Phrase-medial Position Research Articles

Unfolding Prosody Guides the Development of Word Segmentation

Prosody is known to scaffold the learning of language, and thus understanding prosodic development is vital for language acquisition. The present study explored the unfolding prosody model of prosodic development (proposed in Frota’s et al. study in 2016) beyond early production data, to examine whether it predicted the development of early segmentation abilities. European Portuguese-learning infants aged between 5 and 17 months were tested in a series of word segmentation experiments. Developing prosodic structure was evidenced in word segmentation as proposed by the unfolding model: (i) a simple monosyllabic word shape crucially placed at a major prosodic edge was segmented first, before more complex word shapes under similar prosodic conditions; (ii) the segmentation of more complex words was easier at a major prosodic edge than in phrase-medial position; and (iii) the segmentation of complex words with an iambic pattern preceded the segmentation of words with a trochaic pattern. These findings demonstrated that word segmentation evolved with unfolding prosody, suggesting that the prosodic units developed in the unfolding process are used both as speech production planning units and to extract word-forms from continuous speech. Therefore, our study contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying word segmentation, and to a better understanding of early prosodic development, a cornerstone of language acquisition.

An exploratory investigation of interactions between syllabic prominence, initial geminates, and phrasal boundaries in Pattani Malay

AbstractThis study investigates interactions among relative syllabic prominence, initial geminates (IGs), and prosodic boundaries in Pattani Malay (PM) against a background of previous analyses claiming that IGs are moraic and trigger a ‘stress shift’ or the linking of a pitch accent to the initial syllable. We conducted an acoustic study with fourteen PM speakers, producing singleton–IG minimal pairs in naturalistic sentences. Our results show that the presence of IGs is not associated with the hypothesized phonological changes. Instead, it is associated with moderate increases in the duration of initial syllables, the intensity of the initial syllable vowels, and the f0 of the initial and final syllable vowels. On the other hand, the presence of a phrase-final prosodic boundary correlates with more drastic changes: in phrase-final position, final syllables exhibit final lengthening and falling contours of f0 and intensity, while, in the phrase-medial position, no lengthening is observed and f0 contours are rising. Furthermore, the effects of IGs are strongest in the phrase-final position, suggesting interactions between IGs and prosodic boundaries. Taken together, results cast doubts on the claim that IGs are moraic and associated with categorical differences in syllabic prominence profiles in PM and show that IG effects are modulated by prosodic boundaries.

Lexical tone and vowel duration in San Sebastián del Monte Mixtec

Vowel duration has been shown to vary as a function of lexical tone (Gandour, 1977; Gordon, 2001; Yu, 2010). Here we explore the relationship between tone and duration in a dialect of Mixtec. San Sebastián del Monte Mixtec (SSM) has three tones which link to individual moras: H(igh) M(id) L(ow). These can be combined in a long (bimoraic) vowel, in some cases creating contour tones: HH MM LL HL ML LM (Cortes et al., forthcoming). Audio recordings of 14 native speakers (9F, 5M) were collected, producing 264 utterances with target words in phrase-medial position. The corpus includes all tones, as well as all vowels /i,e,a,o,u/ across four possible word shapes (with several lexical gaps). With mixed effects modeling, we find that duration varies as a function of tone with vowel and onset consonant controlled for (1) L tones are shorter than M and H tones in mono-moriacsyllables, and (2) tones in bimoraic (long vowel) monosyllabic words vary in duration as well: {MM,HH,LH} > {ML,LM,LL}. First vowels are longer, consistent with stress on the initial syllable. We further discuss the relation between duration, mean F0, and F0 range, and the influence of vowel features and preceding consonant on duration.

The role of prosodic focus in the reanalysis of garden path sentences: Depth of semantic processing impedes the revision of an erroneous local analysis

Research on post-repair representations of garden path sentences has found that readers systematically arrive at misinterpretations even after displaying evidence of reanalysis (Christianson et al., 2001; Ferreira et al., 2001). These comprehension errors have been attributed to the semantic interpretation associated with the incorrect parse persisting past disambiguation, but less is known about the mechanism driving this phenomenon (Sturt, 2007; Slattery et al., 2013). A speeded auditory comprehension experiment examined the depth of semantic processing as an independent influence on the strength of semantic persistence, drawing on known effects of pitch accent on the processing of focus-related semantic meaning (Fraundorf et al., 2010). Participants heard garden path sentences with early/late-closure ambiguity (e.g., While Anna dressed the baby stopped crying) with a sharply rising pitch accent on either the unambiguous adjunct subject or the ambiguously transitive adjunct verb, followed by a comprehension question that probed whether the incorrect late-closure analysis persisted. Since the pitch accent is often a strong cue for semantic focus when it occurs in prosodically marked phrase-medial positions, we reasoned that a deeper semantic processing would be facilitated for the late-closure analysis only when the verb receives a pitch accent. Findings indicate that a pitch accent on the verb significantly decreased accuracy without a corresponding increase on response time, suggesting that a deeper semantic processing of the erroneous parse can strengthen its resistance to revision without necessarily interfering with the process of structure-building.

