have shown that the voice onset time (VOT) of alveolo-palatal affricates is the longest, followed by velars, dental/alveolars, and bilabials. In a reciprocal pattern, closure duration is the longest for bilabials, followed by dental/alveolars, and then velars. Longer VOT is also associated with high and front vowels and tones with rising components. Moreover, the VOT of voiceless unaspirated stops is reported to be longer and closure duration shorter in nasal words. Finally, the voiceless interval has been described as constant in some languages and inconstant in others. Given the evidence of previous research, this study investigates the effects of place, nasality, tone, and vowel quality on the VOT, closure duration, and voiceless interval of the voiced and voiceless obstruents of Northern Pwo Karen (N. Pwo), a language of Thailand. N. Pwo (ISO 639-3 pww) is a ‘true voicing’ language with a three-way distinction in stops, voiceless aspirated and unaspirated affricates, oral and nasal vowels, and six tones (four modal tones and two glottalized tones). In N. Pwo, the place effects on VOT and closure duration pattern reciprocally. Whereas, both VOT and the voiceless interval are longer before oral vowels compared to nasal vowels. VOT is longest before the mid tone, which has a slight rise, while it is the shortest before the falling-glottalized tone. This pattern is reversed for the closure duration of aspirates and voiced stops. Finally, VOT, closure duration, and the voiceless interval are the longest before high and front vowels.

Phonotactics in L2 and Pidgin/Creole Languages

This study investigates the production of English initial consonant clusters by Arabic L1 learners of English and speakers of the Broad Jamaican Creole. The clusters Stop + /r/, /S/ + nasal, /S/ + stop, in addition to the production of vowel-initial words are focused on. It was found out that whereas Arab learners produced initial Stop + /r/ and /S/ + nasal words with epenthesis and /S/ + stop words with prosthesis as well as epenthesis, speakers of the Broad Jamaican Creole produced Stop + /r/ and /S/ + stop clusters according to the RP norm and /S/ + nasal with epenthesis. As for vowel-initial words, both groups resorted to the strategy of onset filling (Itô, 1989). Specifically, Arab learners produced these words with glottal stop /ʔ/ before the initial vowel, whereas the Jamaican informants inserted glottal fricative /h/ in the same position. Furthermore, the performance of the two groups was additionally analyzed in light of Optimality Theory.

Database Creation and Dialect-Wise Comparative Analysis of Prosodic Features for Punjabi Language

Abstract The paper represents a Punjabi corpus in the agriculture domain. There are various dialects in the Punjabi language and the main concentration is on major dialects, i.e. Majhi, Malwai and Doabi for the present study. A speech corpus of 125 isolated words is taken into consideration. These words are uttered by 100 speakers, i.e. 60 Malwi dialect speakers (30 male and 30 female), 20 Majhi dialect speakers (10 male and 10 female) and 20 Doabi dialect speakers (10 male and 10 female). Tonemes, adhak (geminated) and nasal words are selected from the corpus. Recordings have been processed through two mediums. The paper also elaborates some distinctive features of the corpus. This corpus is of quite significance for the speech recognition system. Prosodic characteristics such as intonation, rhythm and stress create a crucial impact on the speech recognition system. These characteristics vary from language to language as well as various dialects of a language. This paper portrays a comparative analysis of isolated words prosodic features of Malwi, Majhi and Doabi dialects of Punjabi language. Analysis is done using the PRAAT tool. Pitch, intensity, formant I and formant II values are extracted for toneme, adhak, nasal (bindi) and nasal (tippi) words. For all kinds of words, there is a significant variation in pitch (fundamental frequency), intensity, formant I and formant II values of male and female speakers of Malwi, Majhi and Doabi dialects. A detailed analysis has been discussed throughout this paper.