Prosodic Analysis Research Articles

Understanding vagueness: A prosodic analysis of endocentric and exocentric general extenders in English conversation

Recent research has evidenced the role of general extenders as specific pragmatic markers that contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of conversation, in spite of the vagueness of their meaning (Aijmer, 2013; Buysse, 2014; Palacios-Martínez, 2011). Nevertheless, the specific prosodic features of general extenders in English conversation have not benefited from the detailed prosodic analysis that other types of pragmatic markers have attracted in native and non-native speakers (Romero-Trillo, 2014, 2015a,b; Romero-Trillo and Newell, 2012).The present paper will investigate the prosodic patterns of general extenders in English conversation and will show how their patterns determine their functions and distribution, thus showing that vagueness does not mean randomness in their case.

Prosodia y polifuncionalidad de los marcadores anda, vamos, vaya y venga

The present study examines the prosodic configuration of markers derived from verbs of movement (anda, vamos, vaya and venga). First of all, the prosodic behaviour of all four markers will be studied. Secondly, the study aims to find outwhether the pragmatic functions of the markers can be linked to their prosodic configuration. For this purpose, various suprasegmental parameters and the functions of the markers anda, vamos, vaya andvengaare analyzed in a corpus of spoken language. Through statistical tests, the relations between the prosodic and the functional parameters are verified as well as the strength of these associations. This quantitative and qualitative prosodic analysis stresses the importance of prosody for the study of discourse markers.

THE ROLE OF AGE OF ACQUISITION IN LATE SECOND LANGUAGE ORAL PROFICIENCY ATTAINMENT

The current project examined whether and to what degree age of acquisition (AOA), defined as the first intensive exposure to a second language (L2) environment, can be predictive of the end state of postpubertal L2 oral proficiency attainment. Data were collected from 88 experienced Japanese learners of English and two groups of 20 baseline speakers (inexperienced Japanese speakers and native English speakers). The global quality of their spontaneous speech production was first judged by 10 native English-speaking raters based on accentedness (linguistic nativelikeness) and comprehensibility (ease of understanding) and was then submitted to segmental, prosodic, temporal, lexical, and grammatical analyses. According to the results, AOA was negatively correlated with the accentedness and comprehensibility components of L2 speech production, owing to relatively strong age effects on segmental and prosodic attainment. Yet significant age effects were not observed in the case of fluency and lexicogrammar attainment. The results suggest that AOA plays a key role in determining the extent to which learners can attain advanced-level L2 oral abilities via improving the phonological domain of language (e.g., correct consonant and vowel pronunciation and adequate and varied prosody) and that the temporal and lexicogrammatical domains of language (e.g., optimal speech rate and proper vocabulary and grammar usage) may be enhanced with increased L2 experience, regardless of age.

Objective voice and speech analysis of persons with chronic hoarseness by prosodic analysis of speech samples

Automatic voice assessment is often performed using sustained vowels. In contrast, speech analysis of read-out texts can be applied to voice and speech assessment. Automatic speech recognition and prosodic analysis were used to find regression formulae between automatic and perceptual assessment of four voice and four speech criteria. The regression was trained with 21 men and 62 women (average age 49.2 years) and tested with another set of 24 men and 49 women (48.3 years), all suffering from chronic hoarseness. They read the text ‘Der Nordwind und die Sonne’ (‘The North Wind and the Sun’). Five voice and speech therapists evaluated the data on 5-point Likert scales. Ten prosodic and recognition accuracy measures (features) were identified which describe all the examined criteria. Inter-rater correlation within the expert group was between r = 0.63 for the criterion ‘match of breath and sense units’ and r = 0.87 for the overall voice quality. Human–machine correlation was between r = 0.40 for the match of breath and sense units and r = 0.82 for intelligibility. The perceptual ratings of different criteria were highly correlated with each other. Likewise, the feature sets modeling the criteria were very similar. The automatic method is suitable for assessing chronic hoarseness in general and for subgroups of functional and organic dysphonia. In its current version, it is almost as reliable as a randomly picked rater from a group of voice and speech therapists.

Experience Effects on the Development of Late Second Language Learners’ Oral Proficiency

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of second language (L2) experience–operationalized as length of residence (LOR) in Canada—on late Japanese learners of English. Data collected from 65 participants consisted of three groups of learners (short‐, mid‐, and long‐LOR groups) and two baseline groups of native Japanese and native English speakers, with 13 participants in each group. The global quality of the participants’ spontaneous speech production was initially judged by 10 native‐speaking English raters for accentedness (linguistic nativelikeness) and comprehensibility (ease of understanding) and then submitted to segmental, prosodic, temporal, lexical, and grammatical analyses. According to the results, LOR was generally predictive of improved comprehensibility through its association with adequate and varied prosody, optimal speech rate, and proper lexicogrammar usage. In contrast, contributions of LOR to accentedness remained unclear, with less accented speech linked to refined segmental accuracy, vocabulary richness, and grammatical complexity. These findings suggest that learners continue to improve in their L2 oral proficiency over an extensive period of L2 immersion (e.g., 6 years of LOR), and they likely do so by paying selective attention to certain linguistic domains closely linked to comprehensibility—but not necessarily relevant to accentedness—for the purpose of successful L2 communication.

