F0 Rise Research Articles

Influence of recent linguistic exposure on the segmentation of an unfamiliar language

Studies have shown that listeners segmenting unfamiliar languages transfer native-language (L1) segmentation cues. These studies, however, conflated L1 and recent linguistic exposure. The present study investigates the relative influences of L1 and recent linguistic exposure on the use of prosodic cues for segmenting an artificial language (AL). Participants were L1-French listeners, high-proficiency L2-French L1-English listeners, and L1-English listeners without functional knowledge of French. The prosodic cue assessed was F0 rise, which is word-final in French, but in English tends to be word-initial. 30 participants heard a 20-minute AL speech stream with word-final boundaries marked by F0 rise, and decided in a subsequent listening task which of two words (without word-final F0 rise) had been heard in the speech stream. The analyses revealed a marginally significant effect of L1 (all listeners) and, importantly, a significant effect of recent linguistic exposure (L1-French and L2-French listeners): accuracy increased with decreasing time in the US since the listeners’ last significant (3+ months) stay in a French-speaking environment. Interestingly, no effect of L2 proficiency was found (L2-French listeners).

Delayed use of fundamental frequency (F0) rise in non-native speech segmentation

Research has shown that second/foreign language (L2) speech segmentation is less efficient than native language (L1) segmentation, because L2 learners cannot suppress L1 segmentation routines. This study uses visual-world eye-tracking to determine whether English learners of French can learn to use F0 for locating word-final boundaries in French. F0 rise is often word-initial in English but often word-final in French. Native French speakers and English learners of French heard sentences where lexical competitors were created between the target noun and the following adjective (stimulus: chat grincheux ‘cranky cat’; target: chat ‘cat’; competitor: chagrin ‘sorrow’). The target was either accented or unaccented, and the stimuli were either natural or resynthesized (swapped F0 between accented and unaccented targets). Participants selected the word they heard from given options (target, competitor, distracters), and fixations were recorded from target-word onset. Accuracy (word selection): learners, but not natives, were more accurate for target words with F0 rise than without it. Fixations: natives, but not learners, showed higher differential proportions of target and competitor fixations for target words with F0 rise than without it. Proficiency did not interact with the variables. This suggests that L2 learners’ use of F0 rise is delayed compared to that of natives.

THE USE OF PROSODIC CUES IN LEARNING NEW WORDS IN AN UNFAMILIAR LANGUAGE

The artificial language learning paradigm was used to investigate to what extent the use of prosodic features is universally applicable or specifically language driven in learning an unfamiliar language, and how nonnative prosodic patterns can be learned. Listeners of unrelated languages—Dutch (n= 100) and Korean (n= 100)—participated. The words to be learned varied with prosodic cues: no prosody, fundamental frequency (F0) rise in initial and final position, final lengthening, and final lengthening plus F0 rise. Both listener groups performed well above chance level with the final lengthening cue, confirming its crosslinguistic use. As for final F0 rise, however, Dutch listeners did not use it until the second exposure session, whereas Korean listeners used it at initial exposure. Neither group used initial F0 rise. On the basis of these results, F0 and durational cues appear to be universal in the sense that they are used across languages for their universally applicable auditory-perceptual saliency, but how they are used is language specific and constrains the use of available prosodic cues in processing a nonnative language. A discussion on how these findings bear on theories of second language (L2) speech perception and learning is provided.

The prosodic structure of Koasati

This paper presents results of the first systematic acoustic investigation of the prosodic system of Koasati, an endangered Muskogean language of Louisiana. Koasati is prosodically complex, featuring lexically marked pitch accents in nouns and verbs, as well as phonologically predictable pitch accents and boundary tones assigned by the intonational system. While most nouns are characteristically associated with a final F0 rise attributed to a phrase-level tone, some have an additional lexically marked high pitch accent on a non-final syllable. The pitch accent system in verbs is more intricate and consists of different types of aspectually determined accents (termed ‘grades’ in the Muskogeanist literature) and concomitant segmental changes including lengthening, nasalization, or aspiration. Koasati also has a rich intonation system featuring at least two levels of prosodic constituents, the accentual phrase and the intonational phrase, which are associated with boundary tones and/or pitch accents that often temporally overlap with lexically specified pitch accents. Our results will be compared with those for Creek (Johnson and Martin 2001, Martin and Johnson 2002) and Chickasaw (Gordon 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, Gordon etal. 2000, Gordon and Munro 2007), Koasati's prosodically best described relatives. [Work supported by NSF.]

Explaining boundary perception in spontaneous French conversation: Acoustic and phrasal metrics.