Glottalisation, coda voicing, and phrase position in Australian English.

Glottalisation is an important cue to coda stop voicelessness, particularly for younger Australian English speakers who utilise glottalisation more than older speakers, suggesting a recent sound change. However, most previous studies of glottalisation in this variety of English have focussed on single word utterances, raising questions about whether glottalisation in those studies may have been prosodically conditioned rather than specific to the coda stop: Could the observed effect have been due to phrase-final creaky voice, which is acoustically similar to coda-related glottalisation? This study therefore explored the differential effects of phrase position on the production of glottalisation. Phrase-medially (where phrase-final creaky voice is not expected to occur), results confirmed previous findings that glottalisation cues coda stop voicelessness and that it does so more frequently for younger compared to older speakers. In phrase-final position, rates of glottalisation increased, but older speakers appeared more similar to younger speakers in use of glottalisation, suggesting that the change towards the increased use of glottalisation may be nearing completion in this prosodic position. Younger speakers appear to represent a more advanced stage of the change extending the use of glottalisation from phrase-final to phrase-medial position.

Uncovering Tonal and Temporal Correlates of Phrasal Prominence in Medʉmba.

Characterizing prosodic prominence relations in African tone languages is notoriously difficult, as typical acoustic cues to prominence (changes in F0, increases in intensity, etc.) can be difficult to distinguish from those which mark tonal contrasts. The task of establishing prominence is further complicated by the fact that tone, an important cue to syllable prominence and prosodic boundaries cross-linguistically, plays many roles in African languages: tones often signal lexical contrasts, can themselves be morphemes, and can also interact in key ways with prosody. The present study builds on phonological generalizations about tonal patterns in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language, and uses the speech cycling paradigm to investigate relative timing of syllables varying in phrase-level prominence. Specifically, we investigate timing asymmetries between syllables hypothesized to occur at the edge of a phonological phrase, which carry a high phrase accent, and those in phrase-medial position, which do not. Results indicate significant differences in the temporal alignment of accented versus non-accented syllables, with accented syllables occurring significantly closer to positions established as prominence-attracting in previous speech cycling research. We show that these findings cannot be attributed to differences in tone alone. Findings demonstrate the importance of relative temporal alignment as a correlate of prosodic prominence. Findings also point to increased duration as a phonetic property which distinguishes between syllables bearing phrasal prominence from those which do not.

Tone errors in scripted conversations of L2 Mandarin Chinese

AbstractThis study examines the acquisition of Mandarin tones by American English speaking second language (L2) learners. Three types of tone sequences, namely, compatible tone sequences, conflicting tone sequences, and other tone sequences, were used. The analysis of tone errors in different tone sequences showed that, while learners seemed to have acquired the Tone 3 and its sandhi, they tended to over-apply the sandhi rule in inappropriate contexts and produced tone errors. More importantly, the low and rising tones, which are generally difficult for L2 learners to produce, were the most frequent tones produced to replace other tones. More specifically, the low tone errors tended to occur at the phrase-medial position, while the rising tone errors tended to occur at the phrase-initial position. The low and rising tone errors were attributed to the difficulty in quickly changing tone targets and F0 direction in tone production, which is the product of the superimposition of English prosody.

