Stressed Vowels Research Articles

Domains and Prominence in Nasal Harmonization of Maxakalí Loanwords

We examine the patterns of loanword adaptation in Maxakalí, a Macro-Jê language of Brazil, in importing loans from Brazilian Portuguese, with respect to the introduction of nasality and nasal harmony, based on a corpus of 18 speakers. Employing MaxEnt modeling of quantitative trends enabled the comparison and analysis of certain recurrent trends, even if not exceptionless, and the potentially additive effects of their interaction. The results reveal that nasal harmonization, modeled as set of markedness constraints, is greatly enforced within syllable rimes, and strongly enforced within syllables, but shows little role for syllable-to-syllable harmony, demonstrating that harmonization is preferred within tighter prosodic domains. Word-initial consonants always retain their nasality or orality from Portuguese, and stressed vowels always preserve their nasality. These latter effects uphold the role of prominent positions in maintaining contrasts within loanword phonology. The overall patterns of loanword harmonization find convergence with certain characteristics within Maxakalí phonology itself.

Production of English tense and lax vowels by young speakers of Korean dialects

This study attempts to examine whether there is any difference in the acoustic properties of English tense and lax vowels by young speakers of Korean regional dialect speakers. A production test is developed to analyze acoustic manifestations of four phonetic parameters (F1, F2, vowel duration, and vowel distance) in English speech of Kyunggi Korean (KK) and North Kyungsang Korean (NKK) dialect speakers. The 184 collected data for the production test consisting of high vowels /i, ɪ, u, ʊ/ in CVC structure are taken from 20 female elementary school students (10 for each dialect group). The result shows no significant difference between two regional dialects, which indicates similar features of acoustic properties are uttered by both groups. However, despite this similarity between two groups, results from comparative analysis with native speakers show that NKK uses less vowel space from the calculated acoustic distance (Euclidean distance). Therefore, it can be argued that discrepancy in overall acoustic properties between young NKK and KK is insignificant but still distinguishing acoustic space of vowel would be harder for NKK. Based on these findings pedagogical implication for effective articulation training has been suggested.

Sistemas vocálicos tónicos portugueses do norte e do centro-sul: descrição acústica e tendências dialetais

Abstract Brissos (2014) and Brissos/Rodrigues (2016) draw on the data of the Acoustic Atlas of Portuguese Stressed Vowels (AVOC) to describe the stressed vowel systems of, respectively, central-southern and northwestern Portuguese dialects. This paper presents the AVOC data for northeastern Portugal, thus completing the picture for the country’s northern dialects. The vowel systems of the three areas are compared and systematized, and a synthetic depiction of the Portuguese cardinal dialectal areas (north vs. south) is put together. The importance of acoustic data for providing new, more accurate characterizations of Portuguese dialects is also evidenced.

Morpheme dislocation in Eastern Andalusian Spanish plurals

This paper examines whether the morpheme of plurality has shifted from word-final to word-initial syllable in Eastern Andalusian Spanish. This would be explained by word-medial vowel lowering caused by vowel harmony, which extends leftwards from the vowel preceding deleted /-s/ up to the stressed vowel. Two experiments are performed: (1) Eastern Andalusian speakers have to decide if each item is singular or plural by listening to the first syllable of paroxytone disyllabic words; (2) Paroxytone disyllabic words are manipulated and the first syllable is taken from a singular word and the second syllable from its plural, and vice versa; the participants have to categorise each item as singular or plural. An analysis of 4503 answers shows that these speakers can identify singular /ˈCV.CV/ words by listening to the first syllable only when the first syllable contains /e/ or /o/ and plural only when the first syllable contains /o/; they can identify singular /ˈCVC.CV/ words when the first syllable contains /o/, /i/ or /u/ and plurals when they contain /e/ or /o/. The morpheme of plurality has not shifted completely to word-initial syllable but it is hypothesised that there is a shift currently underway and that this is more advanced for /e/ and /o/.

