Syllable Onset Research Articles

Comparing Positional Licensing Patterns in HG and OT

Positional licensing refers to the observation that elements (e.g. particular feature values or feature value combinations) can be limited to specific positions (e.g. syllable onsets, initial syllables, stressed syllables, etc.). Positional licensing patterns have been analyzed using either positional markedness or positional faithfulness constraints in OT and HG. In this paper we demonstrate that the predictions of OT and HG diverge in deep but structured ways once there are more than two licensing positions. We propose an account for this structured divergence based on 3-position systems, and confirm the validity of that account with an analysis of 4-position systems. We also describe how conjoined constraints impact positional licensing patterns, and in doing so provide a counter-example to a claim made in our previous work (Mai & Baković 2020).

The adaptable speaker: A theory of implicit learning in language production.

The language production system continually learns. The system adapts to recent experiences while also reflecting the experience accumulated over the lifetime. This article presents a theory that explains how speakers implicitly learn novel phonotactic patterns as they produce syllables. The learning is revealed in their speech errors. For example, if speakers produce syllable strings in which the consonant /f/ is always a syllable onset, their slips will obey this rule; /f/'s will then slip mostly to onset positions. The article reviews over 30 phenomena related to this finding. To explain phonotactic learning, the article presents four linked "mini-theories," each of which addresses components of the data. The first mini-theory, the production theory, provides an account of how speech errors arise during the assembly of word forms. The second, the learning theory, characterizes the implicit learning of phoneme distributions within the production system. The third mini-theory, the consolidation theory, augments the learning theory to explain instances in which this learning depends on a period of time, possibly a sleep period, before it is expressed. The final mini-theory, the developmental theory, addresses cases in which learning varies between children and adults, and depends on speakers' early linguistic experience. The resulting theory forges links between these diverse aspects of psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Investigating the neural correlates of phonological encoding using a cluster-based analysis approach.

Phonological encoding, a subprocess in speech production, proceeds incrementally from word onset to offset. However, the incremental nature of encoding for multisyllabic words is unclear, and limited research has examined neural activity underlying the seriality of the process. In the present study, we investigated the timing of encoding between and within syllables of bisyllabic words using a data-driven cluster-based analysis of electroencephalography (EEG) data. In a phoneme-monitoring task, young adults covertly named pictures of bisyllabic words with a prespecified target phoneme present or absent. Target phonemes in target-present trials were distributed among four serial positions of the word concept: first syllable (S1) onset or offset and second syllable (S2) onset or offset. Upon covert naming, participants responded to target presence via button press or withheld responses for target absence. Neuroelectric activity during task performance was recorded using EEG and analyzed using cluster-based permutation testing. Faster response times and differences in neural activity were observed for monitoring targets at S1 onset than S2 onset, and for monitoring targets at S1 onset than S1 offset. No differences were found between monitoring targets at S2 onset and S2 offset. Our study supports the incremental nature of phonological encoding in bisyllabic words. Furthermore, the neural findings confirm that the serial time course of encoding in bisyllabic words extends to phonemes within the first, but not the subsequent syllable. Findings may have implications for current models of speech production.

Phonetic variation in the Korean liquid phoneme

Most discussions of the Korean liquid phoneme /l/ identify two allophones: a flap, [ɾ], in the onset of syllables, and an alveolar lateral approximant syllable-finally and in geminates. However, some research paints a more complex picture indicating a wide range of interspeaker variation for the precise articulatory realization of these allophones. The present research finds that in regards to the tap and laterals realizations previous descriptions are largely correct. It also affirms through analysis of F2 values that previous findings showing that the Korean lateral is palatalized before high front vocoids are correct. Most importantly, it analyzes F3 values to show that the retroflex variant is particularly prevalent near pauses, suggesting that retroflexion may be a secondary cue to prosodic boundaries.