Articulatory modification of /m/ in the coda and the onset as a function of prosodic boundary strength and focus in Korean

An articulatory study (using an Electromagnetic Articulography, EMA) was conducted to explore effects of prosodic boundary strength (Intonational Phrase/IP versus Word/Wd), and focus (Focused/accented, Neutral, Unfocused/unaccented) on the kinematic realization of /m/ in the coda (...am#i...) and the onset (...a#mi...) conditions in Korean. (Here # refers to a prosodic boundary such as an IP or a Wd boundary). Several important points have emerged. First, the boundary effect on /m/s was most robustly observed in the temporal dimension in both the coda (IP-final) and the onset (IP-initial) conditions, generally in line with cross-linguistically observable boundary-related lengthening patterns. Crucially, however, in contrast with boundary-related slowing-down effects that have been observed in English, both the IP-final and IP-initial temporal expansions of Korean /m/s were not accompanied by an articulatory slowing down. They were, if anything, associated with a faster movement in the lip opening (release) phase (into the vowel). This suggests that the mechanisms underlying boundary-related temporal expansions may differ between languages. Second, observed boundary-induced strengthening effects (both spatial and temporal expansions, especially on the IP-initial /m/s) were remarkably similar to prominence (focus)-induced strengthening effects, which is again counter to phrase-initial strengthening patterns observed in English in which boundary effects are dissociated from prominent effects. This suggests that initial syllables in Korean may be a common focus for both boundary and prominence marking. These results, taken together, imply that the boundary-induced strengthening in Korean is different in nature from that in English, each being modulated by the individual language’s prosodic system. Third, the coda and the onset /m/s were found to be produced in a subtly but significantly different way even in a Wd boundary condition, a potentially neutralizing (resyllabification) context. This suggests that although the coda may be phonologically ‘resyllabified’ into the following syllable in a phrase-medial position, its underlying syllable affiliation is kinematically distinguished from the onset.

A quantitative analysis of sign lengthening in American Sign Language

In spoken languages, disfluent speech, narrative effects, discourse information, and phrase position may influence the lengthening of segments beyond their typical duration. In sign languages, however, the primary use of the visual-gestural modality results in articulatory differences not expressed in spoken languages. This paper looks at sign lengthening in American Sign Language (ASL). Comparing two retellings of the Pear Story narrative from five signers, three primary lengthening mechanisms were identified: elongation, repetition, and deceleration. These mechanisms allow signers to incorporate lengthening into signs which may benefit from decelerated language production due to high information load or complex articulatory processes. Using a mixed effects model, significant differences in duration were found between (i) non-conventionalized forms vs. lexical signs, (ii) signs produced during role shift vs. non-role shift, (iii) signs in phrase-final/initial vs. phrase-medial position, (iv) new vs. given information, and (v) (non-disordered) disfluent signing vs. non-disfluent signing. These results provide insights into duration effects caused by information load and articulatory processes in ASL.

Rhythmic structure effects on glottalisation: A study of different speech styles in Polish and German

AbstractThe present paper examines glottal stops and the glottalisation of word-initial vowels in Polish and German. The presence of glottal marking is studied depending on speech style (‘speech’ vs. ‘dialogue’), prominence, phrasal position, speech rate, word type, preceding segment, and following vowel height. A question is also posed about the extent to which glottal marking might be dependent on the rhythmic structure of a given language or style. We analyzed recordings of 18 Polish and German speakers. The results point to significant differences between the two languages. In German, glottal marking occurs significantly more often (63.4%) than in Polish (45%). Whereas in both languages (and both styles) the majority of prominent vowels are more often glottally marked than non-prominent vowels, in German word-initial non-prominent syllables are also marked relatively often. Regarding phrase position, glottal marking occurs significantly more often at the phrase-initial position compared to phrase-medial position in Polish, while no such difference has been found in German. In addition, it is shown that in both languages glottal marking is strongly dependent on the tongue height of the marked vowel: low vowels are more frequently glottalised than non-low vowels. Finally, glottal marking in Polish is more likely to occur when rhythmic variability shifts towards the ‘indeterminate’, strengthening the hypothesis that glottal marking facilitates perceptual grouping.

Characteristics of stop releases in American English spontaneous speech

This study examines the factors affecting the production of stop releases in American English spontaneous speech. Previous research has shown that releases are conditioned by phonetic and social factors. However, previous studies either rely exclusively on read speech, or for sociolinguistic studies, focus on phrase-final stops. In this study, spontaneous speech is collected from two sources: interviews from the non-profit StoryCorps project and from sentences spontaneously generated in a picture description task. Stop releases were examined before obstruents and nasals in word-medial position (e.g. ru gb y), word-final, phrase-medial position (e.g. They cra ck n uts), and pre-pausally (e.g. I look u p ). Phonetic factors taken into account include identity of the stop, directionality of place of articulation in the consonant cluster (front-to-back vs. back-to-front) and manner of C2. For the StoryCorps data, race of the speaker was also found to be an important predictor. Results showed that approximately a quarter of the stops followed by a consonant were released, but release was strongly affected by the place of the stop and the manner of the following consonant. Release of pre-pausal stops differed between black and white speakers; the latter had double the amount of final release. Other realizations of the stops, such as deletion, lenition, and glottalization are also analyzed.

