Phonetic Effects Research Articles

A unified model of lenition as modulation reduction: gauging consonant strength in Ibibio

Abstract We review and elaborate an account of consonantal strength that is founded on the model of speech as a modulated carrier signal. The stronger the consonant, the greater the modulation. Unlike approaches based on sonority or articulatory aperture, the account offers a uniform definition of the phonetic effect lenition has on consonants: All types of lenition (such as debuccalisation, spirantisation and vocalisation) reduce the extent to which a consonant modulates the carrier. To demonstrate the quantifiability of this account, we present an analysis of Ibibio, in which we investigate the effects of lenition on the amplitude, periodicity and temporal properties of consonants. We propose a method for integrating these different acoustic dimensions within an overall measure of modulation size. Not only does the modulated-carrier account cover all the classically recognised lenition types, but it also encompasses loss of plosive release in final stops – which, although not traditionally classed as lenition, is clearly related to processes that are.

Singing in a Second Language: Pronunciation Errors Made by Sri Lankan Decedent Students' when Singing Sinhala Songs Under the Influence of the Australian English Language

When a speaker/vocal performer sings in a second language, the pronunciation can be labelled as a different or fake accent compared to the native speakers. On a theoretical level, it is very difficult for learners of a second language (L2) to get rid of the phonetic effects of (L1) and sometimes impossible, unless the language learner can process both languages from birth. This research aims to identify the pronunciation errors made by Sri Lankan decedent students' according to the consonant sounds of the Inattentional Phonetic Alphabet when they sing Sinhala songs under the influence of the Australian English Language. This research specifically questions what consonant substitutes are employed by the aforementioned speakers for the irreplaceable consonant identity of Sinhala sound production. In this research, Sinhala and English phonemes were compared based on the data from Cox & Palethrope (2007), Rajapakshe (1994 & 1997) and previous research of this researcher (Penahetipola, 2011). The research fundamentally employs a comparison of the phonetic inventory of both languages based on the IPA charts and data from spectrogram analysis of speech sounds made by 45 Australian-born children of Sinhala migrants who are 10-12 and study Sinhala as a second language. Prenasalised stops and nasals have been identified as the most noticeable substitutes. Also, retroflex, palatal, and bilabial are the concerned sound production. The finding is very useful in developing language-speaking programs for speakers and vocal performers who practice Sinhala as their second language.

Phonetic Effects of Tonal Crowding in Persian Polar Questions.

Persian polar questions are characterized by a rise-fall followed by a low F0 plateau and a final rise. A production experiment was designed which systematically manipulated question length and the position of stress in the nuclear accented word in the question. Results revealed that distances between tones can strongly affect their scaling and alignment in predictable manner. With respect to scaling, our data show that the postnuclear low F0 target is realized considerably higher in short questions in which tonal crowding is more acute. This scaling adjustment of the L affects the following H tone, such that the final H is realized higher in tonal space, relative to the other crowding contexts. The results for duration show that in short questions, syllable duration is significantly lengthened so that there is room for tonal targets to be realized. In addition, the alignment data in this study suggest that crowding contexts incrementally affect the temporal adjustment of tonal targets. In some circumstances, tonal crowding results in anticipatory retraction of tones, while in others it results in carry-over tonal displacement depending on the direction of the prosodic pressure. These results can best be explained in an auto-segmental approach to intonational phonology in which intonation contours are treated as strings of distinct high and low tones associated with specific elements in the segmental string.

On Transliterating the Book of Odes

The Chinese Book of Odes (詩經), a poetry anthology that is possibly the earliest literary monument in any still-living language, used phonetic effects such as rhyme, metre, and alliteration to achieve its poetic artistry. However, these effects have been largely obliterated by changes in the sounds of Chinese over almost three millennia, and the non-alphabetic nature of Chinese script has concealed the fact that the effects once existed. The author discusses some of the issues that arise in compiling an edition of the Odes that uses transliteration of the original pronunciation, as reconstructed by recent historical linguistics, to restore their “speech music”, as well as issues in producing new English versions of the poetry which come as close as possible to show present-day readers what the poems were for their first readers.