Decisions about consonant doubling among non-native speakers of English: graphotactic and phonological influences

Graphotactic as well as phonological factors influence native English speakers’ decisions about consonant doubling in the spelling of nonwords, e.g., zimen versus zimmen. This study examined the extent to which such influences apply to non-native speakers of English, who presumably have less knowledge of English graphotactics and phonology and less opportunity to be explicitly instructed, and whether such influences vary as a function of first language (L1) background. Eighty-five university students in Beijing who study English as a second language (ESL) with contrasting L1 backgrounds (46 Chinese and 39 Korean, Mage = 20.51 years, SD = 1.95) completed a nonword spelling task and a standardized English spelling ability test. In the nonword spelling task, participants were asked to spell items in which the initial consonant or cluster was followed by a stressed vowel with medial consonant that would generally double in English. Half of the first syllables in the nonwords had short vowels and half of them had long vowels. Similar to native English speakers, ESL learners were more likely to use medial consonant doubling when the preceding vowel was short, spelled with one letter, and ended with spellings associated with higher rate of doubling in the English system. Phonological influence was stronger in more skilled spellers than in less skilled spellers, whereas the strength of graphotactic influence did not differ across the range of spelling ability. No significant difference of L1 background was found in the use of consonant doubling. Findings highlight the generality of statistical learning underlying spelling across different first language backgrounds and varying English spelling abilities.

Foreign (a) in North American English: Variation and Change in Loan Phonology

Previous research has shown that Canadian English displays a unique pattern of nativizing the stressed vowel of foreign words spelled with the letter <a>, like lava, pasta, and spa, known as foreign (a), with more use of /æ/ (the trap vowel) and less use of /ah/ (the palm vowel) than American English. This paper analyzes one hundred examples of foreign (a), produced by sixty-one Canadian and thirty-one American English-speakers, in order to shed more light on this pattern and its current development. Acoustic analysis is used to determine whether each participant assigns each vowel to English /æ/, /ah/, or an intermediate category between /æ/ and /ah/. It reports that the Canadian pattern, though still distinct, is converging with the American pattern, in that Canadians now use slightly more /ah/ than /æ/; that men appear to lead this change but this is because they participate less than women do in the Short Front (Canadian) Vowel Shift; that intermediate vowel assignments are comparatively rare, suggesting that a new low-central vowel phoneme is not emerging; that the Canadian tendency toward American pronunciation is not well aligned with overt attitudes toward the United States and American English; and that the national differences in foreign (a) assignment result not from structural, phonological differences between the dialects so much as from a complex set of sociocultural factors.

Estudo acústico sobre a dupla marcação de plural em adjetivos derivados em -oso(s) no português brasileiro

Este artigo apresenta um estudo acústico sobre a duplamarcac?a?o de plural em adjetivos derivados em *--osos* no portugue?sbrasileiro, observando possi?veis comportamentos metafo?nicos,compreendidos como a alterac?a?o de timbre da vogal to?nica induzida pelavogal postônica. Um experimento de produção com quatro condições deteste foi realizado, duas com os adjetivos introduzidos em sintagmasnominais objeto e duas com os adjetivos inseridos em sintagmas nominaissujeito. Foram coletados dados de fala de quatro participantes do sexofeminino de dois municípios do Estado de Sa?o Paulo. Com base naFonologia de Uso e na Teoria de Exemplares, observou-se que o fenômenometafônico se apresentou em maior número na primeira condição de teste,na qual as palavras-alvo foram apresentadas pela primeira vez àsparticipantes. Nesta situação, a frequência de tipo tornou-se maissignificativa do que a própria frequência de ocorrência, uma vez que opadrão no singular é o mais recorrente. Os resultados mostraram que adupla marcação de plural foi produzida em 75,52% das emisso?es. Ametafonia foi encontrada em 8,86% dos dados. Pelas análises acústicas,em 14,58% das produções, foram verificadas vogais com qualidadeintermedia?ria entre a vogal aberta e a fechada, destacando o carátergradiente na produção das vogais, caro aos estudos baseados no uso. Porfim, os resultados ainda mostraram que as mudanças sonoras foneticamentemotivadas, como a redução ou apagamento da vogal postônica [?], bemcomo as mudanças sem motivação fonética, como a analogia ao tipo maisfrequente, atingiram tanto as palavras pouco frequentes quanto as muitofrequentes estabelecidas para o presente estudo.

