Phonemic Features Research Articles

The repetition of phonemic characteristics in radical morphemes in sets of synonyms from indo-european languages*

Through its continuations our treatise has now acquired a size unu­ sual for the present periodical and so the editors wish it to be brought to a conclusion. In what follows, therefore, we shall no longer be able to guide our reader on the research path step by step - as we have done so far in the wish to facilitate a strict control of our procedure. In the conclusion we have to restrict ourselves to a presentation of the main features of the so far achieved picture of our insights concerning the ultimate problems posed by the material collected and the statistically discovered laws. The analyses carried out for this purpose, either within the narrower scope of our material or within a broader framework, will be presented mainly in their final results. Since the time available has not allowed us to start some additional analyses or to carry through some analyses already begun, the picture of our insights will be less clear also in places where it might have been made clearer. This is what we should like to call to the reader's attention; on the other hand it is true that a final, possibly exhaustive elucidation of bulky statistical material can hardly be realized in a periodical publication, which has already kindly allowed us a sizable space for the presentation of the ma­ terial, the counting of it, tabulary illustrations and calculations.

The repetition of phonemic characteristics in radical morphemes in sets of synonyms from Indoeuropean languages (VII)

In our examination of C. D. Buck's dictionary of synonyms we started from the fact that individual synonymic sets show frequent repetitions of identical or similar phonemes in independent radical morphemes. In the work of the Indo-Europeah scholars this fact which clearly goes beyond. the frame of generally recognized onomatopoetic terms has either been overlooked or - because ar the theoretical suppositions to the contrary - bas received no particular attention, even when observed. Despite the tiresome labour required by such an undertaking, it seemed worth while to proceed to a systematic investigation which rriight establish whether all this can be due to a broader regularity in the parallel naming of the same realit.y. By mearts of a comparative analysis of synonyms and by the application of the statistical method we approached, on a limited corpus of material, the old and yet again and again tackled problem of the intrinsic connection between sound and meaning.

Acoustic Measurements for Speaker Recognition

In a scheme for mechanical recognition of speakers, it is desirable to use acoustic measures that are related in as direct a manner as possible to the voice characteristics of the unknown speaker and that are minimally affected by irrelevant factors. Acoustic attributes that are dependent on anatomical properties of the speaker's vocal mechanism should be particularly effective ones. Certain phonemes or phoneme features are well suited for displaying speaker-dependent characteristics. For example, aspects of the spectra of /∫/ (high frequency shape), /i/ (shape of the F2-F3-F4 peak), and /m/ (pole-zero interplay and nasal ferments) have been found to be effective. This approach suggests that speaker-recognition procedures should utilize a strategy of measuring only significant features of certain segments of an utterance rather than general measurements over the extent of the utterance. Implementation of this approach in automated speaker-recognition schemes is discussed. [Work supported in part by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, and the National Institutes of Health.]

The Syllable Structure of Speech and Distinctive Features of Phonemes

The Syllable Structure of Speech and Distinctive Features of Phonemes

Development of Acoustic Features of Phonemes

Recordings were made of several sentences of children ranging in age from 3 to 13, and also by adults. Each subject spoke the test sentences on five different occasions. First and second formant frequencies for each of six vowels were determined from hand-drawn spectrum envelopes on sections made during steady-state portions of the vowels in the test sentences. Accuracy or reliability of pronunciation was measured by calculation of the standard deviation among the five repetitions for such formant frequencies. Results show a gradual decrease in such variability for all vowels from age 3 to an asymptotic value where the variability reaches the same magnitude as for adults. Measures of variability of certain temporal features show a similar decrease but one that reaches its minimum value at an earlier age. Implications for a motor theory of speech perception at different ages will be discussed. [This research was supported in full by a U. S. Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare research grant from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness.]

Machine Recognition of Speech

This paper summarizes the status of a continuing research program concerned with the recognition of phonemes in both isolated and continuous speech. The acoustic analysis technique employs analog-threshold logic to abstract features that provide the basis for the recognition decisions. These feature-abstraction networks have been organized in a hierarchy of processing levels, ranging from the recognition of broad classes of sounds to decisions on a phoneme-by-phoneme level. As part of this program, a detailed comparison has been made of the characteristics of phonemes in continuous speech as contrasted with well-articulated discrete speech. The development of a continuous speech recognition capability makes possible the realization of several specific applications. Among these are spoken ZIP-code recognition systems that will improve the efficiency of parcel-sorting operation. In this application, it is necessary to recognize continuous strings of digits in a very high-noise background. A speech communications system is also being developed utilizing a speech recognition system at one end of a communications link, a narrow bandwidth channel transmitting the recognition results, and a speech synthesizer at the receiver.