Second language speech production: Investigating linguistic correlates of comprehensibility and accentedness for learners at different ability levels

ABSTRACTThe current project aimed to investigate the potentially different linguistic correlates of comprehensibility (i.e., ease of understanding) and accentedness (i.e., linguistic nativelikeness) in adult second language (L2) learners’ extemporaneous speech production. Timed picture descriptions from 120 beginner, intermediate, and advanced Japanese learners of English were analyzed using native speaker global judgments based on learners’ comprehensibility and accentedness, and then submitted to segmental, prosodic, temporal, lexical, and grammatical analyses. Results showed that comprehensibility was related to all linguistic domains, and accentedness was strongly tied with pronunciation (specifically segmentals) rather than lexical and grammatical domains. In particular, linguistic correlates of L2 comprehensibility and accentedness were found to vary by learners’ proficiency levels. In terms of comprehensibility, optimal rate of speech, appropriate and rich vocabulary use, and adequate and varied prosody were important for beginner to intermediate levels, whereas segmental accuracy, good prosody, and correct grammar featured strongly for intermediate to advanced levels. For accentedness, grammatical complexity was a feature of intermediate to high-level performance, whereas segmental and prosodic variables were essential to accentedness across all levels. These findings suggest that syllabi tailored to learners’ proficiency level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) and learning goal (comprehensibility or nativelike accent) would be advantageous for the teaching of L2 speaking.

Preliminary Studies towards Improving the Isolated Digit Recognition Performance of Dysarthric Speech by Prosodic Analysis

Abstract The objective of the present work is to improve the digit recognition performance of speech signals affected with dysarthria. The paper presents preliminary studies performed on universal access dysarthric speech recognition (UADSR) database. The works presented in the paper are organized into three stages. Firstly, the degradation in the digit recognition performance is demonstrated by testing the dysarthric digits with the acoustic models built using the digit samples spoken by controlled speakers. Secondly, the prosodic analysis is performed on the dysarthric isolated digits that are available in the database. Finally, the prosodic parameters of the dysarthric speech is manipulated to match with the normal speech which is used to build the acoustic models. Based on the experiments conducted, the manipulation of duration parameters using the state of the art time-domain pitch synchronous overlap add (TD-PSOLA) method observed to be significantly improving the recognition rates in contrast to other prosodic parameters. The improvement in the word recognition rates are also found to be in accordance with the intelligibility of the dysarthric speakers and hence proves the significance of using customized prosodic scaling factors according to the intelligibility levels of each of the subjects.

Automatic Evaluation of Voice Quality Using Text-Based Laryngograph Measurements and Prosodic Analysis.

Due to low intra- and interrater reliability, perceptual voice evaluation should be supported by objective, automatic methods. In this study, text-based, computer-aided prosodic analysis and measurements of connected speech were combined in order to model perceptual evaluation of the German Roughness-Breathiness-Hoarseness (RBH) scheme. 58 connected speech samples (43 women and 15 men; 48.7 ± 17.8 years) containing the German version of the text “The North Wind and the Sun” were evaluated perceptually by 19 speech and voice therapy students according to the RBH scale. For the human-machine correlation, Support Vector Regression with measurements of the vocal fold cycle irregularities (CFx) and the closed phases of vocal fold vibration (CQx) of the Laryngograph and 33 features from a prosodic analysis module were used to model the listeners' ratings. The best human-machine results for roughness were obtained from a combination of six prosodic features and CFx (r = 0.71, ρ = 0.57). These correlations were approximately the same as the interrater agreement among human raters (r = 0.65, ρ = 0.61). CQx was one of the substantial features of the hoarseness model. For hoarseness and breathiness, the human-machine agreement was substantially lower. Nevertheless, the automatic analysis method can serve as the basis for a meaningful objective support for perceptual analysis.

Automatic Prosodic Analysis to Identify Mild Dementia.