Türkçe’de hece başında ünsüz kümelenmesinde ses türemesi ve İngiliz dili eğitimine etkisi

Abstract
 The phonological structure of Turkish does not allow word-initial consonant clusters. That is, the syllable onset position of borrowed vocabulary requires the insertion of an epenthetic high vowel. This changes the syllable structure by the addition of an extra syllable to the word. In Turkish schools, all grammar teachers teach those borrowed words as if they were one syllable words. However, the situation is different phonologically since these are not one syllable but two syllable words. Borrowed words such as tren (English train), plan (English plan) are pronounced with the insertion of the high vowel [i] and therefore become two syllable words. Our goal in this paper was to analyse such borrowed words drawing syllable diagrams in order to prove that these loan words actually consist of two syllables in Turkish. The diagrams were illustrated in phonetic transcription. We also concluded that Turkish initial consonant cluster epenthesis might affect Turkish EFL learners’ pronunciation of English words in their foreign language classes.
 
 Key words: epenthesis, consonant clusters, onset, Turkish.

/l/ variation in american english

We investigated the variation of /l/ in a large speech corpus through forced alignment. The results demonstrated that there is a categorical distinction between dark and light /l/ in American English. /l/ in syllable onset is light, and /l/ in syllable coda is dark. Intervocalic /l/ can be either light or dark, depending on the stress of the vowels. There is a correlation between duration (the rime duration and the duration of /l/) and /l/-darkness for dark /l/, but not for light /l/. Intervocalic dark /l/ is less dark than canonical syllable-coda /l/, but it is always dark, even in very short rimes. Intervocalic light /l/ is less light than canonical syllable-onset /l/, but it is always light. We argue that there are two levels of contrast in /l/ variation. The first level is determined by its affiliation to a single position in the syllable structure, and the second level is determined by its phonetic contexto.

New insights into /el/-/æl/ merging in Australian English

ABSTRACT A merger exists in Australian English in which /el/ is realized as [æl] for a number of speakers, particularly in Victoria. There have also been some observations of /æl/ raising to [el], termed “transposition”. Although thought to be characteristic of older speakers, empirical evidence for transposition is scant. Here we report the discovery of substantive degrees of merging in thirteen older speakers, aged between 51 and 80, from Ocean Grove, Victoria. Auditory and acoustic methods showed bidirectional vowel movement, with speakers converging on both the /æ/ and /e/ phonemes. Increasing velarization of the lateral has been posited as a factor in the development of the merger in Victoria, and thus /l/ quality was also investigated, with null results in terms of direct factors. The lateral, however, was shown to be dark in both syllable onset and coda positions, with evidence for /l/ being clearer in this age group when compared with younger speakers. Lexical frequency and orthography were also investigated as factors, the latter showing a significant effect and suggesting a role for velarization as a contrast maintenance strategy.

Learning phonotactic-like regularities in immediate serial recall.

Learning a spoken language requires learning a phonological inventory and phonotactics, or the sequences of phonemes possible in the language. Laboratory investigations of phonotactic learning include tongue-twister studies that show that speech errors respect artificial phonotactic constraints, for example that /k/ never appears as a syllable onset. The current research investigates whether errors can reveal similar learning in nonlinguistic domains, specifically in immediate serial recall studies. In Experiments 1-3 participants recalled sequences of 6 items, grouped into two 3-item subsequences, in verbal immediate serial recall experiments. Some items were restricted to appear in specific sequence positions while others were unrestricted, as a parallel to the artificial phonotactics learning experiments. As with speech errors, recall errors with restricted items showed sensitivity to the statistical regularities built into the experiment. Similar results are shown for both absolute and probabilistic constraints. However, learning effects were weaker than in the phonological domain, and were less influenced by hierarchical structure than what is observed in phonotactic learning (Experiment 4). Taken together, these results suggest that there are both domain-general and language-specific constraints on phonotactic learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Characteristics of Functional Speech Sound Disorders in Korean Children

