Syllable Accent Research Articles

Southern dialects of United States English and automatic speech recognition

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology is designed to provide more human to machine communication options. Emergent research has observed variant performance of ASR for African American English (AAE) and other minority dialects. Word prediction was observed to be better for AAE compared to majority dialects. The opposite was true for word identification accuracy. The researchers hypothesize the higher word error rate for AAE is related to phonetic factors of vowel duration, consonant production, rhythm, pitch, and syllable accent. This work evaluates that hypothesis. Recordings of two AAE and two White AE speaking women from North Carolina reading Comma Gets a Cure were submitted for transcription to the Microsoft ASR program. Several common transcription errors were noted across speaker groups with a greater variety of errors noted for the AAE women. Acoustic analyses of vowel duration, and the spectral acoustics of vowel and consonant production by talker and group will be completed. The results of this analysis will be useful to describing the specific aspects of AAE speech that may perturb the tested ASR. These data provide insight into the speech tasks and the sub and supra-segmental acoustic data that should be included in future ASR programming iterations.

Poetic Style and Innovation in Old English, Old Norse, and Old Saxon

Poetic Style and Innovation in Old English, Old Norse, and Old Saxon

“Linguistic autumn”? A remark in connection with Vytautas Kardelis’s article “Three questions regarding the prosodic system of the Lithuanian language” (Lietuvių kalba, 11, 2017)

Some considerations in connection with the three main claims in Vytautas Kardelis’s article Three questions regarding the prosodic system of the Lithuanian language, concerning (a) the order of procedures in the investigation of the ‘sound form of language’, (b) the domain of prosodic features and (c) the term priegaidė. According to Kardelis, the description of speech chain should begin with an instrumental investigation. This may be true of acoustic analysis of a signal (not necessarily that of speech), but not the phonological analysis of a speech chain that, by definition, begins with isolating its discrete units, which, at the same time, are the units of the phonological system of the language in question. Likewise, phonetic suprasegmental elements (pitch, tone, etc.) may be associated with any loci of speech chain, including those coinciding with individual phonemes, either vowel or consonantal, but the domain of prosodic features, such as acute and circumflex in Lithuanian, is undoubtedly the syllable, rather than separate phonemes. In poliaccentual languages, syllable accents can be absolutely adequately described using the term priegaidė, which here means ‘syllable intonation’, while substituting it with ‘tone’ or ‘stress’ is misleading and, in the last analysis, simply fruitless or simply wrong.

F 0 in Lithuanian: The Indicator of Stress, Syllable Accent, or Intonation?

F 0 in Lithuanian: The Indicator of Stress, Syllable Accent, or Intonation?

Secondary Types of Pitch Accents of the Northern Aukštaitian Dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language

Abstract The Baltic languages remain of special interest for linguists because they contain many archaic features essential for the comparative research of Indo-European languages and reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European (Mikić 2014: 39). The Lithuanian prosodic system is characterized by free accent and two types of syllable accents (or tones) in the long stressed syllables. The stress is inherited from Indo-European and can fall on any syllable of a word, i. e. last, penultimate, antepenultimate etc. (Stundžia 2014: 12). In the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language, four types of syllable accents are possible in the long stressed syllables (more clearly heard in the diphthongs, less in the monophthongs): acute, circumflex, neoacute, neocircumflex (Garšva 1982: 65 ff.). These accents are positional allotones of two types of syllable accents: acute and circumflex. Two more types of accents are possible in strong syllables consisting of two central sounds: typical and atypical. Typical acute and circumflex accents are characteristic of verbs of non-iterative action and of “barytone” denominative words, atypical accents, with an emphasis on the second part of the stressed component, are characteristic of verbs of iterative action and of “oxytonic” denominative words (Kačiuškienė 2009: 34). The article focuses on results of the auditory and instrumental experiment and demonstrates different auditory and acoustic properties of the secondary types of pitch accents of the Northern Aukštaitian Dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language.

Basal ganglia contribution to rule expectancy and temporal predictability in speech

The current work set out to answer three questions: (1) Are reported syntactic deficits in patients with structural damage to the basal ganglia (BG) in the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical systems (CSTCS) the result of a syntax specific computational deficit or are they potentially a consequence of a generalized timing deficit? (2) Do BG patients suffer from a simple beat perception deficit in speech comparable to the one reported in music? (3) Can regular speech meter (i.e., a pattern of beats induced by the regular alteration of stressed and unstressed syllable accents) ameliorate the computation of syntactically marked information by making speech events temporally predictable and salient? The latter ‘remediation’ hypothesis would predict that when speech events (i.e., those that are syntactically marked) are metrically aligned to the syllabic accent structure, the computation of syntactic information is facilitated or in the case of patients ameliorated. During continuous EEG measurement nineteen patients with focal BG lesions and matched healthy controls listened to metrically regular and syntactically well-formed sentences and metrically well-formed sentences that either violated syntactic expectancy, metrical expectancy, or both. While healthy controls showed an expected P600 response in the event-related brain potential (ERP) to all expectancy violations, BG patients showed overall comparable P600 responses to all, but the metrical expectancy violation. These results confirm that (1) BG patients suffer from a simple beat perception deficit in speech and (2) regular speech meter ameliorates the computation of syntactically marked information in the speech signal. We propose that a domain general sensorimotor cerebello-thalamo-cortical system (CTCS), involved in event-based temporal processing, engages in the remediation of dysfunctional cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical timing that affects the timely computation of linguistic (i.e., syntax) information in the speech signal.