This paper describes an exploratory technique to identify mild dementia by assessing the degree of speech deficits. A total of twenty participants were used for this experiment, ten patients with a diagnosis of mild dementia and ten participants like healthy control. The audio session for each subject was recorded following a methodology developed for the present study. Prosodic features in patients with mild dementia and healthy elderly controls were measured using automatic prosodic analysis on a reading task. A novel method was carried out to gather twelve prosodic features over speech samples. The best classification rate achieved was of 85% accuracy using four prosodic features. The results attained show that the proposed computational speech analysis offers a viable alternative for automatic identification of dementia features in elderly adults.

Prosodic Analysis of Korean Chinese On-glide Diphthong and Educational Korean Notation

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Caracterización prosódica del foco de tema y rema en las noticias

The study of prosody with regard to the paralinguistic function is progressing in two areas, the discursive analysis of the information structure, and the prosodic analysis of textual categories. On one hand, the oral information discourse in the media is an established exemplary type of discourse thus its analysis is patterned-oriented. On the other, the news locution is a still a sort of an announcers’ challenge due to the most peculiar communication conditions of the act. This study analyses a corpus of five news announced in three television channels by three different news readers. First, the discourse segments are defined as theme and rheme units. Next, the new, old and meditated information foci are spotted. And lastly, it is measured the pitch range (in percentages), the duration of the stressed syllable and the pitch peak of a corpus of 228 foci. The ANOVA factorial analysis characterizes the rheme focus by the syllable lengthening and characterizes the mediated focus by the pitch peak. These global features are stressed or nuanced by the announcer’s personal style. Whereas the spontaneous style does not make a great use of the pitch peak and is centered on the duration structure to mark the news information, the sensationalist style applies the pitch peak to all three types of accents, and the standard public style marks the rheme focus with duration and the discursive focus with the pitch peak as a turning point of the global melodic contour.

Park Play: A picture description task for assessing childhood motor speech disorders

The purpose of this study was to develop a picture description task for eliciting connected speech from children with motor speech disorders. The Park Play scene is a child-friendly picture description task aimed at augmenting current assessment protocols for childhood motor speech disorders. The design process included a literature review to: (1) establish optimal design features for child assessment, (2) identify a set of evidence-based speech targets specifically tailored to tax the motor speech system, and (3) enhance current assessment tools. To establish proof of concept, five children (ages 4;3–11;1) with dysarthria or childhood apraxia of speech were audio-recorded while describing the Park Play scene. Feedback from the feasibility test informed iterative design modifications. Descriptive, segmental, and prosodic analyses revealed the task was effective in eliciting desired targets in a connected speech sample, thereby yielding additional information beyond the syllables, words, and sentences generally elicited through imitation during the traditional motor speech examination. Further discussion includes approaches to adapt the task for a variety of clinical needs.

A prosodic analysis of Korean in the preschool years

A prosodic analysis of Korean in the preschool years

A Prosodic Analysis of have got and Implications for Distributed Morphology

A Prosodic Analysis of have got and Implications for Distributed Morphology

Perzeptive und maschinelle Stimm- und Sprechanalyse bei chronischer Laryngitis und T1-Stimmlippenkarzinom

Patients with chronic laryngitis and T1 vocal cord cancer were compared using perceptual and text-based objective voice and speech analyses in order to determine which group is more affected in its ability to communicate and whether a distinction between the two pathologies is possible. In all, 13 patients with histologically proven chronic laryngitis and 13 patients with T1 vocal cord cancer were compared perceptually by five speech therapists on the basis of seven criteria and objectively by a speech recognition system and prosodic analysis. Both, the data of the five speech therapists and the results of the automatic analysis revealed no significant differences between the two patient groups. A distinction between chronic laryngitis and T1 vocal cord carcinoma by mere voice and speech analysis is not possible, because the patient groups do not show significant differences in their voice quality.

Is Italian Clitic Right Dislocation grammaticalised? A prosodic analysis of yes/no questions and statements

This paper analyses the intonation of Italian yes/no questions and statements containing a Clitic Right Dislocation (CLRD) to determine whether this construction shows evidence of grammaticalisation at the prosodic level. We examine 251 CLRDs taken from task-oriented dialogues, showing that the prosody of the CLRD is strongly affected by the modality of the utterance: whereas statements mostly have the main prominence on the verbal predicate, in yes/no questions, the main accent predominantly occurs on the post-verbal noun phrase. Therefore, in declaratives, the traces of prosodic grammaticalisation are relatively weak, whereas the opposite is true for questions. We also analysed the discourse status and the degree of accessibility of the relevant referent. We hypothesise that CLRDs with different modality are functionally differentiated at the discourse level. Whereas declaratives reinforce topic continuity through the repetition of an active topic, we claim that interrogatives encode a high degree of accessibility of the referent to the speaker together with the speaker's uncertainty about the accessibility of the same referent to the listener. We therefore argue that yes/no questions with a CLRD express a confirmation request. We also explore the relationship between the discourse-status of the relevant referent and the prominence pattern of the utterance.