Purpose: A speech sound disorder (SSD) is defined as the presence of a problem with articulation and phonological processes in a child. This study analyzed the clinical characteristics of Korean patients with functional SSDs without any neuromuscular abnormalities. Methods: The medical records of patients aged 36 to 72 months old who were diagnosed with SSDs were retrospectively reviewed. SSD patients who scored less than 85 in the U-Tap test were divided into two groups according to their receptive language scores on the PRES/SELSI. Results: Sixty-seven percent of patients with language impairment (LI) who were diagnosed with an SSD initially visited the hospital for a delay in language development (n=18, 66.7%). Among children with only an SSD, 26.7% (n=8) of the patients recognized it as a language developmental problem. All SSD patients had substitution errors in the onset of initial syllables (SSD, SSD+LI: 100%; typical development [TD]: 37.5%). Of particular note, SSD children with LI had more omission errors (55.6%) than patients with SSD only (16.7%). SSD patients had higher error rates than TD children in all consonants except for the glottal element (P<0.01). The lower the U-Tap score of SSD patients, the lower their expressive language score (P<0.001). Conclusion: A high percentage of children with SSD initially visited the hospital for the treatment of language development delays. Articulation tests are essential for children who suffer from language delay. Furthermore, since incorrect articulation can lead to delays in expressive language development, early interventions should be considered.

An avian cortical circuit for chunking tutor song syllables into simple vocal-motor units

How are brain circuits constructed to achieve complex goals? The brains of young songbirds develop motor circuits that achieve the goal of imitating a specific tutor song to which they are exposed. Here, we set out to examine how song-generating circuits may be influenced early in song learning by a cortical region (NIf) at the interface between auditory and motor systems. Single-unit recordings reveal that, during juvenile babbling, NIf neurons burst at syllable onsets, with some neurons exhibiting selectivity for particular emerging syllable types. When juvenile birds listen to their tutor, NIf neurons are also activated at tutor syllable onsets, and are often selective for particular syllable types. We examine a simple computational model in which tutor exposure imprints the correct number of syllable patterns as ensembles in an interconnected NIf network. These ensembles are then reactivated during singing to train a set of syllable sequences in the motor network.

Cochlear-implant simulation mimics increased age in temporal processing of syllables by young and middle-aged normal-hearing listeners

To better understand the effects of signal quality on phonetic processing, the present study examines the effects of signal degradation on processing of two-syllable sequences by young and middle-aged normal-hearing listeners. Temporal processing of American-English vowel sequences was compared across unprocessed and cochlear-implant (CI) simulation conditions for young listeners and for a CI simulation condition for the middle-aged listeners. Using the method of Fogerty, Humes and Kewley-Port [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 2509–2520 (2010)], listeners heard 70-ms, resynthesized versions of four syllables (“pit, pet, put, pot”) in a two-syllable temporal-order processing task. Task difficulty was adjusted by increasing or decreasing syllable-onset asynchrony (SOA), i.e., the duration between syllable onsets. SOA thresholds for accuracy of syllable-sequence identification was estimated using the method of constant stimuli on each of four 72-trial blocks. Results for the CI simulation conditions for both listener groups were comparable to those for the next older age-group in Fogerty et al. (2010), i.e., young adult listeners performed similarly to the middle-aged listeners Fogerty et al., and middle-aged listeners performed similarly to the older listeners Fogerty et al. Results will be discussed with regard to implications for phonetic processing of speech in demanding listening conditions and practical implications for CI users.