Prosodic structure in speech derives from both linguistic structure, particularly syntax, and performance factors such as speech rate. The combination of influences means that predicting the structure of a spontaneous utterance remains a major challenge. One approach has been to survey listeners and take their perceptions as the basis for analysis [e.g., Cole et al., Lab.Phonol. (2010)]. A study of this type in French compared perceptions of two types of spontaneous speech: informal conversation and more formal journalistic discussion. 25 naive native speakers of French listened to recordings of both types and indicated where they perceived boundaries between groups of words. Their responses were then compared to acoustic measurements and analyzes of the phrasal structure of the conversations. The presence of a pause and a rise in F0 were the most reliable acoustic correlates of a perceived boundary. Preliminary analyzes of phonological phrase structure suggest that the thresholded boundary weight hypothesis of Breen et al. [2010 Lang. Cog. Proc.] is a promising metric for explaining the pattern of boundary perception in these data. Locations were more often perceived as boundaries when the sum of the sizes of just‐completed and upcoming constituents (measured in numbers of phonological phrases) is larger.

Accent detection is a slippery slope: Direction and rate of F0 change drives listeners' comprehension

The present study tests whether listeners use F0, duration, or some combination of the two to identify the presence of an accented word in a short discourse. Participants' eye movements to previously mentioned and new objects were monitored as participants listened to instructions to move objects in a display. The name of the target object on critical trials was resynthesised from naturally produced utterances so that it had either high or low F0 and either long or short duration. Fixations to the new object were highest when there was a steep rise in F0. Fixations to the previously mentioned object were highest when there was a steep drop in F0. These results suggest that listeners use F0 slope to make decisions about the presence of an accent, and that F0 and duration by themselves do not solely determine accent interpretation.

Deaccenting in Spontaneous Speech in Barcelona Spanish

Abstract Recent literature on Spanish intonation assumes that deaccenting occurs when a lexical item fails to cue stress via an F0 rise or some other pitch movement through its stressed syllable. Inspired by the findings and suggestions for future research by Face (2003), the present study fills in research gaps by examining seven potential influences on deaccenting, working with spontaneous speech, and addressing the understudied Barcelona dialect of Spanish. The analysis of 160-170 minutes of spontaneous speech data collected at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona reveals that the odds of deaccenting increase in words that are high frequency in Spanish, have fewer syllables, are verbs or adverbs, are uttered multiple times within a recent timeframe, or are in initial or medial positions of the phonological phrase. Finally, high frequency verbs and adverbs, as well as adverbs, nouns, and verbs with fewer syllables are all especially prone to deaccenting.

Deformation of the hypopharyngeal cavities due to F0 changes and its acoustic effects

Our observation from a male speaker showed that rise and fall of F0 in vowel production involves geometrical changes of the hypopharyngeal cavities and alters their resonance pattern. In high F0, the upper part of the laryngeal cavity widens to increase the frequency of the fourth formant, and the piriform fossa elongates to decrease its zero frequency. On the contrary, in low F0, the upper part of the laryngeal cavity is constricted to decrease the frequency of the fourth formant, and the piriform fossa shortens to increase its dip frequency. As a result, the pole and zeros generated by the hypopharyngeal cavities approximate each other in high F0, while they dissociate in low F0.

The segmental anchoring hypothesis revisited: Syllable structure and speech rate effects on peak timing in Spanish

This paper addresses the validity of the segmental anchoring hypothesis for tonal landmarks (henceforth, SAH) as described in recent work by (among others) Ladd, Faulkner, D., Faulkner, H., & Schepman [1999. Constant ‘segmental’ anchoring of f0 movements under changes in speech rate. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106, 1543–1554], Ladd [2003. Phonological conditioning of f0 target alignment. In: M. J. Solé, D. Recasens, & J. Romero (Eds.), Proceedings of the XVth international congress of phonetic sciences, Vol. 1, (pp. 249–252). Barcelona: Causal Productions; in press. Segmental anchoring of pitch movements: Autosegmental association or gestural coordination? Italian Journal of Linguistics, 18 (1)]. The alignment of LH* prenuclear peaks with segmental landmarks in controlled speech materials in Peninsular Spanish is analyzed as a function of syllable structure type (open, closed) of the accented syllable, segmental composition, and speaking rate. Contrary to the predictions of the SAH, alignment was affected by syllable structure and speech rate in significant and consistent ways. In: CV syllables the peak was located around the end of the accented vowel, and in CVC syllables around the beginning-mid part of the sonorant coda, but still far from the syllable boundary. With respect to the effects of rate, peaks were located earlier in the syllable as speech rate decreased. The results suggest that the accent gestures under study are synchronized with the syllable unit. In general, the longer the syllable, the longer the rise time. Thus the fundamental idea of the anchoring hypothesis can be taken as still valid. On the other hand, the tonal alignment patterns reported here can be interpreted as the outcome of distinct modes of gestural coordination in syllable-initial vs. syllable-final position: gestures at syllable onsets appear to be more tightly coordinated than gestures at the end of syllables [Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L.M. (1986). Towards an articulatory phonology. Phonology Yearbook, 3, 219–252; Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1988). Some notes on syllable structure in articulatory phonology. Phonetica, 45, 140–155; (1992). Articulatory Phonology: An overview. Phonetica, 49, 155–180; Krakow (1999). Physiological organization of syllables: A review. Journal of Phonetics, 27, 23–54; among others]. Intergestural timing can thus provide a unifying explanation for (1) the contrasting behavior between the precise synchronization of L valleys with the onset of the syllable and the more variable timing of the end of the f0 rise, and, more specifically, for (2) the right-hand tonal pressure effects and ‘undershoot’ patterns displayed by peaks at the ends of syllables and other prosodic domains.