Self-awareness Strategy Using Podcasting to Improve Tense and Lax Vowel Pronunciation Sounds in Beginner EFL-Adult Learners

This action research study measured the effectiveness of a self-awareness strategy and podcasting to help beginners EFL-adult learners to pronounce tense-lax vowels in English accurately. The participants were 17 adult students with an A1.2 English level. This innovation was implemented in a language school in a coastal city in Ecuador, South America. The results were obtained using quantitative data gathered from a pre and a post-test, which were divided in two parts; a scripted and extemporaneous one. The final scores produced a large effect size of 2.27 for tense vowels and 4.89 for lax vowels, indicating that most of students were able to pronounce more than the 80% of tense and lax vowels accurately. These results demonstrated that the self-awareness strategy and the podcasting had a great impact on tense-lax vowels pronunciation in adults. Despite the favorable results, further and deeper research is needed with a larger sample, period of time, and training.

UKRAINIAN RESPONDENTS SOCIOPHONETIC SPEECH DESCRIPTION ABROAD UKRAINE: VOCAL ORPHOEPY

The article is devoted to the Ukrainian diaspora (America, Canada, Europe (Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Moldova), the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic) youth oral speech at the synchronous level, in particular the Ukrainian language pronunciation features. The normativity and historical organic are proved on the poll basis; pronunciation problems and orthoepic deviations are indicated; the vowels mastery orthoepy percentage in a wide local and social representation abroad is determined. The investigation object is the diaspora Ukrainians’ oral speech. The research subject is the orthoepic modern Ukrainian language mastery norms, the vowels orthoepy (initial stressed [i], unstressed [е], [и], [о]) in particular. Аnalysis and synthesis used in the study are as follows induction; deduction; observation; taxonomy (for the orthoepy phenomena classification, in particular words representing the sounds orthoepy); quantitative analysis (to determine the frequency of sticking to standards of orthoepy and the orthoepy standards possession percentage); descriptive method (for a pronunciation norms functioning generalized description in diachrony and synchrony). Special linguistic methods including comparative and historical (to compare orthoepy features in synchrony (modern living pronunciation) and diachrony (reflection in written memos; to study the each demanding norm historical roots)); comparative (to identify the different countries orthoepic picture specifics); linguistic geography method (to determine the orthoepy phenomenon spatial functioning). Thus, the vowels pronunciation norms belong to the weak norms abroad - less than 50% of respondents follow them: pronunciation of unstressed [и] is owned by 45% of respondents, [e] – 41%, [o] - 27%, stressed initial [i] – only 9 %. The mastery vowels orthoepy rate is 27%. The highest possession percentage norm abroad is seen when pronouncing such words as [vеде́лка], [vеиде́лка] (58 %), [vеисна́] (51 %), [vе́ршниек] (50 %). Informants demonstrated the worst norms mastery when pronouncing [пиеру́ка], [пиру́ка] (27 %), [зузу́лʹа] (27 %), [пр ̊оумʼін':а] (19 %), [усʹмʼіха́ јеіцʹ:а] (12%), [і́ин̊ одʹі], [и́н̊одʹ і], [и́ін̊ одʹ і] (9 %). There are deviations due to spelling influence and theoretical knowledge lack when pronouncing unstressed vowels [e], [и], [o] and the initial stressed vowel [i] in specifically suggested words or only the theoretical basis lack. The main reason for the literary vowels pronunciation violations is related to the these norms presentation lack in the school textbooks studied by the respondents.

Акустические характеристики речи детей в диалогах со взрослым и сверстником: детский дом — семья, типичное развитие — интеллектуальные нарушения

The aim of the study is to describe the acoustic features of speech in preschool children with intellectual disabilities when interacting with an adult and a peer. The study sample included 104 children aged 5–7 years: children from an orphanage with mild intellectual disabilities (ID, F70 according to ICD-10), mixed specific developmental disorders (DD, F83) and typically developing; children growing up in families with mixed specific developmental disorders and typical development. The children’s speech and behaviour in situations of dialogue with an adult and a peer were audio- and video-recorded in an orphanage and in a kindergarten, respectively. The methods were used: the analysis of the dialogue texts, perceptive experiment, and an acoustic spectrographic analysis of child speech. The duration and pitch values of vowels in children’s words were measured. In a dialogue with an adult, the duration of stressed vowels in the words spoken by children with ID and DD is higher than the duration of the stressed vowels in the words uttered by typically developing children; the pitch values of stressed vowels in children with ID are higher than in children with DD and with typical development. In the situation of peer interaction, the high pitch values of stressed vowels in words are typical for children with ID in orphanage care. The values of the stressed vowels articulation index in the words pronounced by orphans with disabilities, especially with ID, are lower than in typically developing children. Adult listeners could recognize the meaning of words uttered by typically developing children better than the words spoken by children with ID. It was established that orphans with ID and DD do not use complex sentences in dialogues, and orphans with ID do not use replies of several simple phrases. In a dialogue with an adult, children of all the groups use more complex replies than in a dialogue with a peer.