Where does the beat fall? Speech-beat alignment in Mandarin and English singing

Text-to-sing generates singing from text input (i.e., music score with lyrics), from which only syllable-level speech-music alignment can be acquired. To enhance the text-to-sing models, more fine-grained phoneme-level information is needed. We therefore investigate the acoustic measurements of segments and their temporal relationship with music beats as an answer from a linguistics perspective. Two research questions are addressed: (1) Do beats align with syllable onsets or nuclear vowel onsets? (2) Do different types of consonants present different speech-beat alignment results? Unaccompanied singing by professional singers in two rhythmically dissimilar languages, English (15 songs) and Mandarin (25 songs), were analysed. Data were segmented manually into phonemes by a trained annotator; a music scholar independently labelled the beats. Preliminary results suggest that Mandarin songs strongly favour vowels as anchors for beats (66.7%) while only 52.9% of beats fall on vowels in English. Both languages show that the beats have a strong preference for the end of consonants and the beginning of vowels. Phoneme types also play a significant role in the speech-beat alignment distribution. Future modelling of the speech-beat alignment in singing and comparison with speech rhythm data will also contribute to linguistic rhythm theories.

Diachronic and areal aspects of Brokpa phonology

The Tibetic language Brokpa exhibits a number of archaic properties regarding its phonology. However, one also finds some shared Tibetic innovations and features which likely arose due to contact with non-Tibetic languages. This article discusses selected features belonging to the three above-mentioned categories such as the retention of initial clusters of bilabial plosives and /r/, the reflexes of other selected initial clusters, correspondences of syllable-final Written Tibetan <b>, <d>, <g> and <s>, the lack of a voiced dental fricative /dz/ as well as the loss of voicing distinction of the syllable onsets as a starting point of tonogenesis.

Pulsed transcranial electric brain stimulation enhances speech comprehension

BackgroundOne key mechanism thought to underlie speech processing is the alignment of cortical brain rhythms to the acoustic input, a mechanism termed entrainment. Recent work showed that transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) in speech relevant frequencies or adapted to the speech envelope can in fact enhance speech processing. However, it is unclear whether an oscillatory tES is necessary, or if transients in the stimulation (e.g., peaks in the tES signal) at relevant times are sufficient. ObjectiveIn this study we used a novel pulsed-tES-protocol and tested behaviorally if a transiently pulsed - instead of a persistently oscillating - tES signal, can improve speech processing. MethodsWhile subjects listened to spoken sentences embedded in noise, brief electric direct current pulses aligned to speech transients (syllable onsets) were applied to auditory cortex regions to modulate comprehension. Additionally, we modulated the temporal delay between tES-pulses and speech transients to test for periodic modulations of behavior, indicative of entrainment by tES. ResultsSpeech comprehension was improved when tES-pulses were applied with a delay of 100 ms in respect to the speech transients. Contradictory to previous reports we find no periodic modulation of behavior. However, we find indications that periodic modulations can be spurious results of sampling behavioral data too coarsely. ConclusionsSubject’s speech comprehension benefits from pulsed-tES, yet behavior is not modulated periodically. Thus, pulsed-tES can aid cortical entrainment to speech input, which is especially relevant in a noisy environment. Yet, pulsed-tES does not seem to entrain brain oscillations by itself.

Detecting anticipatory information in speech with signal chopping

Most analyses of articulatory processes in speech assume that word form-related changes in the state of the vocal tract have well-defined beginnings and ends. But how do we determine the precise moments in time when these beginnings and ends occur? More specifically, when should we expect information related to the sound categories of a word to be present in acoustic and articulatory signals? The framework of Articulatory Phonology/Task Dynamics predicts that the earliest time such information becomes available is when the first articulatory gesture of a word becomes active, which closely corresponds to when a movement is initiated. Alternatively, a recent extension of the Articulatory Phonology model holds that gestures may have an influence on the state of the vocal tract after they have been retrieved from memory, but before they become active and before canonical movement initiation. This paper presents evidence that indeed, anticipatory information is available much earlier than is typically assumed: the identity of a syllable onset gesture can be predicted from articulatory and acoustic data quite early, in some cases nearly half a second before movement initiation. Likewise, the identity of a coda gesture can be predicted during the period of time typically associated with an onset consonant. These findings were obtained with a novel analysis method called signal chopping which was paired with deep neural network based classification. In this approach articulatory and acoustic signals are systematically truncated in space and time, and a network training/test procedure is repeated on the chopped signals. By analyzing the effects of chopping on classification accuracy, gesture-specific information can be spatiotemporally localized.