Perception of Japanese pitch accent: Examination of minimal accent pairs

Perception of Japanese pitch accent was examined using 20 bimoraic/disyllabic minimal accent pairs. A minimal accent pair refers to a pair of words that is identical except for their accent types. For example, /hana/ ‘‘flower’’ and /hana/ ‘‘nose’’ have the same phonemic sequence and the pitch pattern of low‐high yet they differ in that ‘‘flower’’ has accent on the word‐final mora while ‘‘nose’’ has no accent (unaccented). A preceding production study that utilized the same 20 pairs of words found that the maximum F0 in the word‐final mora was reliably higher for the final‐accented words than the unaccented words and the F0 rise from the initial mora to the final mora was reliably larger for the final accented words than the unaccented ones when they were produced sentence‐medially followed by a particle. However, the two accent types did not show any reliable difference when they were produced by themselves in isolation. This perception study accesses if the properties found to be related to Japanese pitch accent in production are actually used by listeners when they identify accent types. The relation between the production and perception of Japanese pitch accent will be discussed.

Photoinhibition of photosynthesis in Minquartia guianensis and Swietenia macrophylla inferred by monitoring the initial fluorescence

We assessed the effect of the exposure to full sunlight (5, 35, and 120 min, i.e. T5, T35, and T120) on fluorescence parameters of two young tropical trees, Swietenia macrophylla, a gap-demanding species, and Minquartia guianensis, a shade tolerant species. Fluorescence parameters (F0, Fm, Fv/Fm) were recorded before treatments and after the transition to low irradiance (LI). Recovery from photoinhibition (measured as Fv/Fm) was monitored for 24 h at LI. In Swietenia, an almost complete restoration of the Fv/Fm values occurred in T5 and T35 plants, when a rise in F0 was observed after the transition to LI. This was inferred as indicative of dynamic photoinhibition. T120 led to a decline in F0 in Minquartia, but not in Swietenia. The plants of both species were unable to recovery from photoinhibition after 24 h at LI, when F0 declined or remained unchanged. This was interpreted as indicative of chronic photoinhibition. Compared with Swietenia, Minquartia was more susceptible to photoinhibition, as indicated by lower Fv/Fm values.

Normalizing pitch variability in intoxicated speech

Intoxicated speech studies have shown mixed results with respect to prosodic characteristics. Both an overall F0 rise [Hollien et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 3198–3206 (2001)] and F0 lowering [Johnson et al., Phonetica 47, 215–237 (1990)] have been observed under intoxication. These conflicting findings may be due to increased F0 fluctuations at various levels of intoxication and use of inconsistent prosodic domains, such as averaging over entire sentences or utterances. If phonetic analysis takes into account prosodic boundaries, then models will account for appropriate prosodic rises and falls [Taylor, J. Acoust. Soc. Am 107, 1697–1714 (2000)]. This paper reports an analysis of recordings of both intoxicated and control subjects. Speech samples are analyzed at sober and three lev-els of intoxication. Of particular interest are the prosodic patterns at the often unreported descending limb of intoxication, which displays the widest range of variability in behavior. Use of F0 parameter extraction, stylization, and rotation methods over appropriate prosodic domains factors out spurious variation at different intoxication levels. Evaluation of this normalization procedure is reported with respect to both within- and across-subject variation. Implications for the analysis of normal, intoxicated, and disordered speech are discussed.