Cognitive factors in Thai-naïve Mandarin and Vietnamese speakers’ imitation of Thai lexical tones

The present study examined how native phonological and phonetic factors in non-native speech perception (Perceptual Assimilation Model [PAM]: Best, 1995) affect non-native imitation of Thai tones by Thai-naïve Mandarin and Vietnamese participants, and how memory load and stimulus variability shift the balance between phonological versus phonetic modes (Automatic Selective Perception model [ASP]: Strange, 2011) in imitation. Although overall imitation was quite good, native phonological influences, as reflected in Categorised versus Uncategorised assimilation types in a prior perception study with the same participants (Chen, Antoniou, & Best, 2023), constrained non-native tone imitations. Residual perceptual sensitivity to phonetic differences between the target stimuli and native tones, as reflected in percent choice and goodness ratings in assimilation, also affected imitation. Effects of stimulus variability and memory load were restricted and interacted with specific tones for each participant group. Imitations were generally more accurate under low memory load, constant talker and vowel conditions, consistent with a more phonetic mode of perception. Imitation accuracy decreased under high memory load, variable talker and vowel conditions, consistent with a more phonological mode of perception. Results support the PAM and ASP accounts of native phonological and phonetic effects in non-native perception and extend them to non-native tone imitation.

The Neo-Celtic Verbal Complex and Earlier Accentual Patterns

Celtic inherited from Indo-European a system in which the first word of the sentence was invariably accented and was often followed by an unaccented word. In the evolution towards Gaelic and Brythonic, it became most common for that first word to be either a verb or a preverb. The beginning of the sentence thus became even more clearly defined because, also as an inheritance from Indo-European, verbs and preverbs were unaccented in other positions. Between Proto-Indo-European and the earliest attested Gaelic and Brythonic, the accent moved. As a result, the phonetic effects of the earlier accent became morphophonemic: phonologically stronger forms of verbs and preverbs occur in sentence-initial position in Old Irish and early Brythonic. Information about the shape and function of the clause, formerly conveyed by the accent, came to be conveyed by these morphophonemic contrasts. If the inherited primary/secondary system marking tense still survived then, this new absolute/conjunct opposition clashed with it and displaced it.

Prosodic Structural Effects on Non-Contrastive Coarticulatory Vowel Nasalization in L2 English by Korean Learners.

This acoustic study explores how Korean learners produce coarticulatory vowel nasalization in English that varies with prosodic structural factors of focus-induced prominence and boundary. N-duration and A1-P0 (degree of V-nasalization) are measured in consonant-vowel-nasal (CVN) and nasal-vowel-consonant (NVC) words in various prosodic structural conditions (phrase-final vs. phrase-medial; focused vs. unfocused). Korean learners show a systematic fine-tuning of the non-contrastive V-nasalization in second language (L2) English in relation to prosodic structure, although it does not pertain to learning new L2 sound categories (i.e., L2 English nasal consonants are directly mapped onto Korean nasal consonants). The prosodic structurally conditioned phonetic detail in English appears to be accessible in most part to Korean learners and was therefore reflected in their production of L2 English. Their L2 production, however, is also found to be constrained by their first language (L1-Korean) to some extent, resulting in some phonetic effects that deviate from both L1 and L2. The results suggest that the seemingly low-level coarticulatory process is indeed under the speaker's control in L2, which reflects interactions of the specificities of the phonetics-prosody interface in L1 and L2. The results are also discussed in terms of their implications for theories of L2 phonetics.

Lateral vocalization in Brazilian Portuguese.

