Position In Utterance Research Articles

Speech rate and vowel duration in American English

In an experiment designed to elucidate the manner in which vowel duration in American English is altered by speaking rate and how rate interacts with other duration-affecting factors, vowel durations were measured in nonsense words spoken in frame sentences. The following inherent and contextual factors were manipulated: vowel height and tenseness (/ɪ, I, e, r/); post-vocalic consonant voicing; vowel position in utterance (words were monosyllabic or disyllabic with the target vowel in the initial syllable); and speaking rate. Preliminary results confirm earlier findings that vowel height has an additive effect on vowel duration and consonant voicing interacts with vowel class (tense versus lax) and position. The results further show that rate exhibits similar behavior to voicing. It interacts with vowel class and voicing, and with position in voiced consonants.

Sociophonetic aspects of creaky voice

In a wide-reaching study of creaky voice in British English (Henton and Bladon, 1988) it was indicated that use of creaky voice varied significantly according to sex and accent of speakers, as well as with utterance position. Specifically, males used between three and ten times as much creaky voice as did females. Accentual differences were also found: Speakers of Modified Northern were more polarized in the overall amounts of creak used than were RP speakers. Individual speakers varied considerably in their use of creak, with a number of males being persistent creakers. In addition, creaky voice was shown to be an “end-of-utterance” phenomenon, used by females and males in a demarcative function. Further research using data from American English and from French indicates that creaky voice may be employed as a sociophonetic marker across cultures. Indeed, its role as a marker of male speech may be enhanced in certain cultures where gender-role expectations are more pronounced. The demarcative intonational function is observed again cross linguistically. This phenomenon, coupled with Hyman's (1988) recent results for West African languages, may make intonational creaky voice a candidate for a phonetic universal.

The influence of stress, position, and utterance length on the pressure characteristics of English /p/ and /b/.

This study examines pressure characteristics of /p/ and /b/ as a function of position with regard to stress and position within the utterance. Eight female talkers produced utterances which varied in length from one to five disyllables ([pápe] or [bábe]). Results demonstrate the importance of utterance position for the magnitude of supraglottal pressure in stops. Except in voiceless stops found in the first words of utterances, pressure was greater in the prestressed than in the poststressed position. The pressure difference distinguishing /p/ and /b/ was reduced considerably when these stops occurred in absolute utterance-initial position. A post hoc analysis revealed that pressure increased much more slowly in initial than in noninitial stops and that /p/ and /b/ were not distinguished by the rate at which supraglottal pressure increased when these stops occurred in utterance-initial position. Finally, it was found that the pressure of stops in the first words of utterances increased as a function of utterance length, suggesting preplanning for sentence production at the respiratory level.

Effects of utterance position on English speech timing.

8 speakers of American English produced utterances consisting of one to five disyllables ([bábe] or [pápe]). Vowel and stop closure intervals were defined by variations in supraglottal pressure, sensed through a thin tube inserted in the mouth. Closure was always longer for /p/ than /b/ in utterance-medial positions. In utterance-initial position, however, /b/ lengthened more than /p/ so that no duration difference between /p/ and /b/ was observed. Utterance-initial position did not influence vowel duration. In contrast, utterance-final position affected only vowel duration, lengthening both final-syllable unstressed vowels and stressed vowels in penultimate syllables.

Effects of stress and utterance position on stop voicing

Duration and glottal pulsing are known to distinguish voiced from voiceless stops in certain phonetic contexts. This study examined the effect of stress and position‐within‐utterance on these temporal and laryngeal correlates of stop voicing. Eight talkers produced utterances consisting of from one to five tokens of/papa/or/baba/. The duration of stops and vowels was measured from intraoral air pressure traces sensed via a tube inserted in the mouth. The output of a throat microphone was used to calculate the percentage of stop closure intervals showing signs of laryngeal activity. It was found that a laryngeal contrast between/p/ and /b/was maintained in all positions except utterance‐initial position. Vowels were consistently longer before /b/ than /p/. The closure of /p/was longer than that of /b/ everywhere except in utterance‐initial position. Thus, the supra‐segmental factors which affect segment duration obscure a temporal correlate of phonological voicing only in utterance‐initial position where n...

Phrase-level timing patterns in English: effects of emphatic stress location and speaking rate.