Rytų aukštaičių uteniškių inesyvo ir iliatyvo priegaidės: audicinis tyrimas

THE SYLLABLE ACCENTS OF THE INESSIVE AND ILLATIVE IN THE EASTERN LITHUANIAN SUB-DIALECT OF UTENA: THE AUDITORY RESEARCH Summary The results of auditory research on the shortened inessive and illative forms of the Eastern Lithuanian sub-dialect of Utena are discussed in this article. The phonemic structure of such forms coincides, eg. dirba laukuos : eina laukuos. The research aims to verify the existence of a prosodic element, i.e. the syllable accent of inessive and illative forms. During the auditory experiment, more than half of the researched pairs were correctly identified (65%); and the data of statistic evaluation ( u criterion, 95% iterative interval) show that there is a high percentage of recognition, thereby showing few signs that the results are coincidental. Prior experiments and the auditory research carried out confirm the assumptions that the syllable accents in shortened inessive and illative forms are not homonymous in the Eastern Lithuanian sub-dialect of Utena. The realisation of accents is not always clearly heard; however the ability to discern different forms possessing the same phonemic structure should be treated as an indication that an opposition of syllable accents truly does exist.

Atitrauktinio kirčio priegaidės šiaurės žemaičių kretingiškių tarmėje

ON THE RETRACTED SYLLABLE ACCENT IN THE NORTH-ŽEMAITIAN DIALECT OF KRETINGASummaryThere are different opinions about the retracted syllable accent in the Lithuanian dialects. The purpose of this paper is to describe the prosodic features of the retracted syllable accent in the North-Žemaitian dialect of Kretinga in more detail. It is important because of the following two main reasons: the area of the retracted syllable accent tends to be described as being much smaller in traditional Lithuanian dialectology; and the tendency of the retracted syllable accent to be levelled in the present dialect of the North-Žemaitian dialect of Kretinga. The research was carried out with the help of a computer-based programme PRAAT 4.0.45, and the results were evaluated statistically.The results of the investigation show that retracted syllable accents obviously differ not only in the area of Mosėdis-Salantai but also quite far from those areas, viz. in fact in all the areas of the North-Žemaitian dialect of Kretinga. The research demonstrates that the acute and circumflex retracted syllable accents in the North-Žemaitian dialect of Kretinga differ mainly in fundamental frequency and intensity.

Energetinė šiaurės žemaičių tarmės priegaidžių fonetinės prigimties interpretacija

ENERGETIC INTERPRETATION OF PHONETIC NATURE OF TONEMES IN NORTH-ŽEMATIAN DIALECT Summary The acoustic and auditive experiments have shown that the main invariant differential feature of tonemes (syllable accents) of the North-Žemaitian dialect (and, maybe, of Lithuanian in general) is the concentration of the common spectral energy (intensity) and nature of its change. The energy of the acute (sharp, broken) stressed syllables is concentrated in one definite point of a vowel or a diphthong and decreases very sharply; the energy of the circumflexed (smooth, ascending) syllables is diffused in the whole syllable and changes gradually. These processes are accompanied by similar changes of formant structure. In general, the timbre of acute vowels changes abruptly and is more tense than the timbre of corresponding circumflexed vowels.

Žodžio galo ir priegaidžių fonetinė evoliucija šiaurės žemaičių tarmėje

PHONETIC EVOLUTION OF WORD END AND SYLLABLE ACCENTS IN THE NORTHERN ŽEMAITIAN DIALECT Summary In this investigation an attempt is made to test if the accent, which is placed in the pe­nultimate syllable, in the Northern Žemaitian dialect has any influence on the ending re­duction. The analysis of the corpus of 4000 items has shown that word end reduction is greater after a circumflex accent. The drawn-out nature of the circumflex accent in the Northern Žemaitian dialect causes the concentration of the main energy on the distinctly drawn-out sound, weakening the intensity of the ending and as a result reducing it more. The vowel heard more distinctly after the acute accent, which in the dialect is most often realised as a broken one, apparently is determined by the nature of the broken accent it­self: when the break is very distinct, the final vowel following it becomes more distinct as well. The investigation has also shown that ending reduction is significantly greater after voiceless and non-palatalized (‘hard’, ‘dark’) consonants.

Germanic accent, syllabication and the origin of Scandinavian accentuation

ABSTRACTA proposal to abandon the assumption of word accent (either pitch or stress) for Germanic is seen overall as unprofitable. The dilemma of syllable division is resolved against CVC.V and for CV.CV on general considerations following Murray and Vennemann and specific considerations allowing a better analysis of the conditions surrounding Verner's Law. It is proposed that a new Germanic heavy syllable accent, when double-peaked on words with heavy suffixes gave rise to Scandinavian accent 2, and when single-peaked on heavy roots with light suffixes, gave rise to accent 1 and to Danish stød.

The Scandinavian Prosodemes

The function and phonetic properties of the Scandinavian prosodemes depend on the syllable structure of a language. In those Scandinavian dialects where the moracounting is preserved the tonal distinctions appear to be moric peak accents. In the most Scandinavian dialects and, in standard Swedish and Norwegian (in its both variants) the syllable type being V̄Č ∼ V̆C̄ with interdependence between vowel and consonant length. The tonal and dynamic distinctions here have become syllable accents. The syllable structure of Danish resembles that of the West Germanic languages. The stød in Danish is neither a moric nor a syllable accent but a device which enables one to distinguish four types of contact. The Danish “accent” stud is no more a suprasegmental unit but a device of segmental prosodics. In some Danish dialects the apocope took place, which changed their type into morphosyllabic. Prosodic characteristics function here as tones like those in morphosyllabic languages of the Chinese type.Thus the function of prosodic features is determined by the syllable structure of the language.