Lateral vocalization is a cross-linguistically common phenomenon where a lateral is realized as a glide, such as [w,j], or a vowel [u, i]. In this paper, we focus on the articulatory triggers that could cause lateral vocalization. We examined Brazilian Portuguese, a language known for the process of lateral vocalization in coda position. We examined the lateral in onset and coda position in four vocalic environments and compared the dynamic tongue contours and contours at the point of maximum constriction in each environment. We also performed biomechanical simulations of lateral articulation and the vocalized lateral. The results indicate increased tongue body retraction in coda position, which is accompanied by tongue body raising. Simulations further revealed that vocalized laterals mainly recruit intrinsic lingual muscles along with the styloglossus. Taken together, the data suggest that vocalization is a result of positional phonetic effects including lenition and additional retraction in the coda position.

Phonetic Effects in the Perception of VOT in a Prevoicing Language.

Previous production studies have reported differential amounts of closure voicing in plosives depending on the location of the oral constriction (anterior vs. posterior), vocalic context (high vs. low vowels), and speaker sex. Such differences have been attributed to the aerodynamic factors related to the configuration of the cavity behind the oral constriction, with certain articulations and physiological characteristics of the speaker facilitating vocal fold vibration during closure. The current study used perceptual identification tasks to examine whether similar effects of consonantal posteriority, adjacent vowel height, and speaker sex exist in the perception of voicing. The language of investigation was Russian, a prevoicing language that uses negative VOT to signal the voicing contrast in plosives. The study used both original and resynthesized tokens for speaker sex, which allowed it to focus on the role of differences in VOT specifically. Results indicated that listeners’ judgments were significantly affected by consonantal place of articulation, with listeners accepting less voicing in velar plosives. Speaker sex showed only a marginally significant difference in the expected direction, and vowel height had no effect on perceptual responses. These findings suggest that certain phonetic factors can affect both the initial production and subsequent perception of closure voicing.

Phonetic & Phonological Salience Effects in Different Speech Processing Tasks

This paper provides evidence for both effects of both phonetic and phonological salience in speech processing. Results from three experiments are presented, each examining the relative processing of two speech sounds by speakers of two different languages. In each experiment, one of the two sounds is more phonetically salient and the other is more phonologically salient given the morphophonological patterning of one of the langauges. Phonetic salience effects emerged in shorter-term tasks and phonological salience effects emerged in tasks that were longer-term and that required more phonological processing.

Phonetic Effects in Child and Adult Word Segmentation.

Purpose The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of specific acoustic patterns on word learning and segmentation in 8- to 11-year-old children and in college students. Method Twenty-two children (ages 8;2-11;4 [years;months]) and 36 college students listened to synthesized "utterances" in artificial languages consisting of six iterated "words," which followed either a phonetically natural lenition-fortition pattern or an unnatural (cross-linguistically unattested) antilenition pattern. A two-alternative forced-choice task tested whether they could discriminate between occurring and nonoccurring sequences. Participants were exposed to both languages, counterbalanced for order across subjects, in sessions spaced at least 1 month apart. Results Children showed little evidence for learning in either the phonetically natural or unnatural condition nor evidence of differences in learning across the two conditions. Adults showed the predicted (and previously attested) interaction between learning and phonetic condition: The phonetically natural language was learned better. The adults also showed a strong effect of session: Subjects performed much worse during the second session than the first. Conclusions School-age children not only failed to demonstrate the phonetic asymmetry demonstrated by adults in previous studies but also failed to show strong evidence for any learning at all. The fact that the phonetic asymmetry (and general learning effect) was replicated with adults suggests that the child result is not due to inadequate stimuli or procedures. The strong carryover effect for adults also suggests that they retain knowledge about the sound patterns of an artificial language for over a month, longer than has been reported in laboratory studies of purely phonetic/phonological learning. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13641284.