Contrastive Cultural Features in FL Teaching

This article deals with the pedagogical application of contrastive cultural features, presented within the framework of an experimental lesson in Russian and English. Cultural slots will be given first as part of a lesson of Russian for English speakers, then for a lesson of English for Russian speakers. Some phonological problems will be touched on, and the contrast of phonemic versus non-phonemic features, depending on the language taught, will be emphasized. A few examples of overall testing will be given in order to demonstrate that the cultural component can be tested like any aspect of language, and that its testing can be combined with the testing of phonology and grammar. The introduction of cultural slots is a logical extension of contrastive phonological and grammatical analyses. We believe that cultural aspects can be formalized and should be given a proper place in our foreign language teaching. In the experimental lessons, drills will be based on a single situation, described in a paragraph. Cultural slots will be provided when needed, and the paragraph will be examined for contrastive phonological and grammatical features. The activities portrayed in the lessons revolve around a small group of college students; lessons for elementary or high school children would, of course, have to be adapted to their level. The sample Russian lesson given below presupposes at least one semester of instruction, with some background in the Russian sound system, basic grammatical patterns, and spelling. (The formal vy is used throughout, even though in some situations ty might be more appropriate.)

On Matching the Speech Signal to Mechanisms of Production

The traditional phonetician practices the art of describing speech sounds in auditory-articulatory terms. This description may furnish the data for the phonological analysis of a language. In acoustic phonetics, the major concern is with the speech signal itself. For some this means refined instrumental analysis to find characterizing features of phonemes; for others it also means determining the perceptual relevance of acoustic features. In both basic and applied speech research, investigators have been reluctant to give up hope of finding acoustic invariants for phonemes, at least for those of a single speaker's system. Certain approximations to acoustic invariance have been found for some phonemes, but in general this search has been more successful in the nonacoustic domain. While work on neuromuscular dimensions has not yet yielded a clear set of phonemic invariants, there seem to be rather stable correlations between articulatory events and phonemes. With the help of experimental findings from several laboratories, a multidimensional approach to an important phonological feature, voicing, is presented to illustrate this thesis.

The repetition of phonemic chaeacteristics in radical morphemes in sets of synonyms from indo-european languages*

The next two notional groups to be examined in our inquiry investigating the correlation between sound and meaning are the group narrow, knead, thick (in density), and the group touch, stretch, put. The first contains in its radical morphemes a much greater number of nasal phonemic characteristics than expected from the Representative Sample. The second one presents the case of an unusual accumulation of dental phonemic characteristics. These groups have been established by the same method of selection of synonymic sets from Buck's dictionary employed already for the groups smooth and rough, and they have also approximately the same size. The hypothesis of a physiologically founded sound symbolism has been the criterion for constituting our groups here and there. In the same way as we quoted Plato's view of a natural connection between I and smoothness and between r and roughness, we can for the sound·symbolism of dentals appeal to the frequent - acoustically unexplained - appearing of these phonemes in the so-called »echoic« verbs and interjections for touching; striking, and falling, and on the other side to a largely accepted view of the correlation between the gesture of indicating (stretching the arm, the finger) and the use of »centrifugal« dentals in demonstrative and personal pronoums. Similarly the »centripetal« expressivity of nasals - on the physiological basis of tactile and proprioceptive sensations from the combined pressure of the muscles of (lips,) tongue and soft palate - has been repeatedly emphasized by linguists and psychologists. Darwin's observation in his treatise The expression of emotions about the involuntary accompaniment of the movements of the hands and the movements of the organs of speech can be considered as a supplementary clue of explanation being valid in both cases.