The Typology of the First Year Students’ Pronunciations At FKIP-Universitas HKBP Nommensen Pematangsiantar On English Voiceless Plosive Consonants

<p>This article is regarded as a descriptive qualitative research dealing with the first year students’ skill in pronouncing the English voiceless plosive consonants. The subjects of the research are all considered homogenous consisting of 35 students who factually use Toba Batak language and Indonesian as their native languages. Based on the data analysis it was found out that those who had more phonological awareness could pronounce the English voiceless consonants better than those who had less. These speech sounds could be pronounced well when they particularly occurred either at medial or final position, but they were sometimes not properly pronounced or aspirated when they occurred in initial position and followed by stressed vowel. Phonetic errors or faulty pronunciations were more frequently done when these consonants occurred in initial position or uttered in connection with other words in a sentence.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong> English, pronunciation, typology, voiceless plosive consonant</p>

An articulatory study of the alveolar versus retroflex contrast in pre- and post-stress position in Arrernte

This study presents articulometry and palatography data for Arrernte, a language of Central Australia. It examines the contrast between the apical consonants – alveolar versus retroflex – according to lexical stress. Stop, nasal and lateral consonants are treated separately. Results show that the most prototypical retroflex articulation – where the tongue tip is retracted for post-alveolar closure and eventually released at a more anterior location – occurs after a stressed vowel. By contrast, a prototypical alveolar articulation – with closure and release at the same (anterior) region along the palate – is more likely to occur before a stressed vowel. In addition, it is shown that the contrast between alveolars and retroflexes varies by manner of articulation, being clearest for the nasal manner. It is suggested that the low jaw position which is an inherent property of nasal articulations facilitates retraction of the tongue tip for retroflexion, and that nasalization of adjacent vowels may motivate an exaggeration of the alveolar-retroflex contrast. For laterals, however, the alveolar~retroflex contrast is not so clear, and it is suggested that the articulatory requirements for lateral airflow may compromise full retraction of the tongue tip. Typological implications of these results are discussed, as is the possibility that CV versus VC (i.e. alveolar versus retroflex) cues to place of articulation are best encoded within a stressed vowel.

Young vs. old Koreans’ vowel insertion after word-final English and French postvocalic plosives: A case of contact-induced borrowing change

This paper explores whether young vs. old Koreans’ vowel insertion after word-final English and French postvocalic plosives has changed or not. For this purpose, we conducted a perception experiment wherein 40 Koreans who were born before 1960 and another 40 Koreans who were born after 1989 were recruited with 20 male and 20 female subjects in each group. The results show that the release of plosives and the voicing of unreleased plosives are key variables for vowel insertion in both age groups. In addition, our young Koreans have no significant difference in vowel insertion after word-final English and French plosives, regardless of whether the plosives are released or unreleased, regardless of whether they are voiceless or voiced and regardless of whether they are preceded by the tense vowel [aI], as in English stimuli, or by the non-tense vowel [a], as in the French stimuli. On the other hand, our old Koreans have differences in vowel insertion after the non-native plosives in the examined contexts, depending on whether the plosives are English or French.Based on the results, we propose that vowel insertion in accordance with the plosive release and the voicing of unreleased plosives in the two groups is accounted for by Korean syllable structure with generational differences made by how two effects – the plosive voicing effect and the vowel-tenseness effect – are involved. We also propose that no significant difference in vowel insertion after word-final English and French plosives in the young group is a case of contact-induced borrowing change resulting from the English/French contact differences over time in Korean society.