F0 timing in Luganda: Effects of phrase position and gone category

In Luganda (Bantu, Uganda), there is a contrast between early and late high tone, differing in the timing of the f0 peak relative to the consonant and vowel intervals of the associated syllable. According to the extensive transcription-based literature on the language, this contrast is limited to “long” syllables (those with a long vowel or coda), and to short word-final syllables. In this study, these claims are tested in two production studies. As in other languages, the timing of f0 peaks was found to be sensitive to the duration of the onset-vowel interval in the high-toned syllable, with longer onset-vowel duration associated with a later f0 peak. The late high tones were found to have a significantly greater peak delay than early high tone, but only in long syllables with a long vowel or diphthong. Short syllables had early high tone (shorter peak delay) in sentence-final words, but word position had no effect. The results suggest that the phenomenon that previous studies have described in terms of the distribution of falling tones is better seen as a phonetic effect of phrasal position on f0 peak timing, as has been observed in languages such as English, Spanish, and Serbian.

The dynamical landscape: phonological acquisition and the phonology–phonetics link

During acquisition children internalise adult-based phonological patterns and alternately adopt and discard child-specific patterns reflecting their unskilled production. The child-specific patterns are often assumed to be low-level phonetic effects, and so, in a classical modular feedforward grammar, they should not interfere with the higher-level adult-based phonology. This paper reports an interaction in which the application of a categorical adult-based process (Voice Assimilation) is conditioned by a gradient child-specific process (fricative devoicing). Acoustic analyses of longitudinal data from a Polish-speaking child reveal variable Voice Assimilation effects in target voiced fricative–stop/stop–fricative clusters (voicing and devoicing), correlated with the extent of voicing in fricatives in non-assimilatory contexts. I analyse this phonology–phonetics trade-off by appealing to symbol-like dynamical representations, expressed in the language of non-linear mathematics. Such representations offer a non-derivational link between the qualitative and quantitative aspects of speech. Variability ensues as a natural consequence of grammar change.

A spokesperson with any name won’t be as charming: the phonetic effect of spokesperson name and gender on personality evaluations

We examined the effect of vowel sounds contained in spokesperson names and spokesperson gender on consumer perceptions of spokesperson personality and brand personality evaluations. Using an experimental design across three studies, we found that when gender of the spokesperson is known, the vowel sounds contained in a spokesperson’s name only influenced personality traits when the spokesperson was a male. For example, a male spokesperson with a name that contained back vowel sounds (i.e. Odyn Tolley) was perceived as more charming, outdoorsy, and tough. The effect of vowel sounds in a spokesperson’s name on personality perceptions attenuated when the spokesperson was female. Further, the phonetic meaning derived from sounds in male spokesperson names was found to exert a greater influence on brand personality perceptions than phonetic meaning derived from sounds in brand names. Advertisers and marketing managers are advised to strategically name created spokespeople in line with desired personality perceptions and with careful consideration of spokesperson gender.

Http://habibiaislamicus.com/index.php/hirj/article/view/134

One of the most important qualities bestowed on man is the ability to speak, which enables him to communicate with his peers, to convey his remorse to them, and to understand their remorse. Nazq is based on language and the different phonetic effects that come from its use and its harmony with different meanings. Human language allows one to transfer one's thoughts and feelings and one's thoughts and ideas to other human beings. He has a high potential which has inhabited a world of thought and imagination in this world of color and smell. All philosophies, all religions, all systems, even human life all depend on language and its capacity The researcher will discuss this topic in this article.

Uvular rhotic weakening in Yiddish adjectival suffixes

In traditional Yiddish dialects, the presence versus absence of word-final rhotics after unstressed [3] in adjectival suffixes carries a heavy functional load, making distinctions of gender, number, and case. Belk et al. (2019) note that some Yiddish speakers with uvular rhotics do not fully articulate them word-finally, endangering this crucial distinction and perhaps contributing to the loss of gender and case in the Yiddish of contemporary Hasidic communities. This study analyzes adjectival endings in publicly available recordings of four speakers with uvular rhotics. The majority of speakers generally do not produce an audible [R] or [] before consonants, but for these speakers, an underlying rhotic conditions lower F1 and sometimes higher F2 in the pre-rhotic vowel [3]. These formant differences tend to be relatively consistent over the course of the vowel, suggesting that they are phonologized, rather than a phonetic effect due to coarticulation with a following uvular rhotic whose articulation may be covert. Word-final [3] similarly exhibits lowered F1 and higher F2 before a word starting with [R] or a dorsal fricative [x/ü], suggesting that coarticulation with a following dorsal is the phonetic precursor to the phonological effect observed for underlying rhotics.