Duration differences in the articulation and acoustics of Swiss German word-initial geminate and singleton stops

Stops in Swiss German contrast only in quantity in all word positions; aspiration and voicing play no role. As in most languages with consonant quantity contrast, geminate stops are produced with significantly longer closure duration (CD) than singletons in an intersonorant context. This holds word medially as well as phrase medially, e.g., [oni tto:s] "without roar" versus [oni to:s] "without can." Since the stops are voiceless, no CD cue distinguishes geminates from singletons phrase initially. Nevertheless, do speakers utilize articulatory means to maintain the contrast? By using electropalatography, the articulatory and acoustic properties of word-initial alveolar stops were investigated in phrase-initial and phrase-medial contexts. The results are threefold. First, as expected, CD and contact duration of the articulators mirror each other within a phrase: Geminates are longer than singletons. Second, phrase initially, the contact data unequivocally establish a quantity distinction. This means that-even without acoustic CD cues for perception-geminates are articulated with substantially longer oral closure than singletons. Third, stops are longer in phrase-initial than phrase-medial position, indicating articulatory strengthening. Nevertheless, the difference between geminates and singletons phrase initially is proportionately less than in phrase-medial position.

An articulatory examination of word-final flapping at phrase edges and interiors

Formulations of flapping as a symbolic phonological rule suggest clear articulatory differences between flaps and stops, and often offer no overt explanation for why phrase boundaries should block the alternation. The present study explores the articulatory foundation of the distinction between flaps and non-flaps in word-final position. We examine kinematic and acoustic data for these articulations in phrase-final and phrase-medial positions and in falling- and level-stress contours. It is shown that a discrepancy exists between acoustic and articulatory durational patterning - while acoustic durations of flaps are shorter than those of non-flaps overall, their articulatory durations are not uniformly so. It is important to consider multiple potential articulatory sources - both spatial and temporal for the acoustic shortness that characterizes flaps, including spatial reduction, temporal articulatory shortening, and changes in intergestural coordination. The kinematic data indicate that different sources of word-final flap shortness exist for different speakers and different prosodic conditions, suggesting that gradient variability in the spatiotemporal patterning of tongue-tip constrictions yields acoustic shortening in word-final flaps.

The phrasal tonology of Zinza

The phrasal tonology of Zinza can be described in terms of four major processes, namely deletion of H from phrase-medial inflected verbs, insertion of H on the first of two toneless words, leftward shift of word-final H tone, and rightward spreading of penultimate H tone in phrase-medial position. The purpose of this paper is to describe these processes in detail. Specifying the syntactic conditions under which the processes of tone insertion and deletion apply is not trivial, since they do not apply to syntactically postposed subject NP's, or to verbs containing an object prefix that is coreferential to an immediately following NP. It is argued that the source of this complication is a distinctive constituent structure arising from syntactic dislocation, and that once the structural distinctions in constituent structure are understood, the tonal properties of these constructions follow immediately

A Contrastive Study of Prosody and Lexical Stress Placement in Singapore English and British English

It has been claimed that Singapore English and British English differ in stress placement: Singapore English speakers stress the final syllables of polysyllabic words such as flawlessly which are stressed initially in British English. Two considerations lead us to question the cross-varietal difference in stress placement. Firstly, we note that previous comparative studies have investigated stress differences in nuclear position. In this position, however, cues to a boundary and cues to stress may be confounded. Secondly, differences in stress placement have not been suggested by Singapore English speakers, but by British English analysts who may have presupposed comparable acoustic cues to stress in the two varieties. Thus, we hypothesize that it is not the flocation of lexical stress which differs in the two varieties, but the acoustic realization of stress. In the present paper this hypothesis was tested experimentally. Ten Singapore English and ten British English speakers produced polysyllabic words in nuclear, intonation phrase-final, and in non-nuclear, intonation phrase-medial position. Duration and F0 measurements were taken. The results do not support the claimed cross-varietal difference in flexical stress placement. In nuclear position, Singapore English test items are associated with significantly more phrase-final flengthening than British English test items. Additionally, we find a flack of “deprominencing” in F0 in Singapore English, that is, the difference between the nuclear syllable and following unstressed syllables is less clearly marked. In prenuclear position, the cross-varietal differences in duration and F0 disappear.