Hyper-articulation effects in Korean glides by heritage language learners

Aims and objectives: Hyper-articulation effects in glide sounds and heritage production are unexplored areas. Thus, this study examines how the Korean glide /we/ is phonetically implemented in hyper-articulated speech by English-speaking heritage learners of Korean. Language-specific fundamental frequency (F0) patterns and methodological issues involving inconsistent data in heritage research are also addressed. Methodology: Korean-American students enrolled in an intermediate-low Korean language course for Korean heritage students at a university in the US read four isolated sentences, once in casual speech and once in hyper-articulated (or clear) speech. They repeated this sequence five times. Data and analysis: The syllable duration of the glide more than doubled and the upward transitional feature of /w/ was significantly expanded with a steeper slope in clear speech compared to casual speech. The expansion of vowel space of /e/ in clear speech was also attested for second formant (F2). Although pitch did not vary between the two speaking styles at syllable onset or vowel midpoint, it exhibited a significant increase at syllable offset in clear speech. The strong intra- and inter-speaker variations frequently observed in heritage language research were not found in this study. Conclusions: The results generally echo the hyper-articulated speech changes observed in native Korean speakers. The pitch pattern outcomes suggest that heritage learners’ enhancement corresponds more to that of their heritage language than their dominant language. Although the data generally supports the idea that heritage learners’ enhancement strategies emulate those of native speakers in terms of exaggerated acoustic features, the same is not true regarding absolute acoustic values; their acoustic values are more exaggerated than native speakers’ in clear speech. Originality and implications: The findings present new hyper-articulation effects regarding glide sounds and an additional enhancement strategy of end-of-syllable pitch raising in hyper-articulated speech. This study also suggests that controlling for confounding population variables mitigates the methodological challenges of heritage language research.

Combining predictive coding and neural oscillations enables online syllable recognition in natural speech

On-line comprehension of natural speech requires segmenting the acoustic stream into discrete linguistic elements. This process is argued to rely on theta-gamma oscillation coupling, which can parse syllables and encode them in decipherable neural activity. Speech comprehension also strongly depends on contextual cues that help predicting speech structure and content. To explore the effects of theta-gamma coupling on bottom-up/top-down dynamics during on-line syllable identification, we designed a computational model (Precoss—predictive coding and oscillations for speech) that can recognise syllable sequences in continuous speech. The model uses predictions from internal spectro-temporal representations of syllables and theta oscillations to signal syllable onsets and duration. Syllable recognition is best when theta-gamma coupling is used to temporally align spectro-temporal predictions with the acoustic input. This neurocomputational modelling work demonstrates that the notions of predictive coding and neural oscillations can be brought together to account for on-line dynamic sensory processing.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation in the theta band but not in the delta band modulates the comprehension of naturalistic speech in noise

Auditory cortical activity entrains to speech rhythms and has been proposed as a mechanism for online speech processing. In particular, neural activity in the theta frequency band (4–8 ​Hz) tracks the onset of syllables which may aid the parsing of a speech stream. Similarly, cortical activity in the delta band (1–4 ​Hz) entrains to the onset of words in natural speech and has been found to encode both syntactic as well as semantic information. Such neural entrainment to speech rhythms is not merely an epiphenomenon of other neural processes, but plays a functional role in speech processing: modulating the neural entrainment through transcranial alternating current stimulation influences the speech-related neural activity and modulates the comprehension of degraded speech. However, the distinct functional contributions of the delta- and of the theta-band entrainment to the modulation of speech comprehension have not yet been investigated. Here we use transcranial alternating current stimulation with waveforms derived from the speech envelope and filtered in the delta and theta frequency bands to alter cortical entrainment in both bands separately. We find that transcranial alternating current stimulation in the theta band but not in the delta band impacts speech comprehension. Moreover, we find that transcranial alternating current stimulation with the theta-band portion of the speech envelope can improve speech-in-noise comprehension beyond sham stimulation. Our results show a distinct contribution of the theta- but not of the delta-band stimulation to the modulation of speech comprehension. In addition, our findings open up a potential avenue of enhancing the comprehension of speech in noise.