The Effects of Phonetic Duration on Loanword Adaptation: Mandarin Falling Diphthong in Chinese Korean

This study examines how Mandarin falling sonority diphthongs are adapted to a Chinese Korean dialect. It investigates how the subtle phonetic conditions of the source language affect adaptation, and if and how those phonetic effects differ in established loanwords compared to the on-line adaptation of novel loan forms. We found that in this bilingual population, while the Mandarin diphthongs are usually adapted as monophthongs, obeying the native phonological restriction against falling diphthongs, the retention of the input diphthongs in violation of the native constraint is also quite common. Additionally, we found that the choice of the monophthong vs. diphthong realization is strongly affected by the input phonetic duration and in particular, the durational difference among the different tones is robustly reflected in the adaptation patterns.

Phonetic effects of onset complexity on the English syllable

Although onsets do not arbitrate stress placement in English categorically, results from Kelly (2004) and Ryan (2014) suggest that English stress assignment is nevertheless sensitive to onset complexity. Phonetic work on languages in which onsets participate in categorical weight criteria shows that onsets contribute to stress assignment through their phonetic impact on the nucleus, primarily through their effect on nucleus energy (Gordon, 2005). Onsets in English probabilistically participate in weight-based processes, and here it is predicted that they impact the phonetic realization of the syllable similar to the way that onsets do in languages with categorical onset weight criteria. To test this prediction, speakers in this study produced monosyllabic English words varying in onset complexity, and measures of duration, intensity, and f0 were collected. Results of the current study are consistent with the predictions of Gordon’s perceptual account of categorical weight, showing that integrated intensity of the rime is incapable of driving onset weight behavior in English. Furthermore, results indicate that onsets impact the shape of the intensity envelope in a manner consistent with explanations for gradient onset weight that appeal to onset influence on the perceptual center (Ryan, 2014). Together, these results show that cues to gradient weight act independently of primary cues to categorical weight to probabilistically impact weight sensitive stress assignment in English.

A lexical advantage in four-year-old children's word repetition.

This study examined a potential lexicality advantage in young children's early speech production: do children produce sound sequences less accurately in nonwords than real words? Children aged 3;3-4;4 completed two tasks: a real word repetition task and a corresponding nonword repetition task. Each of the 23 real words had a paired consonant-vowel sequence in the nonword in word-initial position (e.g., 'su' in ['sutkes] 'suitcase' and ['sudrɑs]). The word-initial consonant-vowel sequences were kept constant between the paired words. Previous work on this topic compared different sequences of paired sounds, making it hard to determine if those results were due to a lexical or phonetic effect. Our results show that children reliably produced consonant-vowel sequences in real words more accurately than nonwords. The effect was most pronounced in children with smaller receptive vocabularies. Together, these results reinforce theories arguing for interactions between vocabulary size and phonology in language development.

Coarticulation with alveopalatal sibilants in Mandarin and Polish: Phonetics or phonology?

Previous work has shown that vowels following alveopalatal sibilants typically exhibit raised second formant (F2) values, typically attributed to coarticulatory vowel fronting (e.g. Stevens, 2004 in Mandarin; Bukmaier & Harrington, 2016 in Polish). This paper re-examines the palatalizing coarticulatory effects of the alveopalatal sibilant in Mandarin and Polish. While previous studies have focused on differences in F2 transitions or values at vowel onset, I find that the raised F2 values following alveopalatal sibilants frequently persist through the entire duration of following vowels in Mandarin. This raises the question of whether this is a phonetic coarticulation effect or a phonological assimilation effect. I review diagnostics for such a distinction and provide evidence from speech rate which suggests that the raised F2 effect should be analyzed as phonological assimilation in Mandarin, but phonetic coarticulation in Polish. These results have implications for phonological representations and perception in both languages.