Stressed Vowels Research Articles

Effect of stress, harmonic status, and lexical status on Hungarian vowel-to-vowel coarticulation

The present study examines vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in Hungarian with particular emphasis on the effects of word stress and lexical status (real words versus nonce words) on the direction and degree of vowel coarticulation. Previous investigations indicate that lexical stress exerts a powerful influence on vowel coarticulation. Specifically, stressed vowels are thought to resist coarticulation (see, e.g., Beddor et al., 2002; Majors, 2006). It is not clear, however, whether this effect is universal across languages, nor if it can be suppressed by the presence of more influential factors. In addition, it is not known whether vowel-to-vowel coarticulation always affects real and nonce words in a similar fashion, though some previous research indicates that speakers differ in their coarticulatory handling of nonce words (Scarborough, 2012). Finally, previous research suggests that the presence of vowel harmony in a language may place restrictions on the direction of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation (Beddor and Yavuz, 1995). Hungarian has a vowel harmony system that includes several neutral vowels, which do not participate in harmony. This study reports the results of an acoustic analysis of coarticulation in stressed and unstressed vowels (both neutral and harmonizing) in real and nonce words produced by native speakers of Hungarian.The present study examines vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in Hungarian with particular emphasis on the effects of word stress and lexical status (real words versus nonce words) on the direction and degree of vowel coarticulation. Previous investigations indicate that lexical stress exerts a powerful influence on vowel coarticulation. Specifically, stressed vowels are thought to resist coarticulation (see, e.g., Beddor et al., 2002; Majors, 2006). It is not clear, however, whether this effect is universal across languages, nor if it can be suppressed by the presence of more influential factors. In addition, it is not known whether vowel-to-vowel coarticulation always affects real and nonce words in a similar fashion, though some previous research indicates that speakers differ in their coarticulatory handling of nonce words (Scarborough, 2012). Finally, previous research suggests that the presence of vowel harmony in a language may place restrictions on the direction of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation (Beddor...

Phonetic convergence and divergence in the American Midwest

The magnitude of phonetic convergence in word shadowing is affected by phonetic factors, including the shadowers’ phonetic distance from the model talker, and social factors, including the perceived prestige of the model talker’s variety. The current study explored the effects of these factors on phonetic convergence to the Northern dialect of American English by shadowers from the Midwestern United States. The shadowers read a set of target words to provide their baseline productions and then repeated the same target words after a native speaker of the Northern dialect. The target words contained stressed vowels that are phonetically shifted in the Northern dialect relative to other American English varieties. Phonetic convergence in word duration and vowel formant frequencies was observed for some vowel categories but not others. This phonetic selectivity was not driven by the acoustic distance between the shadowers’ baseline productions and the model talker’s productions. Phonetic convergence in word duration and vowel formant frequencies also varied depending on whether or not the shadowers were told where the model talker was from, leading to divergence for some dialect-specific features in the shadowing task. These findings provide additional evidence for the roles of phonetic and social factors in phonetic convergence. The magnitude of phonetic convergence in word shadowing is affected by phonetic factors, including the shadowers’ phonetic distance from the model talker, and social factors, including the perceived prestige of the model talker’s variety. The current study explored the effects of these factors on phonetic convergence to the Northern dialect of American English by shadowers from the Midwestern United States. The shadowers read a set of target words to provide their baseline productions and then repeated the same target words after a native speaker of the Northern dialect. The target words contained stressed vowels that are phonetically shifted in the Northern dialect relative to other American English varieties. Phonetic convergence in word duration and vowel formant frequencies was observed for some vowel categories but not others. This phonetic selectivity was not driven by the acoustic distance between the shadowers’ baseline productions and the model talker’s productions. Phonetic convergence in word d...

