Syllable Boundaries Research Articles

The bigram trough hypothesis and the syllable number effect in lexical decision

There has been an increasing volume of evidence supporting the role of the syllable in various word processing tasks. It has, however, been suggested that syllable effects may be caused by orthographic redundancy. In particular, it has been proposed that the presence of bigram troughs at syllable boundaries cause what are seen as syllable effects. We investigated the bigram trough hypothesis as an explanation of the number of syllables effect for lexical decision in five-letter words and nonwords from the British Lexicon Project. The number of syllables made a significant contribution to prediction of lexical decision times along with word frequency and orthographic similarity. The presence of a bigram trough did not. For nonwords, the number of syllables made a significant contribution to prediction of lexical decision times only for nonwords with relatively long decision times. The presence of a bigram trough made no contribution. The evidence presented suggests that the bigram trough cannot be an explanation of the syllable number effect in lexical decision. A comparison of the results from words and nonwords is interpreted as providing some support for dual-route models of reading.

Processing of syllables during handwriting: Effects of graphomotor constraints

The processing of syllables during the writing of isolated words has been shown to occur either before or during the writing of the word containing them. To demonstrate that this difference is related to graphomotor constraints, participants copied bi- and trisyllabic words three times, in four conditions where graphomotor constraints were gradually increased. As expected, latencies were only affected by syllable number in the low-constraint condition. In all four conditions, interletter intervals at syllable boundaries were longer than intrasyllabic interletter intervals. The difference between inter- and intrasyllabic intervals increased with the level of graphomotor constraint. Taken together, these findings indicate that under low graphomotor-constraint conditions, all the syllable processing takes place prior to the writing of a word, whereas under higher graphomotor-constraint conditions, syllable processing is more sequential, each syllable being processed just before it is written.

Consequences of Candidate Omission

Consequences of Candidate Omission

Automatic segmentation of separately pronounced Sinhala words into syllables

Aligned corpora are widely used in various speech applications like automatic speech recognition, speech synthesis, as well as prosodic and phonetic research. The segmentation into syllables can be done manually or automatically. But it consumes significantly more time for a fully manual phonetic segmentation and practically it is a complicated task because in many cases it requires a large aligned speech corpus. If the manual syllabification is done by a group of individuals then the consistency is decreased because the analysis variations of the individuals. Consequently, there is a dire need for automatic syllabification and it is important because Sinhala language is syllable centric in nature. A method for syllabification of acoustic signals of separately pronounced Sinhala words has been given. Detecting the syllable boundaries was achieved by two main phases and those phases have been described with examples. Keywords: syllabification; oscillograph; vowel; consonant; envelope; thresholdDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/josuk.v6i0.4219 J Sci.Univ.Kelaniya 6 (2011) : 35-44

At the rhythm of language: Brain bases of language-related frequency perception in children

What neural mechanisms underlie language and reading acquisition? Slow rhythmic modulations in the linguistic stream (below 8 Hz) mark syllable and word boundaries in the continuous linguistic stream, potentially helping children master the words and structures of their language. Converging evidence across language and reading research suggests that children's sensitivity to these slow rhythmic modulations is important for language and reading acquisition. In infancy, children produce rhythmically alternating syllables, or babbles, at a slow frequency of ~1.5 Hz or 660 ms (Petitto et al., 2001). In early grades, children's sensitivity to slow rhythmic modulations correlates with their reading ability (Goswami, 2011). We used functional Near Infrared (fNIRS) imaging to investigate the brain bases of "language rhythm" in beginning readers (ages 6-9). Right hemisphere showed an overall greater activation toward the slow rhythmic stimuli, and left hemisphere showed greater activation toward 1.5 Hz, relative to faster and slower frequencies. The findings suggest that while right hemisphere might have an overall better ability to process rhythmic sensitivity, left hemisphere might have a select sensitivity to a preferred range of slow rhythmic modulations-a range that might be particularly salient to brain mechanisms responsible for cross-modal language processing and reading acquisition.