Freezing and high temperature thresholds of photosystem 2 compared to ice nucleation, frost and heat damage in evergreen subalpine plants

Freezing and high temperature thresholds of photosystem 2 (PS2), ice formation and frost and heat damage were measured in leaves of evergreen subalpine plants under conditions of naturally low (winter) to high (summer) PS2 efficiencies (FV/FM). The temperature‐dependent change in basic Chl fluorescence (F0) (T‐F0) technique that is usually used to assess the high temperature threshold of PS2 in a new approach was applied to test freezing temperature thresholds of PS2. T‐F0 curves (+5 °C to −10 °C at 2 K h−1) revealed a significant, sudden increase in F0 on extracellular ice formation (−4.0 or −5.5 °C). The rise in F0 was recorded 0.3–0.6 K below ice nucleation (10–20 min later) and was produced by freeze dehydration of cells. The rise in F0 was not caused by frost damage, as during winter LT50 was lower than −27 °C and not by formation of ice on the leaf surface. Hence, F0 measurements during freezing are a useful tool to distinguish between surface ice and extracellular ice inside the leaf tissue which cannot be differentiated by other ice‐detecting methods. PS2 efficiency significantly affected the shape of the high temperature T‐F0 curves (20–65 °C at 1 K min−1). Under FV/FM >0.6, two F0 maxima were recorded. The fast rise phase to the first F0 maximum corresponded with tissue heat damage (LT50: 46.9–54.3 °C). The second F0 maximum occurred at leaf temperatures between 55 and 60 °C. Under FV/FM <0.2 only, the second F0 maximum was detectable. Lack of awareness of the missing F0 maximum would lead to an overestimation of the PS2 high temperature threshold by >10 K; hence, under low FV/FM, it cannot be determined by the T‐F0 technique.

Deriving speaking rate effects on tonal realization without varying the speech rate

Previous research investigates the effect of durational variation on tonal realization by artificially inducing a change in speaking rate. Through an investigation of the f0 pattern of Cantonese mid-rising tone, this paper introduces a novel, indirect, method of investigating durational effect on tonal realization by looking at the variation in tonal realization in different syllable types. Cantonese has three syllable types: CV, CV(V)O, CV(V)N. CV(V)N syllables are found to be significantly longer than CV syllables, which in turn are significantly longer than CV(V)O syllables. In this study, five native Cantonese speakers were asked to recite a list of Cantonese words with a mid-rising tone in a carrier phrase. The f0 of the Turning Point (the lowest point of a rise), the f0 peak of the rise, the durations of the Turning Point and the f0 peak relative to the onset of voicing, and the duration of the syllable rime were measured. The results show that the f0 peak frequency remains constant regardless of the duration of the syllable. The f0 of the Turning Point gets higher when the duration of the syllable becomes shorter. Finally, the slope of the f0 rise remains constant regardless of the duration of the syllable.

Asking questions with focus

This study investigates how different interrogative meanings interact with focus in determining the overall F0 profile of a question. We recorded eight native speakers of Mandarin producing statements, yes–no questions with and without a question particle, wh questions, incredulous questions, and confirmation questions. In each sentence, either the initial, medial, final, or no word was focused. The tonal components of the sentences are all high, all rising, all low, or all falling. F0 contours were extracted by measuring every complete vocal period in the initial, medial, and final disyllabic words in each sentence. Preliminary results show that in both statements and questions, the pitch range of the focused words is expanded and that of the postfocus words suppressed (compressed and lowered). However, postfocus pitch-range suppression seems less extensive in questions than in statements, and in some question types than in others. Finally, an extra F0 rise is often observed in the final syllable of a question unless the syllable is the question particle which has the neutral tone. This is indicative of a high or rising boundary tone associated with the interrogative meaning, which seems to be superimposed on the tone of the sentence-final syllable. [Work supported by NIDCD DC03902.]

Cues for question intonation in Arabic: Disambiguation techniques for use in automatic speech recognizer systems

The focus of this study is to determine the extent to which prosodic characteristics can contribute to the improvement of speech recognition in Arabic. F0 rising rate was chosen to disambiguate yes–no question from declarative sentences. In Arabic, as in English, a rising intonation indicates a yes–no question whether the question takes lexical question markers or uses an inverted word order or whether the sentence takes just a declarative form. We conducted a production study with 55 yes–no question sentences uttered by a female native speaker of Arabic. Two types of measurements were taken for F0 rise rate. First, we visually obtained the best-fit rise in sentence-final position. Second, we computed the rate based on minimum and maximum F0 values within the sentence-final 500 ms. The results show that although the rise obtained from the final 500 ms (0.41 Hz/ms) is different from the best-fit rise rate (0.49 Hz/ms) (p<0.05), when examining two different F0 rising shapes and considering JND for the rising rate (Nabelek and Hirsh, 1962), a threshold of 0.4 Hz/ms can be considered a threshold indicator of a yes–no question intonation for this speaker. Thus, a sufficient rise rate was extracted automatically from a fixed sentence-final duration.