The acoustics of feeling: Emotional prosody in the StoryCorps corpus

Effective communication depends not only on lexical content but also on how language is produced and perceived. Prosodic elements such as intensity, pitch accent (i.e., the pattern of low and high tones used in a stressed word), and intonation, have been suggested to aid in conveying emotional affect (e.g., happiness) in acted speech. For example, the word “yes” produced with a falling tone, high intensity, and large pitch range may indicate a high-arousal emotion like anger, whereas the same word produced with a flatter intonation, and lower intensity may indicate a low-arousal emotion like gloominess. Understanding the emotion with which words are produced facilitates appropriate communication because it tells the interlocutor how to best respond. Although this is intuitively true, the role of prosody in conveying emotional meaning is understudied, particularly in natural speech. This project thus utilizes StoryCorps, an extensive corpus of naturalistic interviews (publicly available at www.storycorps.org), to acoustically analyze pitch-accent usage in speech conveying different emotional affects. Portions of the StoryCorps interviews that convey overt emotional effect are selected and transcribed, and f0 trajectory, pitch range, duration, and intensity are tracked across stressed vowels to explore whether there are distinctive pitch-accent patterns used to convey different emotions.

Visy, kity, abū. Is the lengthening of the word ending typical of all Vilnius residents?

The current article analyzes the variability of length of /i/ and /u/ in stressed word endings characteristic to Lithuanian residents of Vilnius. Some Vilnius residents of Lithuanian origin pronounce these vowels as long or semi-long, though in written language they are written as short vowels.
 In the Lithuanian standardization ideology, such variability is characterized negatively and is referred to as the lengthening of the word ending. It is socially stigmatized, associated with the speech of uneducated Vilnius residents, speakers that belong to the working class, have a lower social status, or are affected by a Slavic language.
 The main goal of this survey was to identify the length of the stressed /i/ and /u/ in word endings and to determine with which social categories their longer variants correlate in Vilnius speech. A computerized sound analysis programme was applied to study 800 variants of /i/ and /u/ vowels, which were selected from interviews with 40 Vilnius city dwellers of different age, gender, professional activity, and social status.
 The analysis has revealed that in the Lithuanian speaking community of Vilnius the length of stressed vowels in word endings functions as a marker of speaker’s age, professional activity, and educational background. A statistically significant higher average length of /i/ and /u/ is typical of those Vilnius residents who are older, educated, and work in traditional industries or manufacturing, but not for service providers.

СОПОСТАВЛЕНИЕ РЕЗУЛЬТАТОВ ЛИНГВОСТАТИСТИЧЕСКОГО АНАЛИЗА ПЕРЦЕПТИВНЫХ ТИПОВ РУССКОГО И АНГЛИЙСКОГО СЛОВА (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ НКРЯ, БНК, АНК)

Corpus research presents obvious benefits, though linguists approach the material in various ways. For example, corpus linguists approach data in an exploratory way, whereas psycholinguists more often tend to combine corpus data and experimental research. The current work uses the theoretical systemic approach to describe the two frequency strata of the three corpora (Russian National Corpus, British National Corpus and Open American National Corpus) and build the classification of phonetic word types in Russian and English (British and American). The aim of the research is to draw up the phonetic (perceptive) classification of the corresponding languages and to describe the identity of their sound systems based on these types. The high frequency and the frequency strata of the three corpora have been analyzed to identify the words characterized by the following linguistic features: length in syllables, stressed vowel, rhythmic structure, etc. The data comparison discovered more distinctions than similarities among the three corpora...

Shortening of long stressed vowels in Frisian

Shortening of long stressed vowels in Frisian

ЗАВИСИМОСТЬ ФОРМАНТНЫХ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИК ГЛАСНОГО ОТ ПОЗИЦИИ ВО ФРАЗЕ И ТИПА УДАРЕНИЯ