SYSTEM AND METHOD OF USING ACOUSTIC MODELS FOR AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION WHICH DISTINGUISH PRE− AND POST−VOCALIC CONSONANTS

Disclosed are systems, methods and computer readable media for training acoustic models for an automatic speech recognition systems (ASR) system. The method includes receiving a speech signal, defining at least one syllable boundary position in the received speech signal, based on the at least one syllable boundary position, generating for each consonant in a consonant phoneme inventory a pre-vocalic position label and a post-vocalic position label to expand the consonant phoneme inventory, reformulating a lexicon to reflect an expanded consonant phoneme inventory, and training a language model for an automated speech recognition (ASR) system based on the reformulated lexicon.

Oscillators and Syllables: A Cautionary Note

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article Front. Psychol., 05 October 2012Sec. Language Sciences https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00364

The Effects of Syllable Boundary Ambiguity on Spoken Word Recognition in Korean Continuous Speech

The purpose of this study was to examine the syllable-word boundary misalignment cost on word segmentation in Korean continuous speech. Previous studies have demonstrated the important role of syllabification in speech segmentation. The current study investigated whether the resyllabification process affects word recognition in Korean continuous speech. In Experiment I, under the misalignment condition, participants were presented with stimuli in which a word-final consonant became the onset of the next syllable. (e.g., /k/ in belsak ingan becomes the onset of the first syllable of ingan `human`). In the alignment condition, they heard stimuli in which a word-final vowel was also the final segment of the syllable (e.g., /eo/ in heulmeo ingan is the end of both the syllable and word). The results showed that word recognition was faster and more accurate in the alignment condition. Experiment II aimed to confirm that the results of Experiment I were attributable to the resyllabification process, by comparing only the target words from each condition. The results of Experiment II supported the findings of Experiment I. Therefore, based on the current study, we confirmed that Korean, a syllable-timed language, has a misalignment cost of resyllabification.

Are Syllabification and Resyllabification Strategies Phonotactically Directed in French Children With Dyslexia? A Preliminary Report

In this study, the authors queried whether French-speaking children with dyslexia were sensitive to consonant sonority and position within syllable boundaries to influence a phonological syllable-based segmentation in silent reading. Participants included 15 French-speaking children with dyslexia, compared with 30 chronological age-matched and reading level-matched controls. Children were tested with an audiovisual recognition task. A target pseudoword (TOLPUDE) was simultaneously presented visually and auditorily and then was compared with a printed test pseudoword that either was identical or differed after the coda deletion (TOPUDE) or the onset deletion (TOLUDE). The intervocalic consonant sequences had either a sonorant coda-sonorant onset (TOR.LADE), sonorant coda-obstruent onset (TOL.PUDE), obstruent coda-sonorant onset (DOT.LIRE), or obstruent coda-obstruent onset (BIC.TADE) sonority profile. All children processed identity better than they processed deletion, especially with the optimal sonorant coda-obstruent onset sonority profile. However, children preserved syllabification (coda deletion; TO.PUDE) rather than resyllabification (onset deletion; TO.LUDE) with intervocalic consonant sequence reductions, especially when sonorant codas were deleted but the optimal intersyllable contact was respected. It was surprising to find that although children with dyslexia generally exhibit phonological and acoustic-phonetic impairments (voicing), they showed sensitivity to the optimal sonority profile and a preference for preserved syllabification. The authors proposed a sonority-modulated explanation to account for phonological syllable-based processing. Educational implications are discussed.

Processing Orthographic Structure: Associations Between Print and Fingerspelling

Two lexical decision experiments are reported that investigate whether the same segmentation strategies are used for reading printed English words and fingerspelled words (in American Sign Language). Experiment 1 revealed that both deaf and hearing readers performed better when written words were segmented with respect to an orthographically defined syllable (the Basic Orthographic Syllable Structure [BOSS]) than with a phonologically defined syllable. Correlation analyses revealed that better deaf readers were more sensitive to orthographic syllable representations, whereas segmentation strategy did not differentiate the better hearing readers. In contrast to Experiment 1, Experiment 2 revealed better performance by deaf participants when fingerspelled words were segmented at the phonological syllable boundary. We suggest that English mouthings that often accompany fingerspelled words promote a phonological parsing preference for fingerspelled words. In addition, fingerspelling ability was significantly correlated with reading comprehension and vocabulary skills. This pattern of results indicates that the association between fingerspelling and print for adult deaf readers is not based on shared segmentation strategies. Rather, we suggest that both good readers and good fingerspellers have established strong representations of English and that fingerspelling may aid in the development and maintenance of English vocabulary.