Phrase-level timing patterns in the utterance Bob hit the big dog were studied as a function of emphatic-stress location at two speaking rates. Five emphatic-stress conditions were defined: emphasis on each of the four content words, and one condition with no emphatic stress (neutral emphasis). Three subjects produced twenty repetitions of each condition at both rates. Results showed (1) the effect of emphatic stress on segment duration was not confined to the emphasized segments, but was manifest in nonemphasized segments as well; (2) when emphatic stress occurred near the beginning of the utterance, segment durations toward the end of the utterance were shortened relative to the duration of these segments in the neutral-emphasis utterance; however, for emphatic stress late in the utterance, beginning segments were not so modified; (3) the duration correlate of emphasis varied with position-in-utterance; and (4) increased speaking rate reduced or eliminated timing contrasts observed at the conversational rate, and affected the utterance-final segment differently from segments in other utterance positions.

A phonetic analysis of consonantal devoicing in children's speech

ABSTRACTA number of phonologists have observed the frequent occurrence of ‘devoiced’ obstruents in word-final position in children's utterances. Although such transcription-based accounts have provided evidence of the phenomenon, physical phonetic properties of devoiced consonants have not been described. Therefore, characteristics of voicing control for ‘voiced’ and ‘voiceless’ stops produced by five English-speaking children aged 2; 6–3; 0, five aged 4; 0–4; 6, and five adults were investigated in terms of (1) the percentage of all stop productions evidencing ‘devoicing’ during consonant closure, and (2) in the case of devoiced stops, the proportion of consonant closure evidencing voicing. Both groups of children revealed substantial amounts of consonantal devoicing when compared with the adults; in addition, the proportion of stop closure evidencing voicing was considerably less for the children than for the adults. It was also observed, however, that the children's ‘devoiced’ stops revealed significantly more voicing than their phonemically ‘voiceless’ stop productions.

Perception by 2-month-old infants of glide contrasts in multisyllabic utterances.

Several aspects of the 2-month-old’s perception of a phonetic contrast between glides in multisyllabic utterances were explored with the high-amplitude sucking paradigm. First, do infants perceive contrasts between glides in the initial (e.g., YADA vs. WADA) and medial positions (e.g., DAYA vs. DAWA) of multisyllabic utterances? Second, are infants more likely to perceive these contrasts between stressed or unstressed syllables? Our results suggest the following: (1) 2-month-olds are sensitive to place-of-articulation differences between glides in both the initial and medial positions of multisyllabic utterances; (2) positioning stress on the syllables to be discriminated had little or no effect on the infants’ ability to perceive the contrast; (3) there was no indication that infants were any more sensitive to the contrast in the initial position than in the medial position. Our findings were in complete agreement with those observed previously for infant’s perception of stop consonant differences in multi-syllabic utterances (Jusczyk & Thompson, 1978).

Peak magnitudes of supraglottal air pressure associated with affricated and nonaffricated stop consonant productions in Hindi

Peak magnitudes of supraglottal air pressure were obtained, under a variety of conditions, from three normal adult speakers in Hindi during the production of stop consonants. The stops were produced in CVCVC nonsense utterances which were embedded in the carrier phrase, “ye—hæ.” Significant differences in peak magnitudes associated with the stop productions were found as a function of place of articulation and utterance position. Peak magnitudes were always significantly higher for unvoiced stops than for voiced stops. Aspirated stops, in general, showed higher peak magnitudes than unaspirated stops, but a significant level of difference in peak magnitudes was reached only under voiced conditions. Differences in peak magnitudes as a function of stress were significant under voiced conditions; under unvoiced conditions the differences were less pronounced.

Perception of a phonetic contrast in multisyllabic utterances by 2-month-old infants.

In the present study, three aspects of the 2-month-old’s perception of multisyllabic utterances were explored. First, do infants perceive phonetic contrasts occurring either in the initial (Bada-Gada) or medial (Daba-Daga) positions of multisyllabic utterances? Second, are infants more likely to perceive these contrasts in stressed as opposed to unstressed syllables? Third, will infants detect a difference between two stress patterns? Our results indicate the following: (1) Two-month-olds are sensitive to place-of-articulation differences occurring in either the initial or medial positions of multisyllabic stimuli. (2) Whether the contrast occurred between stressed or unstressed syllables had little or no effect on the infant’s ability to detect it. (3) Infants as young as 2-months old respond to differences between stress patterns.

Perception of glides in multisyllabic utterances by infants

Several aspects of the two‐month‐olds' perception of a phonetic contrast between glides in multisyllabic utterances were explored with the high amplitude sucking paradigm. First, do infants perceive contrasts between glides in the initial (e.g., YADA versus WADA) and medial positions (e.g., DAYA versus DAWA) of multisyllabic utterances? Second, are infants more likely to perceive these contrasts between stressed or unstressed syllables: Our results suggest the following: (1) two‐month olds are sensitive to place‐of‐articulation differences between glides in both the initial and medial positions of multisyllabic utterances; (2) positioning stress on the syllables to be discriminated had little or no effect on the infants' ability to perceive the contrast; and (3) there was no indication that infants were any more sensitive to the contrast in the initial position than in the medial position. Our findings were in complete agreement with those observed previously for infant's perception of stop consonant differences in multisyllabic utterances [Jusczyk and Thompson, Soc. Res. Child Dry. Abstr. (1977)], suggesting that infant's detection of medial contrasts does not depend on the presence of abrupt formant transitions.