Grammatical Parallelism and Its Russian Facet

We have learned the suggestive etymology of the terms PROSE and VERSE-the former, oratio prosa < prorsa < proversa 'speech turned straightforward', and the latter, versus 'return'. Hence we must consistently draw all inferences from the obvious fact that on every level of language the essence of poetic artifice consists in recurrent returns. Phonemic features and sequences, both morphologic and lexical, syntactic and phraseological units, when occurring in metrically or strophically corresponding positions, are necessarily subject to the conscious or subconscious questions whether, how far, and in what respect the positionally corresponding entities are mutually similar. Those poetic patterns where certain similarities between successive verbal sequences are compulsory or enjoy a high preference appear to be widespread in the languages of the world, and they are particularly gratifying both for the study of poetic language and for linguistic analysis in general. Such traditional types of canonic parallelism offer us an insight into the various forms of relationship among the different aspects of language and answer the pertinent question: what kindred grammatical or phonological categories may function as equivalent within the given pattern? We can infer that such categories share a common denominator in the linguistic code of the respective speech community. Of these systems the biblical PARATJLETLISMUS MEMBRORUM was the first to attract the attention of Western scholars. In 'The Preliminary Dissertation' to his translation of Isaiah, first published in 1778, Robert Lowth laid down the foundations of a systematic inquiry into the verbal texture of ancient Hebrew poetry, and adopted the term 'parallelism' for poetics:

Phonemic Feature and Vocal Feature : Synthesis of Speech Sounds, using an Acoustic Model of Vocal Tract

Phonemic Feature and Vocal Feature : Synthesis of Speech Sounds, using an Acoustic Model of Vocal Tract

The repetition of phonemic characteristics in radical morphemes in sets of synonyms from Indoeuropean languages (II)

The repetition of phonemic characteristics in radical morphemes in sets of synonyms from Indoeuropean languages (II)

The repetition of phonemic characteristics in radical mor, phemes in sets of synonyms from Indo-european languages

With these few words the famous linguist A. Maillet concisely formulated the objections against the intrinsic correlation of sound and meaning, objections which are heid to be valid still today. The modern structuralistic school logically developed this statement of the reciprocal independence of sound and meaning with the explicit affirmation that the meaning of a phoneme consists only in its difference from other phonemes in a given linguistic system. The statement completed in this manner became the fundamental theorem of all structuralistic views on language notwitnstancting differences ih detail. Exceptiorially, neogrammarians and structuralists admit a certain intrinsic correlation between the sound and its meaning in the case of so called ono matopoetic (imitative) ad expressive words. But for neither school these words represent an organic element of any linguistic system; it is considered only a rare and marginal event which can be easily disregarded.

Studies Using Spectrographic Pictures from New Speech-Analysis Instrumentation

In studies of the acoustic properties of speech elements, an advanced spectrum-analyzing system has been developed to display large quantities of information generated and recorded in real time. The speech signals are frequency-analyzed by passage through a large bank of filters producing outputs which are sampled at rates high enough to fully preserve the information. The frequency scanning is performed by a unique and flexible process of interpolation that clearly defines and accurately locates spectral energy concentrations. Thus, features such as the formants of vowels are consistently displayed by the analyzer, eliminating the need for additional calculations to determine their frequency locations. The spectral signals are recorded on photographic strip films to provide pictures which can be enlarged as needed for convenience in use. A variety of picture formats are available, including the familiar power spectrum vs time with intensity modulation to show the amplitude patterns. Accurate amplitude detail is provided by spectral cross sections taken at rates that produce complete, clear time histories of the changing speech relations. This paper presents speech pictures and data obtained by investigations using the new instrumentation. Results are presented showing variations in the acoustic characteristics of phonemes for different syllables and speakers.

Phonological Differences in Three Hindi Dialects

There has been a great deal of interest latelyl in the application of structural techniques to problems of dialect comparison.2 Studies in this field are rendered difficult, however, by the fact that many of the existing surveys were planned at a time when the phonemic principle was still insufficiently understood and questionnaires lacked examples illustrating points which were later found to be of great importance. As a result, many of the field records available at present are inadequate for complete phonemic analysis.3 If a geographical study is to yield enough structurally relevant information, it must be based on advance knowledge of the major phonemic and phonetic features characteristic of the region. A structural linguistic survey in an area not previously studied might therefore consist of two stages: (a) a preliminary series of phonological studies at selected points in the area, using informant methods of the type employed in studies of a single dialect, with a classification of dialect differences found; and (b) a detailed geographical survey with the aid of questionnaires to determine the spread of the features discovered in the preliminary study. The present paper concerns the first of these stages. It consists of two parts. The first deals with the phonology of three neighboring village dialects of Western Hindi; the second undertakes a classification of differences among the three dialects which might furnish criteria for selecting items for a geographical questionnaire. The studies were made in Rankhandi Village, (Tahsil [subdistrict] Deoband in Saharanpur District, United Provinces), Sivaya (Tahsil Ghaziabad, Merut District, U.P.), and Kalraun (Karnal District, East Punjab); see the map at

Positive Characteristics of Phonemes

Positive Characteristics of Phonemes