Lenition in Gaalpu: An Optimality Theoretic Analysis

Continuant–stop alternations are a common pattern among Australian languages, such as in Yolngu Matha, Mawng and Wubuy. Some of these alternations have been hitherto analysed as lenition (e.g. Yolngu), while others have been argued to be hardening processes (e.g. Wubuy). Lenition processes of this kind are difficult to account for in various models of phonology, because they are conditioned by a two-sided context. This paper presents an analysis, couched in Optimality Theory, of one such lenition pattern in Gaalpu, a Yolngu variety. I show that the process can be succinctly analysed in terms of two constraints: a constraint on consonant strength across syllable boundaries, and a constraint against non-continuants in a sonorous context (following Kingston's [2008] recent work). I argue that this analysis is superior to existing accounts precisely because it is able to capture the role of both the preceding segment and following segment in conditioning lenition. I show in addition that the alternation in Wubuy, previously analysed as hardening, can also be analysed succinctly using the same hierarchy proposed for the lenition process in Gaalpu.

Are French dyslexic children sensitive to consonant sonority in segmentation strategies? Preliminary evidence from a letter detection task

This paper aims to investigate whether--and how--consonant sonority (obstruent vs. sonorant) and status (coda vs. onset) within syllable boundaries modulate the syllable-based segmentation strategies. Here, it is questioned whether French dyslexic children, who experience acoustic-phonetic (i.e., voicing) and phonological impairments, are sensitive to an optimal 'sonorant coda-obstruent onset' sonority profile as a cue for a syllable-based segmentation. To examine these questions, we used a modified version of the illusory conjunction paradigm with French dyslexic children compared with both chronological age-matched and reading level-matched controls. Our results first showed that the syllable-based segmentation is developmentally constrained in visual identification: in normally reading children, it appears to progressively increase as reading skills increase. However, surprisingly, our results also showed that dyslexic children were able to use syllable-sized units. Then, data highlighted that a syllable-based segmentation in visual identification basically relies on an optimal 'sonorant coda-obstruent onset' sonority profile rather than on phonological and orthographic statistical properties in normally reading children as well as, surprisingly, in dyslexic children. Our results are discussed to support a sonority-modulated prelexical role of syllable-sized units in visual identification in French, even in dyslexic children who exhibited a developmentally delayed profile. We argue that dyslexic children have deficits in online phonetic-phonological processing rather than degraded or underspecified phonetic-phonological representations.

Group delay functions and its applications in speech technology

Traditionally, the information in speech signals is represented in terms of features derived from short-time Fourier analysis. In this analysis the features extracted from the magnitude of the Fourier transform (FT) are considered, ignoring the phase component. Although the significance of the FT phase was highlighted in several studies over the recent three decades, the features of the FT phase were not exploited fully due to difficulty in computing the phase and also in processing the phase function. The information in the short-time FT phase function can be extracted by processing the derivative of the FT phase, i.e., the group delay function. In this paper, the properties of the group delay functions are reviewed, highlighting the importance of the FT phase for representing information in the speech signal. Methods to process the group delay function are discussed to capture the characteristics of the vocal-tract system in the form of formants or through a modified group delay function. Applications of group delay functions for speech processing are discussed in some detail. They include segmentation of speech into syllable boundaries, exploiting the additive and high resolution properties of the group delay functions. The effectiveness of segmentation of speech, and the features derived from the modified group delay are demonstrated in applications such as language identification, speech recognition and speaker recognition. The paper thus demonstrates the need to exploit the potential of the group delay functions for development of speech systems.