Measuring larynx movement in standard Thia using the cricothyrometer.

Vertical movement of the larynx during connected speech was investigated in Standard Thai - a language that has five phonologically contrastive tones. The effects of pitch, consonant phonation-type, vowel quality, tonal categories, and position in the utterance were determined. Utterance position was found to be the factor most clearly associated with variations in larynx movement. The occurrence of an overall rise-fall pattern of larynx movement distributed over utterances of varying pitch patterns leads to the conclusion that larynx height is not a principal factor regulating pitch in connected speech. Implications for models of pitch production, distinctive features for tone, theories on the historical development of tone and the role of larynx movements in the production of consonants and vowels are discussed.

The Effect of Linguistic and Paralinguistic Variables on the Elision of the French Mute-e

Abstract This eighth report on the ‘Paris Project’ deals with a computer-assisted analysis of the frequency of elision among 10,891 mute-e’s in natural conversations as a function of phonetic context (number and nature of consonants contiguous to the /Ó™/, position in utterance, presence of other mute-e’s in contiguous syllables) and selected paralinguistic factors (sex, age, occupation, loudness, articulatory intensity, syllabic rate, degree of formality, attitude and posture vis-à-vis interlocutor, and subject matter). A separate analysis is made for coupled liquid and mute-e elision in cases such as I’autre jour /lot<sub>3</sub>ur/ and pane que /paskÓ™/. Finally, the frequency of occurrence of the hesitation vowel euh is calculated in the three demographic categories indicated above. The results of the investigation reveal a number of new details and indicate some modifications in the traditional rules for its maintenance and elision. The paralinguistic correlates confirm an important discovery that is emerging from our long-range research, namely that in the dialect in question the most diachronically advanced speakers belong to the central age groups (30–59 years), the youngest (20–29) and the oldest (60–69) manifesting marked conservative tendencies.

The effect of position in utterance on speech segment duration in English.

The duration of speech segments as a function of position in utterances (initial, medial, final) was studied. In the first experiment seven English speakers read nonsense utterances of the form “say a [bab], say a [bábab], say a [babáb],” etc. Spectrograms were used to determine the duration of speech segments in the readings. Final syllables were found to be longer than nonfinal syllables. Final-syllable vowel increments were approximately 100 msec. Final-syllable consonant increments were less than vowel increments; for instance, absolute final consonant increments were about 20 msec. Also word-initial consonants were found to be lengthened by 20–30 msec over medial consonants. Subsequent experimentation demonstrated with English nonsense words that (1) final-syllable and initial-consonant lengthening occur in utterances with various intonational patterns (imperative, declarative, interrogative); (2) final-syllable lengthening occurs in word-final and phrase-final positions as well as in utterance-final position; and (3) final-syllable and initial-consonant lengthening occur in various kinds of syllables, including syllables with diphthongs, with fricative consonants, with voiceless stops, with consonant cluster, and with no final consonants (i.e., CV syllables). These studies report durational increments of particularly great magnitude for absolute final fricative consonants. Explanations of the lengthening effects are discussed. One theory suggests that lengthening in certain utterance positions is a learned aspect of language which cues listeners concerning the location of boundaries of words, phrases, or sentences. Explanations based on hypothesized properties of the speech production process are also discussed.

Position-in-Utterance Duration Effects

The duration of speech segments as a function of position in utterances (initial, medial, final) was studied. Seven English speakers read nonsense utterances of the form “say a bab, say a babab, say a babab,” etc. Spectrograms were used to determine the duration of speech segments in the readings. Final syllables were found to be longer than nonfinal syllables. Final-syllable vowel increments were about 100 msec. Final-syllable consonant increments were less than vowel increments, for instance, 20 msec for absolute final consonants. Also word-initial consonants were found to be lengthened by 20–30 msec. It is suggested that durational studies in general should be interpreted in the light of findings concerning position-in-utterance lengthening. Explanations of lengthening effects are discussed. One theory suggests that lengthening in certain utterance positions is a learned aspect of languages which cues listeners concerning the segmentation of utterances into words, phrases, or sentences. Explanations based on hypothesized properties of the articulatory control system are also discussed.