Prosodic features of stances in conversation

Stance—attitudes and opinions about the topic of discussion—has been investigated textually in conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and computational models, but little attention has focused on its acoustic-phonetic properties. It is a challenge, given the complexity of stance and the many other types of meaning that share the same acoustic channels, all overlaid on the lexical and syntactic material of the message. With the goal of identifying automatically-extractable, acoustically-measurable correlates of stance-taking, this work identified signals of stance in prosodic measures of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration in an audio corpus of dyads engaged in collaborative conversational tasks designed to elicit frequent changes in stance at varying levels of involvement. The study examined over 32,000 stressed vowels in content words spoken by 40 American English-speakers and found that f0 and intensity increased with stance strength, longer vowel duration signaled positive polarity, and a combination of measures distinguished several stance-act types, including: general agreement, weak-positive agreement, rapport-building agreement, reluctance to accept a stance, stance-softening, and backchannels. These results contribute to the understanding of the acoustic-phonetic properties of the social and attitudinal messages conveyed in natural speech.

Ex-neuter-gender nouns in Canadian Doukhobor Russian

This paper addresses the morpho-syntactic forms of ex-neuter-gender of Canadian Doukhobor Russian nouns. Doukhobor Russian is a near-extinct variety of Russian spoken by a small group of elderly Doukhobors (a religious and ethnic minority of Russian origins) residing mostly in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta. While Standard Russian has three noun genders (feminine, masculine and neuter), this paper demonstrates that in Doukhobor Russian, a neuter gender erosion has been taking place, whereby ex-neuter-gender nouns have been shifting their declension paradigms mostly to feminine F1 declension forms. Ex-neuter-gender words in Doukhobor Russian also mostly agree with pronouns, attributives, and numerals in feminine gender. They also predominantly agree in feminine gender with preterite verb forms. Two major subclasses of ex-neuter-gender nouns are identified: those in which the stem is stressed and those in which the stress is on the inflectional vowel. A stressed vowel in an inflectional suffix of the nominative and the accusative blocks the paradigm shift of ex-neuter-gender nouns, but does not prevent female gender agreement with attributives and preterite verb forms. The discussion identifies parallels of neuter-gender erosion in Doukhobor Russian with similar processes found in 19th and 20th century Russian dialects.

Temporal extent of anticipatory lip rounding in child and adult speech

Look-ahead models predict that anticipatory lip rounding is defined segmentally: for example, extending backwards from the target to the first segment specified for rounding. Gestural models predict that it is limited by the duration of the activation interval, which is why coarticulatory effects are weaker in slow speech compared to fast speech. This study investigated the temporal extent of anticipatory rounding in child versus adult speech with these model predictions in mind. Child speech is slower than adult speech. It is also purportedly equally coarticulated as adult speech, but long-distance effects are underexamined. Two groups of school-aged children, 5- and 8-year-olds, and one group of adults produced simple subject-verb-object sentences. The vowel of the object noun contained either the same unrounded vowel as the verb or a different rounded vowel. An unstressed determiner intervened between the verb and noun. Coarticulatory extent was measured perceptually using gated AV speech. Rounding was found to extend backwards to the preceding stressed vowel in both child and adult speech, and so up to (roughly) 400 ms before the target in 5-year-olds’ speech compared to 340 ms in 8-year-olds’ speech and 235 ms in adults’ speech. These results are more easily reconciled with look-ahead model predictions than with gestural model predictions. [Work supported by NICHD grant #R01HD087452.]Look-ahead models predict that anticipatory lip rounding is defined segmentally: for example, extending backwards from the target to the first segment specified for rounding. Gestural models predict that it is limited by the duration of the activation interval, which is why coarticulatory effects are weaker in slow speech compared to fast speech. This study investigated the temporal extent of anticipatory rounding in child versus adult speech with these model predictions in mind. Child speech is slower than adult speech. It is also purportedly equally coarticulated as adult speech, but long-distance effects are underexamined. Two groups of school-aged children, 5- and 8-year-olds, and one group of adults produced simple subject-verb-object sentences. The vowel of the object noun contained either the same unrounded vowel as the verb or a different rounded vowel. An unstressed determiner intervened between the verb and noun. Coarticulatory extent was measured perceptually using gated AV speech. Rounding was...