Phonological manipulation between speech perception and production activates a parieto-frontal circuit

Repetition has been shown to activate the so-called 'dorsal stream', a network of temporo-parieto-frontal areas subserving the mapping of acoustic speech input onto articulatory-motor representations. Among these areas, a region in the posterior Sylvian fissure at the temporo-parietal boundary (also called 'area Spt') has been suggested to play a central role particularly with increasing computational demands on phonological processing. Most of the relevant evidence stems from tasks requiring metalinguistic processing. To date, the relevance of area Spt in natural phonological operations based on implicit linguistic knowledge has not yet been investigated. We examined two types of phonological processes assumed to be lateralized differently, i.e., the processing of syllabic stress versus subsyllabic segmental processing. In two ways, subjects modified an auditorily presented pseudoword before reproducing it overtly: (a) by a prosodic manipulation involving a stress shift across syllable boundaries, (b) by a segmental manipulation involving a vowel substitution. Manipulation per se was expected to engage area Spt. Segmental compared to prosodic processing was expected to reveal predominantly left lateralized activation, while prosodic compared to segmental processing was expected to result in bilateral or right-lateralized activation. Contrary to expectation, activation in area Spt did not vary with increased phonological processing demand. Instead, area Spt was engaged regardless of whether subjects simply repeated a pseudoword or performed a phonological manipulation before reproduction. However, for both segmental and prosodic stimuli, reproduction after manipulation (compared to repetition) activated the left intraparietal sulcus and left inferior frontal cortex. We propose that these parieto-frontal regions are recruited when the task requires phonological manipulation over and above the more automated transfer of auditory into articulatory verbal codes, which appears to involve area Spt. When directly contrasted with prosodic manipulation, segmental manipulation resulted in increased activation predominantly in left inferior frontal areas. This may be due to an increased demand on phonological sequencing operations at the subsyllabic phoneme level. Contrasted with segmental manipulations, prosodic manipulation did not result in increased activation, which may be due to a lower degree of morphosyntactic and to syllable-level processing.

Is the syllabification of Irish a typological exception? An experimental study

We examined whether Irish speakers syllabify intervocalic consonants as codas (e.g., póca ‘pocket’ /po:k.ə/ CVC.V), as claimed by many authors, but contrary to claims in phonological theory of a universal preference for syllables with onsets. We conducted a perception experiment using a part-repetition task and presented auditory stimuli consisting of VCV items with a single medial consonant (Cm), varying in the length of V1 and the manner of articulation of Cm (e.g., póca /po:kə/ ‘pocket’, lofa /lofə/ ‘rotten’), as well as VCCV items varying in the length of V1 and consonant sequence type (e.g., masla /maslə/ ‘insult’, canta /ka:ntə/ ‘hunk’). Response patterns were in line with many, though not all, of the findings in the literature for other languages: Listeners preferred syllables with onsets, often treated Cm as ambisyllabic, syllabified Cm as a coda more often when V1 was short, and dispreferred stops as codas. The results, however, did not completely support the Syllable Onset Segmentation Hypothesis (SOSH), which proposes differing roles for syllable onsets and offsets in word segmentation. For VCCV items, listeners show a great deal of variability in decisions not only about where the first syllable ends, but also about where the second syllable begins, a variability that could not be explained by the number of legal onsets possible for a given consonant sequence. We examined the hypotheses that variability in perception can be accounted for by (1) variability in production (in the signal) and (2) phoneme pattern frequency. We searched pattern frequencies in an electronic dictionary of Irish, but found no support for an account in which language-specific syllabification patterns reflect patterns of word-initial phoneme sequences. Our investigation of potential acoustic cues to syllable boundaries showed a gradient effect of vowel length on syllabification judgments: the longer the V1 duration, the less likely a closed syllable, in line with results for other languages. For Irish, though, this pattern interestingly holds for all consonant manners except stops. The phonetic analyses point to other language-specific differences in phonetic patterns that cue syllable boundaries. For Irish, unlike English, consonant duration was not a more important cue to syllable boundaries than vowel duration, and there was no evidence that relative duration between the two consonants of a medial sequence signals syllable boundaries. The findings have implications not only for the syllable structure of Irish and theories of syllabification more generally. They are relevant to all theoretical and applied work on Irish that makes reference to the syllable.