Prosody and discourse structure in Buenos Aires Spanish

In previous work, we examined the role of some prosodic features in structuring spoken discourse. In this paper, we explore monologue in political discourse, and attempt to link these prosodic cues to the speaker’s argumentative goals. The prosodic analysis is carried out in the Autosegmental-Metrical framework applied to Buenos Aires Spanish. The pragmatic analysis follows Relevance Theory. Tonal configurations guide the hearers to those parts of the discourse the speaker wants the audience to consider highly relevant. DOI: 10.28998/2317-9945.2013v2n52p227-247

Structural analysis of prosodic patterns: the case of excessive prolongations in Israeli Hebrew

This paper proposes a new framework for prosodic pattern analysis, based on the study of excessive prolongation in spontaneous Israeli Hebrew. In order to reveal whether it is a random phenomenon or a predictable prosodic pattern, a multi-layer linguistic analysis was conducted. First, the phenomenon was taken out of its canonical research framework as a type of speech disfluency. Second, its acoustic characteristics were defined, and the phonological environments of these prolongations were accounted for. Finally, prolongations and their interface with the syntagmatic layer were analyzed. The proposed framework can serve as a format for other prosodic patterns as well. DOI: 10.28998/2317-9945.2013v2n52p271-291

Towards a Typology of Postlexical Tonal Neutralizations

This paper surveys a number of contributing factors which result in postlexical tonal neutralizations, including properties of the target and trigger, the nature and extent of the process, and the domain within which the process occurs. Distinguishing between “intentional” vs. “incidental” neutralization, I illustrate neutralizations which result from assimilatory processes, reductions, and overwriting (by morphology, syntax or intonation). Of particular interest are systems such as Kalabari, an Ijoid language spoken in Nigeria, that exhibit phrasal reduction + melodic overwriting. After sorting out the different kinds of postlexical neutralization processes that occur (and in which environments), I present the typological generalizations which emerge. For example, one clear tendency is for the lexical N or V head of an XP to undergo modification in both head-initial and head-final languages. While this is clear in the case of tonal reduction and tonal overwriting, I consider how this generalization interacts with the tendency for tonal assimilations to be perseverative (vs. accentual phenomena, which are often anticipatory). Since there is some ambiguity and disagreement concerning the prosodic analysis of certain languages, e.g. the different dialects of Japanese, an accurate understanding of such phenomena may ultimately be useful in determining whether a given language is tonal vs. accentual. 1. Intentional vs. incidental neutralization Specialists of accentual systems are well aware that word-based prominences often neutralize postlexically, and hence fail to receive full phonetic realization at the phrase level. Specialists of tone systems are equally aware that lexical tonal contrasts can be neutralized at the phrase level by a number of processes, some of which are suggestive of “accentual” behavior. In this paper I attempt to provide an overview of the issues involved in postlexical (phrasal) tonal neutralizations across different languages and prosodic systems. Logically we can distinguish the following relevant parameters of tonal neutralization: (1) a. properties of the target (e.g. H, L, all tones) b. properties of the trigger (e.g. a tone, domain boundary, grammatical construction,

Vocal fatigue induced by prolonged oral reading: Analysis and detection

This article uses prolonged oral reading corpora for various experiments to analyze and detect vocal fatigue. Vocal fatigue particularly concerns voice professionals, including teachers, telemarketing operators, users of automatic speech recognition technology and actors. In analyzing and detecting vocal fatigue, we focused our investigations on three main experiments: a prosodic analysis that can be compared to the results found in related work, a two-class Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier into Fatigue and Non-Fatigue states using a large set of audio features and a comparison function that estimates the difference in fatigue level between two speech segments using a combination of multiple phoneme-based comparison functions. The experiments on prosodic analysis showed that vocal fatigue was not associated with an increase in fundamental frequency and voice intensity. A two-class SVM classifier using the Paralinguistic Challenge 2010 audio feature set gave an unweighted accuracy of 94.1% for the training set (10-fold cross-validation) and 68.2% for the test set. These results show that the phenomenon of vocal fatigue can be modeled and detected. The comparison function was assessed by detecting increased fatigue levels between two speech segments. The fatigue level detection performance in Equal Error Rate (EER) was 31% using all phonetic segments and yielded EER of 21% after filtering phonetic segments and 19% after filtering phonetic segments and cepstral features. These results show that some phonemes are more sensitive than others to vocal fatigue. These experiments show that the fatigued voice has specific characteristics for prolonged oral reading and suggest the feasibility of vocal fatigue detection.