The article deals with the effect of the stress type (neutral vs emphatic) and word position within a phrase on the formant features of a vowel sound. The above factors lead to a variation of such acoustic parameters as mean values of formants F1, F2, F3 and F4. Though it is generally believed that the above parameters can also be affected by an immediate phonetic context, results are scarce regarding the impact of the phrasal position on the formant properties of a sound in the Russian language. It also needs to be noted that the formant characteristics of a sound are heavily impacted by the speaker’s idiolect. The paper sets the task to establish regularities in formant fluctuations of the Russian sound [a] uttered in a word pronounced with a neutral and emphatic stress and occupying different phrasal positions. With this aim, the target word with the vowel under study was embedded in the carrier phrase ‘Stas ne byl tikhoney’ ( ‘Stas was not quiet’ ), the target word position in the phrase being initial, medial and final. Each phrase was uttered 20 times with neutral and emphatic stress by four Russian speakers, two males and two females. The Praat software was used to extract the mean values of formants F1, F2, F3 and F4 of the vowel [a] in the word ‘Stas’. ANOVA was performed to note the significance of difference between neutrally and emphatically stressed vowels occupying different positions in the phrase as pronounced by the four speakers. The ANOVA analysis reveals statistically significant difference among the speakers and mean formant values. Trends are hard to identify due to inconsistent variations of the parameters under study. An explanation of the results obtained is made on the basis of current speech production theories.

Rytų aukštaičių uteniškių ilgųjų balsių priegaidės: istorinė analizė ir eksperimentinis tyrimas

Pitch accents of monophthongs in High Lithuanian (Utena subdialect): historical survey and experimental investigation The present paper deals with the question of whether there is an acoustic basis for pitch accent distinction in High Lithuanian (i.e. in Utena subdialect). First, a historical survey was conducted in which theoretical frameworks of Kursaitis, Baranauskas, Jaunius were discussed. In addition, the data from experimental studies were taken into account. The second part of this article deals with a new experimental investigation in which both tone sustainability coefficient and intensity extrema of long stressed vowels were estimated. In comparison to other dialects, none of these parameters appeared to be of great significance. On the basis of these results a conclusion that there is no reliable theoretical or experimental basis for the pitch accent functionality in Utena subdialect might be drawn. The cause of such prosodic process might be explained by a significant reduction in vowel quantity.

A variant of a quasi-standard: attitudes of the young generation representing the Aukštaitian area

he object of this paper is the variant of quasi-standard language, i.e. the variant of the perceived standard language formed by the young generation of the Aukštaitian area. The aims of the study are to examine whether the assessments made by respondents representing the Aukštaitian area suggest the presence of such a quasi-standard and, if they do, to provide the characterisation of this quasi-standard variant on the basis of the collected data. The data of the study consists of eight audio texts-stimuli which represent six Lithuanian regiolects (A and D represent Southern Aukštaitian; B and E represent Žemaitian, C represents Northwestern Aukštaitian, F represents the western part of Eastern Aukštaitian, G represents Southwestern Aukštaitian, while H represents the eastern part of East Aukštaitian) and the responses to two questions in the questionnaire designed according to the principles of perceptual dialectology which ask the respondents to rate the similarity of the audio text-stimulus to the standard language. The study demonstrated that the respondents perceived texts-stimuli B and E (representative of the Žemaitian dialect) as the least similar to the standard language. Texts-stimuli H (representative of the eastern part of East Aukštaitian regiolect), A and D (representative of East Aukštaitian regiolect), on the contrary, were seen as the closest to the standard language. Since the ratings of these texts-stimuli in the respondents’ assessment were substantially higher in comparison to the rest of the texts-stimuli, the results suggest the existence of a quasi-standard. The analysis of respondents’ motives of giving high scores to audio texts-stimuli A, D, and H demonstrates that the morphological and lexical characterisation of the quasi-standard of the young generation representing the Aukštaitian area is only fragmentary. The most prominent are phonetic features, namely: more open and more closed pronunciation of vowels i and u, shortening of unstressed long vowels o, u, and i, lengthening of the stressed short vowels u and i, correct accentuation and non-reduced endings. Based on the analysis carried out, it is possible to assume that the quasi-standard variety formed by the young generation representing the Aukštaitian area consists of some tertiary phonetic features of the eastern parts of East Aukštaitian and South Aukštaitian regiolectal zones, norms of standard language pronunciation, shortened verb forms typically characteristic of dialects and standard language and mixed lexis (containing that of standard language / dialects / borrowings).