Flipping onsets to enhance syllabification

Two-year-old children who start learning to speak generally spell a polysyllabic word by flipping onsets of consecutive syllables. Sometimes they speak unclearly, hard to understand since the flipped onsets produce another word that has a much different meaning. For instance, two onsets in an English word “me.lon” (large round fruit of a plant of the gourd family) are flipped to produce another word “le.mon” (an acid fruit). In Bahasa Indonesia, such cases are quite common. For examples, two onsets in word “ba.tu” (stone) are swapped to be “ta.bu” (taboo), two onsets in “be.sar” (big) are flipped to be “se.bar” (spread), two onsets in “ru.mah” (house) are swapped to be “mu.rah” (cheap), etc. A preliminary study on 50k Indonesian formal words shows that the ratio between frequencies of the flipped-onset-bigrams and the 50 most frequent original syllable-bigrams is quite high, up to 13.09%. This research investigates the adoption of such phenomenon to enhances a bigram orthographic syllabification model that is commonly poor for out-of-vocabulary words. A five-fold cross-validation on 50k Indonesian formal words proves that the flipping onsets enhances the bigram orthographic syllabification, where the syllable error rate (SER) is relatively reduced by 18.02%. The method is also capable of producing quite low SER for a tiny trainset of 1k words to generalize 10k unseen words. Besides, it can be simply generalized to be applied to other languages as well as named-entities using a few specific knowledge related to the sets of vowels, diphthongs, and consonants.

Overlap and sonority in complex onsets in Georgian

This study investigates the relationship between the sonority shape of complex syllable onsets and articulatory overlap between the constituent consonants in Georgian (Kartvelian, Georgia; geo). Sonority sequencing and related phonological phenomena can be analyzed as epiphenomena related to perceptual cue preservation. The current study builds on previous research on Georgian that shows that order of place of articulation affects degree of overlap between stop-to-stop sequences and relates this back to issues of recoverability of segments within the sequence, and expands on this research to include complex syllable onsets with segmental makeups other than, but including, stop-to-stop sequences. Specifically, we use electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to examine the movements of the tongue, lips, and jaw during the production of Georgian words that cross three sonority shapes (rise, fall, and plateau) with front-to-back and back-to-front orders of place of articulation. Preliminary analyses confirm that there is less overlap in front-to-back clusters than in their back-to-front counterparts. It is also shown that sonority shape significantly affects overlap measures in interaction with order of place of articulations. This points towards a systematic relationship between sonority and overlap, which is discussed within the context of perceptual cue preservation and recoverability [Work supported by NSF.]This study investigates the relationship between the sonority shape of complex syllable onsets and articulatory overlap between the constituent consonants in Georgian (Kartvelian, Georgia; geo). Sonority sequencing and related phonological phenomena can be analyzed as epiphenomena related to perceptual cue preservation. The current study builds on previous research on Georgian that shows that order of place of articulation affects degree of overlap between stop-to-stop sequences and relates this back to issues of recoverability of segments within the sequence, and expands on this research to include complex syllable onsets with segmental makeups other than, but including, stop-to-stop sequences. Specifically, we use electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to examine the movements of the tongue, lips, and jaw during the production of Georgian words that cross three sonority shapes (rise, fall, and plateau) with front-to-back and back-to-front orders of place of articulation. Preliminary analyses confirm that ...