Génération automatique de la structure prosodique en français

An automated process for building a prosodic structure form transcribed speech recordings in French is presented, based on the incremental prosodic model [1, 2, 3]. In this model, the prosodic structure is defined incrementally by dependency relations instantiated by melodic contours located on the last syllable of the last word of stress groups, subject to a rhythmic constrain limiting the gap between successive stressed syllable to a 250-1250 ms range. Although they frequently contain lexical words (noun, verb, adverb, adjective), stress groups in French can also include only grammatical words (pronoun, conjunction, preposition). Melodic contours are phonologically defined from their melodic rise or fall and their glissando value ensuring their function as dependency markers between stress groups. The algorithm proceeds from an orthographic transcription as follows: 1. Automatic segmentation of the orthographic text into IPA and word tiers 2. Automatic annotation of stressed vowels in three classes (followed by 250 ms silence, above the glissando threshold and lexical category based) 3. Assignment of melodic contours from fundamental frequency values at stressed vowels boundaries. Comparisons with automatic and manual stressed syllable annotation on existing corpora are given, showing the validity of the phonological rules implemented in the algorithm.

영어 음운불투명성과 탈락 모음 복원: ‘s(V)C’연속에서 기식의 발화와 인지를 중심으로

An unstressed vowel in English commonly tends to be weakened and deleted. When an unstressed vowel between [s] and a voiceless stop as in ‘s(V)CV’ is deleted, phonological opacity might arise since a voiceless stop would be aspirated before a stressed vowel, and English prohibits such a sequence of [s] and an aspirated stop. The goals of this study are to investigate whether such phonological opacity virtually arises in English and to see how English native speakers deal with the opacity and perceive the words correctly. Results showed that schwa deletion resulted in phonological opacity with respect to aspiration. English speakers, however, had little problem restoring the deleted vowel and could resolve the opacity by means of VOT that played a very crucial role as an acoustic cue in the processes.

Vowel Formants in Normal and Loud Speech.

Purpose This study evaluated how 1st and 2nd vowel formant frequencies (F1, F2) differ between normal and loud speech in multiple speaking tasks to assess claims that loudness leads to exaggerated vowel articulation. Method Eleven healthy German-speaking women produced normal and loud speech in 3 tasks that varied in the degree of spontaneity: reading sentences that contained isolated /i: a: u:/, responding to questions that included target words with controlled consonantal contexts but varying vowel qualities, and a recipe recall task. Loudness variation was elicited naturalistically by changing interlocutor distance. First and 2nd formant frequencies and average sound pressure level were obtained from the stressed vowels in the target words, and vowel space area was calculated from /i: a: u:/. Results Comparisons across many vowels indicated that high, tense vowels showed limited formant variation as a function of loudness. Analysis of /i: a: u:/ across speech tasks revealed vowel space reduction in the recipe retell task compared to the other 2. Loudness changes for F1 were consistent in direction but variable in extent, with few significant results for high tense vowels. Results for F2 were quite varied and frequently not significant. Speakers differed in how loudness and task affected formant values. Finally, correlations between sound pressure level and F1 were generally positive but varied in magnitude across vowels, with the high tense vowels showing very flat slopes. Discussion These data indicate that naturalistically elicited loud speech in typical speakers does not always lead to changes in vowel formant frequencies and call into question the notion that increasing loudness is necessarily an automatic method of expanding the vowel space. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.8061740.

An Electropalatographic Study of Variability in Arrernte Consonant Production

Arrernte is a language with a relatively large consonant inventory, and a relatively small vowel inventory. In this study, electropalatography is used to examine lingual consonant production according to lexical stress, in the context of the two most common vowels in the language, the central vowels /a/ and /ə/. The consonants examined are /t̪ n̪ l̪ t n l ʈ ɳ ɭ ɻ c ɲ ʎ j k ŋ w/. Data are for two female speakers and are taken from a large database of read texts. Results show very little articulatory variation in consonant production depending on the contexts examined. Although consonants before a stressed vowel have greater duration than consonants before an unstressed vowel, there is no consistent difference in tongue-palate contact patterns between the two prosodic contexts. The main exception to this pattern is the retroflex stop, nasal and lateral, which show a more posterior contact before an unstressed vowel: it is suggested that this is because the preceding stressed vowel contains the primary cues to retroflex place of articulation.