Acoustic characteristics of tense and lax vowels across sentence position in clear speech

This study examines how the inherent properties of tense and lax vowels interact with external factors, such as speech style (clear vs conversational) and position (sentence-medial vs sentence-final). Twelve speakers of American English recorded productions of the tense /i,u,ɑ/ and lax /ɪ,ɛ,æ,ʊ,ʌ/ vowels, all of which were lengthened and decentralized to a similar degree in clear speech. Furthermore, unlike tense vowels, lax vowels had a greater vowel space area in sentence-medial position, which was primarily driven by high vowels' decreased F1. Therefore, the defining properties of lax vowels (short duration and centralization) were altered by both speech style and sentential position.

Questions of Orthography Normalization in «Tolkovyi slovar’ russkogo yazyka» after edition of D.N. Ushakov

The article is dedicated to otrthographical content of the first soviet standard «Tolkovyi slovar’ russkogo yazyka» after edition of D.N. Ushakov. The specific aspects of spelling are analyzed in the context of orthographic situation in postreformed period and D.N. Ushakov’s views. It is set the approaches to normalization of such controversial groups of writing as compound adjectives with the meaning of colour shade, stressed vowels о/е after hushings in nouns’ suffixes, н/нн in suffixes of adjectives and participles. The basic groups of orthographic variants in the dictionary are defended, their normative status is determined. It is defended the influence of the dictionary on the normalization postreform spelling.

Quality and duration of unstressed vowels in Polish

Polish is considered to be a language with no phonological vowel reduction in unstressed syllables. If vowel reduction does not have a phonological function, unstressed vowels are expected to be relatively stable in their quality and duration compared to stressed vowels. However, previous reports have suggested that Polish unstressed vowels may indeed undergo some processes of spectral and durational reduction. In this study, 23 speakers of Polish produced all 6 Polish vowels in /dV’dVdV/ frames using reiterant speech. The results showed that all vowels in unstressed syllables exhibited some changes in formant frequencies relative to vowels in stressed syllables. The greatest magnitude of reduction was observed for central /a/, and back /ɔ/ and /u/. Unstressed vowels were also shorter than stressed vowels with a ratio of 1.45. These results show that, although Polish unstressed vowels are not phonologically reduced, they are not immune to natural reduction processes caused by unstressed positions.

THE PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A JAPANESE SINGER: THE CRITICISM OF USING SONGS IN ENGLISH TEACHING

This study deals with the phonological analysis of a Japanese singer in some English sounds in live performance music videos. It aims to analyse and describe the pronunciation process of Japanese singer in producing tense vowels, diphthongs, and liquids. It also criticizes the use of songs in English teaching based on the findings. The data are from live performance videos of Japanese singer. The researcher watched and listened to the videos. After that, the researcher listed the words in the lyrics of the songs containing tense vowels, diphthongs, and liquids. The words were transcribed into standard phonetic transcription. Then, the researcher transcribed the words into the phonetic transcription according to the pronunciation of the singer. After that, the data were classified into three parts which were the words containing tense vowels, diphthongs, and liquids. After the researcher analyzed the videos, the findings of this study showed that the Japanese singer as an EFL speaker had different pronunciation process in producing tense vowels, diphthongs, and liquids sound. The findings also gave the criticism on the use of songs in English teaching in a form of caution and contribution.DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/ijhs.2018.020108