Present Indicative Plural Concord in Brittonic and Early English1

AbstractIn northern Middle English and Middle Scots, a verb in the present indicative plural ends in ‐e (later zero) if the subject is an adjacent personal pronoun; otherwise it ends in ‐s. This ‘northern subject rule’ is generally supposed to have become established in early Middle English. Its history is undocumented, but the idea that it arose from contact with Celtic has recently gained ground. The case is here reviewed, and though still far from compelling, is found better than has previously appeared. Regardless of language contact, it is shown that the system evident in the rule is independent of the suffix in ‐s, and could have arisen very early in Old English. Central to the account are the origins of the reduced inflection, and the loss at syllable boundaries of Old English h (Germanic χ).

Airflow and duration patterns in Tunisian Arabic fricatives.

Airflow and duration patterns in Tunisian Arabic fricatives were examined in data from six male speakers. TA is conventionally described as having eight fricative phonemes, five voiceless (labio‐dental, alveolar, uvular, pharyngeal and “glottal”) and three voiced (dental, alveolar, and pharyngeal). These segments occur as singletons and geminates. Tokens of both types were collected in word‐medial position following an initial /Ca/ sequence, where C is a single stop and /a/ a short low back vowel. Duration of this vowel preceding singleton and geminate fricatives was compared with its duration preceding a medial fricative + consonant (/FC/) cluster, where a syllable boundary is assumed to occur between /F/ and /C/ (e.g., /kafara, kaffara, kafra/). Vowel duration before the geminate is similar to that observed before the cluster, arguing for a syllable boundary within the geminate. However, airflow patterns do not suggest that any “re‐articulation” occurs during the geminate constriction [unlike in French pseudo‐geminates, Smith (1996)]. Airflow shows the expected elevation at the transitions between vowel and fricative and a single low trough during the constriction, except for /h/. Because there is no supraglottal constriction, /h/ has peak airflow near the center of its duration. Thus /h/ does not pattern with other “gutturals.”

Subphonemic planning across syllable and word boundaries.

Previous research demonstrated that there are no fixed motor programs or tasks in speech, and there is evidence for subphonemic planning in speech within a word across up to two phoneme boundaries [Derrick and Gick (Submitted)]. Because this evidence is word-internal, it could be suggested that speakers simply memorize many motor programs for each word and draw on them as needed. We demonstrate that speech planning extends across three phonemes, two syllables and a morpheme boundary. Participants produce more up-flaps the first flap of words such as “editor” and “auditor”, which often end with the tongue tip up, versus alveolar taps in “edify” and “audify,” which end with the tongue tip down. We also demonstrate planning across word boundaries. Participants also produce more up-flaps in “edit” and “audit” if these words are followed by “a,” which has a double flap sequence, than if the words are followed by “the,” which does not. Planning across morpheme and word boundaries would ultimately require memorization of an infinite number of motor programs or tasks.

Combined Acoustic and Electric Stimulation

Combined Acoustic and Electric Stimulation

Learning to parse liaison-initial words: An eye-tracking study

This study investigates the processing of resyllabified words by native English speakers at three proficiency levels in French and by native French speakers. In particular, it examines non-native listeners’ development of a parsing procedure for recognizing vowel-initial words in the context of liaison, a process that creates a misalignment of the syllable and word boundaries in French. The participants completed an eye-tracking experiment in which they identified liaison- and consonant-initial real and nonce words in auditory stimuli. The results show that the non-native listeners had little difficulty recognizing liaison-initial real words, and they recognized liaison-initial nonce words more rapidly than consonant-initial ones. By contrast, native listeners recognized consonant-initial real and nonce words more rapidly than liaison-initial ones. These results suggest that native and non-native listeners used different parsing procedures for recognizing liaison-initial words in the task, with the non-native listeners’ ability to segment liaison-initial words being phonologically abstract rather than lexical.