Fundamental Frequency Peak Delay in Mandarin

Fundamental frequency (F₀) peak delay (henceforth peak delay) refers to the phenomenon that an F₀ peak sometimes occurs after the syllable it is associated with either lexically or prosodically. Although peak delay has been reported for various languages, the mechanism of its occurrence has so far remained unclear. In Mandarin, peak delay has been found to occur regularly in the rising (R) tone but not in the high (H) tone. The present study investigates the underlying mechanisms of peak delay by examining its relationship with tone, tonal context, and speech rate. An experiment was conducted to test the possibility that peak delay may occur also in the H tone in Mandarin if the H-carrying syllable is sufficiently shortened. Native speakers of Mandarin Chinese recorded three types of sentences each containing a H, a R, or a weakened H tone. The sentences were produced at three speech rates: normal, fast and slow. Analysis of F₀ contours and peak alignment revealed that at normal speech rate, peak delay occurred regularly in both the R and weakened H tones but only occasionally in the H tone; at slow speech rate, peak delay continued to occur regularly in the R tone but only occasionally in weakened H and rarely in the H tone; at fast speech rate, peak delay occurred not only regularly in the R and weakened H tones, but also frequently in the H tone. Results of F₀ contour alignment analysis indicate that peak delay occurs when there is a sharp F₀ rise near the end of a syllable, regardless of the cause of the rise. The finding of this study provides support for the view that, rather than due to actual misalignment between underlying pitch units and segmental units, much of the variability in the shape and alignment of F₀ contours in Mandarin is attributable to the interaction of underlying pitch targets with tonal contexts and articulatory constraints.

Phonological conditioning of peak alignment in rising pitch accents in Dutch.

This paper deals with the factors that influence the alignment of F0 movements with phonetic segments. It reports two experiments on the alignment of rising prenuclear pitch accents in Dutch. In experiment 1, it is shown that the final peak of the rise is aligned at the end of the vowel if the accented syllable contains a long vowel, but during the following consonant if the accented syllable contains a short vowel. The beginning of the rise is consistently aligned at the beginning of the accented syllable. Experiment 2 attempts to distinguish between two explanations for this finding: (1) a durational account, in which the F0 rise takes a certain amount of time and overruns into the following consonant if the vowel is short; and (2) a structural account, in which the peak of the rise is seen as a tonal target aligned with the end of the syllable (which is structurally earlier for long vowels than for short vowels). The data partially support both accounts. There is an alignment difference despite a lack of durational difference, which supports the structure-based account. However, the effect is reduced compared to experiment 1, showing that time pressure may work against the ideal alignment.

Relation Between the Heat-Induced Increase of F<sub>0</sub> Fluorescence and a Shift in the Electronic Equilibrium at the Acceptor Side of Photosystem 2

F0 fluorescence and thermoluminescence (TL) were recorded simultaneously on various dark-adapted leaf samples. Above 40 °C, a sharp peak of TL coincided with the onset of the heat-induced F0 rise. It results from a back-transfer of an electron from the secondary QB -to the primary acceptor QA of photosystem 2, followed by a luminescence-emitting recombination with Tyr-D1. This demonstrates that the critical temperature at which the F0 starts rising also corresponds to a shift towards the left of the QA↔QB - equilibrium.

Consistency of Tone-Syllable Alignment across Different Syllable Structures and Speaking Rates

Previous studies have reported that F₀ contours of lexical tones in Mandarin are closely aligned with the syllables that carry them and that this alignment is late-adjusted so that the most appropriate F₀ contour of a tone occurs mainly in the later portion of the host syllable. These studies, however, examined tone alignment only in syllables with a simple CV structure. The present study compared tone-syllable alignment patterns in syllables with a final nasal (the only final consonant allowed in Mandarin) to those without a final nasal at three speaking rates – normal, fast and slow. Experiment 1 found that regardless of internal syllable structure, the F₀ contours for all of the four Mandarin tones maintain a consistent alignment to the syllables that carry them. Experiment 2 found that whether or not the syllable has a final nasal and regardless of speaking rate, the F₀ peak associated with the R (rising) tone always occurs near the offset of the R-tone-carrying syllable, the onset of the F₀ rise always occurs near the center of the syllable and the slope of the rise does not vary systematically with either syllable structure or speaking rate. These findings are interpreted as indicating that the syllable is the proper domain for tone implementation and that tone contours such as rising and falling are probably implemented as integral dynamic targets rather than as sequences of static targets.