Using ultrasound to examine contrastive hyperarticulation

The current paper examines the extent to which there is cross-linguistic evidence for the hyperarticulation of more phonologically contrastive vowel sounds. Hall et al. [2017, JCAA 45: 15] found that tense vowels in English are produced with more total tongue movement when in positions where they are more phonologically contrastive. This finding was established through the use of Optical Flow Analysis [Horn & Schunck 1981] on ultrasound videos of the tongue. The “more contrastive” positions were those in which the vowels could contrast with their lax vowel counterparts, while the “less contrastive” positions were those in which no such contrast was possible. While there was evidence that the degree of contrast affected the tongue movements, the data were somewhat confounded by the fact that the more contrastive positions were largely closed syllables, while the less contrastive positions were largely open syllables. In the current paper, we first replicate the original results with more tightly controlled phonetic contexts in English and then examine analogous results for Canadian French. Crucially, in Canadian French, [e] vs. [ɛ] contrast in open syllables and not in closed, such that the effects of syllable position and phonological contrast can be teased apart. [Funded by SSHRC.]The current paper examines the extent to which there is cross-linguistic evidence for the hyperarticulation of more phonologically contrastive vowel sounds. Hall et al. [2017, JCAA 45: 15] found that tense vowels in English are produced with more total tongue movement when in positions where they are more phonologically contrastive. This finding was established through the use of Optical Flow Analysis [Horn & Schunck 1981] on ultrasound videos of the tongue. The “more contrastive” positions were those in which the vowels could contrast with their lax vowel counterparts, while the “less contrastive” positions were those in which no such contrast was possible. While there was evidence that the degree of contrast affected the tongue movements, the data were somewhat confounded by the fact that the more contrastive positions were largely closed syllables, while the less contrastive positions were largely open syllables. In the current paper, we first replicate the original results with more tightly controlled...

The effect of perceptual similarity, frequency, and phonotactic restriction in loanword adaptation

Mandarin speakers tend to adapt an intervocalic nasal as either an onset of the following syllable (e.g., Brunoà bù.lŭ.nuò) or as a nasal geminate (e.g., Daniel à dān.ní.ěr) (Huang & Lin 2013, 2014). Two forced-choice identification experiments were conducted to test the effects of nasalization (whether the pre-nasal vowel bears stress or not) and duration (whether the pre-nasal vowel is lax or tense): Would stronger nasalization and shorter duration encourage higher nasal gemination rate? The results showed that Mandarin speakers’ choice of repairs was indeed biased by the different phonetic manipulations, suggesting an effect of perceptual similarity. Moreover, the overall preference for the V.NV form over the VN.NV form suggests an influence from the native syllable type frequency (open syllables being more frequent than closed syllables). The across-the-board higher VN.NV responses for lax than for tense vowels regardless of the phonetic manipulations are attributed to the possibility that Mandarin speakers might have perceived the tense vowels as diphthongs (i.e., English /e/ to [ej], /o/ to [ow]) and inserting a nasal coda is illegal in this contexts (*CVGN). That is, the findings suggest that the variations in loanword adaptation were guided by perception, frequency, as well as phonotactics.

Search of Fuzzy Periods in the Works of Poetry of Different Authors

We applied a new method for the identification of fuzzy periods and the insertion and deletion of characters were taken into consideration while studying the works of poetry. The technique employs genetic algorithm, dynamic programming, and the Monte Carlo method. In the present work, the technique was applied to poems written by the famous Russian and foreign classics. A total of 95 poems were studied; and fuzzy periods possessing high statistical significance were identified with more than half of the poems under study. The existence of correlation between the stressed vowel letters in a poem with the position of the fuzzy periods was shown. The present study shows that a work of poetry contains both semantic component and fuzzy periods of letters; hence a poem could have psychological impact on the audience.

Sulle vocali nasali e nasalizzate dell’albanese

Nasalization of stressed vowels in Albanian (especially in the northern Albania Geg dialect) is considered by Albanologists as a very problematic phenomenon and a case study difficult to be solved. The current paper proposes an analysis that frames the phenomenon both at a synchronic and diachronic level. The development of vowel nasalization is investigated by taking into account the most accredited theories in the acoustic-coarticulatory field as well as linguistic universals concerning the spreading of nasalization in the vowel systems of various languages of the world. From a diachronic point of view, particular attention is paid to the original conditions of Albanian vocalism and, above all, to the aspects concerning the results of IE * o and and * e (as well as * a and * e from Latin borrowings). The evolution of these sounds helps to determine both the phonetic conditioning which originated nasalization and its periodization: nasalization developed only before a tautosyllabic nasal consonant (except for those cases where it is a result of analogical leveling) and must have been stabilized after the diphthongization of mid vowels *e and * o . Finally, based on the data available today concerning the geographical distribution of nasal vowels in the Albanian speaking area (including Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro), an alternative hypothesis about the diffusion of the phenomenon is offered. Nasalization in Albanian may have had a gradual spreading, relatively to the number of vowels involved, through a process blocked at its initial stage in the southern Tosk area and in some peripheral Geg areas, and not uniformly extended to the whole Albanian speaking region.

Accent-induced bias in linguistic transcriptions

Many linguistic analyses rely on phonetic transcriptions. Two factors that might affect the accuracy of transcriptions are perceived accent and the listener's linguistic knowledge about that accent. This article focuses on the susceptibility of transcribers to such accent-induced bias, based on speaker's accent, transcriber's variety, and the transcriber's knowledge about the language variety they are transcribing. We offer a method to statistically detect accent-induced biases in linguistic transcriptions.This article investigates accent-induced bias in transcriptions of Reference French and Laurentian French (in Canada). In Reference French, high front vowels are phonologically tense /i y/, but they may be phonetically realised as lax [ɪ ʏ]. In Laurentian French, lax [ɪ ʏ] occur as allophones of /i y/. We compare transcriptions of different groups of coders: native speakers of Reference French, native speakers of Laurentian French, and advanced L2 learners of French who are native speakers of Dutch. Half of the Dutch group was informed about the native variety of the speakers and the other half was not.Results show that perceived accent among the native transcribers is a relatively strong predictor for transcribed sounds. In addition, the Dutch transcribers who were informed about the speaker's variety transcribed more lax vowels in Laurentian French and more tense vowels in Reference French than the Dutch transcribers who were not informed. Native transcribers also showed contextual effects related to the allophonic distribution of the vowels in Laurentian French. These results are indicative of accent-induced bias. The results are analysed in a predictive top-down model to explain the effect of prior experience and information about the language variety in speech perception.

Stress-Induced Acoustic Variation in L2 and L1 Spanish Vowels

Aim: We assessed the effect of lexical stress on the duration and quality of Spanish word-final vowels /a, e, o/ produced by American English late intermediate learners of L2 Spanish, as compared to those of native L1 Argentine Spanish speakers. Methods: Participants read 54 real words ending in /a, e, o/, with either final or penultimate lexical stress, embedded in a text and a word list. We measured vowel duration and both F1 and F2 frequencies at 3 temporal points. Results: stressed vowels were longer than unstressed vowels, in Spanish L1 and L2. L1 and L2 Spanish stressed /a/ and /e/ had higher F1 values than their unstressed counterparts. Only the L2 speakers showed evidence of rising offglides for /e/ and /o/. The L2 and L1 Spanish vowel space was compressed in the absence of stress. Conclusion: Lexical stress affected the vowel quality of L1 and L2 Spanish vowels. We provide an up-to-date account of the formant trajectories of Argentine River Plate Spanish word-final /a, e, o/ and offer experimental support to the claim that stress affects the quality of Spanish vowels in word-final contexts.

Acoustic Analysis of Intensive Language Exposure on Second Language Learners’ Cognitive Perception Pattern of American English Phonemes

This paper attempts to quantify the perception of tense vowel /i/ and lax vowel /I/ in American English by native speakers and Chinese learners and testify if Chinese learners also rely more on acoustic features than duration to differentiate the minimal pair /i/-/I/ in the phonetic system of American English. Based on the related phonetic studies in second language learners (SLLs), the perceptual assimilation model (PAM) and the speech learning model (SLM) were adopted to discuss the effect of intensive language exposures on the perception of English phonemes among Chinese learners. To quantify the effects of the ILE on the perception pattern of the SLLs, two English phonetic continuums were constructed for a tense-lax vowel contrast /i/ and /I/. Then, three groups of subjects, involving 60 English major students and 10 native speakers, received two identification tests and one discrimination test. The test results reveal that the native speakers and the SLLs relied on different acoustic cues to distinguish between /i/ and /I/. The former mainly depended on formant distribution, while the latter on duration. Besides, it is also concluded that the ILE enabled the SLLs to develop a similar perception pattern to that of the native speakers. The research sheds new light on the acquisition of second language among Chinese learners.