Phonation Types Research Articles

Glottal features for classification of phonation type from speech and neck surface accelerometer signals

Glottal source characteristics vary between phonation types due to the tension of laryngeal muscles with the respiratory effort. Previous studies in the classification of phonation type have mainly used speech signals recorded by microphone. Recently, two studies were published in the classification of phonation type using neck surface accelerometer (NSA) signals. However, there are no previous studies comparing the use of the acoustic speech signal vs. the NSA signal as input in classifying phonation type. Therefore, the current study investigates simultaneously recorded speech and NSA signals in the classification of three phonation types (breathy, modal, pressed). The general goal is to understand which of the two signals (speech vs. NSA) is more effective in the classification task. We hypothesize that by using the same feature set for both signals, classification accuracy is higher for the NSA signal, which is more closely related to the physical vibration of the vocal folds and less affected by the vocal tract compared to the acoustical speech signal. Glottal source waveforms were computed using two signal processing methods, quasi-closed phase (QCP) glottal inverse filtering and zero frequency filtering (ZFF), and a group of time-domain and frequency-domain scalar features were computed from the obtained waveforms. In addition, the study investigated the use of mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) derived from the glottal source waveforms computed by QCP and ZFF. Classification experiments with support vector machine classifiers revealed that the NSA signal showed better discrimination of the phonation types compared to the speech signal when the same feature set was used. Furthermore, it was observed that the glottal features showed complementary information with the conventional MFCC features resulting in the best classification accuracy both for the NSA signal (86.9%) and the speech signal (80.6%).

Electroglottographic Analysis of the Voice in Young Male Role of Kunqu Opera

The phonation types used in the young male role in Kunqu Opera were investigated. Two national young male role singers volunteered as the subjects. Each singer performed three voice conditions: singing, stage speech, and reading lyrics. Three electroglottogram parameters, the fundamental frequency, contact quotient, and speed quotient, were analyzed. Electroglottogram parameters were different between voice conditions. Five phonation types were found by clustering analysis in singing and stage speech: (1) breathy voice, (2) high adduction modal voice, (3) modal voice, (4) untrained falsetto, and (5) high adduction falsetto. The proportion of each phonation type was not identical in singing and stage speech. The relationship between phonation type and pitch was multiple to one in the low pitch range, and one to one in the high pitch range. The sound pressure levels were related to the phonation types. Five phonation types, instead of only the two phonation types (modal voice and falsetto) that are identified in traditional Kunqu Opera singing theory, were concomitantly used in the young male role’s artistic voices. These phonation types were more similar to those of the young female roles than to those of the other male roles in the Kunqu Opera.

부산 방언의 어휘고저액센트 약화 현상과 파열음의 발성 유형의 변화의 상관성 연구

부산 방언의 어휘고저액센트 약화 현상과 파열음의 발성 유형의 변화의 상관성 연구

Three Different Strategies of Voice Coarticulation in Modern Standard Russian

The paper reports some new data based on an experimental study in voice coarticulation of voiced and voiceless obstruents adjacent to sonorants as a function of place and manner of articulation of these consonants in Standard Modern Russian. The results of the experiment based on the 384 tokens collected from 24 participants confirm once again that in word internal clusters of [sonorant + obstruent + sonorant] coronal consonants the voice coarticulation of the obstruent is observed; it may be determined by the surrounding sonorants. The coarticulation in question may be realized in three different ways. In the case of sonorants not identical in place and manner of articulation [dental nasal + dental voiceless stop + alveolar vibrant] the closure part of the dental stop becomes voiced throughout, but this accommodation in phonation type does not lead nevertheless to the voiced/voiceless phonemes’ neutralization since the the contrast in question is still maintained by means of phonetic parameters other than voice (phonation itself), such as closure duration, burst duration (being significantly higher in underlyingly voiceless stops) and relative overall intensity (being noticeably higher in underlyingly voiced obstruents). On the other hand, in the case of dental sonorants identical in place and manner of articulation [nasal + voiceless stop + nasal], where the maximum effect of coarticulation for an homorganic stop was expected, the contrast in burst duration is eliminated since no burst of dental stop is found in the position before an homorganic nasal, but the closure part of the stop does not acquire voicing in order to prevent the voiced/voiceless phonemes’ neutralization. Finally, in the case of [dental nasal + dental voiceless stop + dentalveolar lateral] consonantal clusters the closure part of the dental stop is voiced throughout and the increased burst duration leads to (generally complete) devoicing of the following lateral. The direction of coarticulation in [ntlj] clusters is progressive, it is carried out gradually, left to right.

О взаимодействии фонетических параметров, реализующих фонологический контраст по голосу в русском языке

The paper reports new data obtained in the experimental study of voice coarticulation of voiced and voiceless obstruents adjacent to sonorant depending on the place and manner of articulation of these consonants in Standard Modern Russian. The experimental results revealed the voice coarticulation of the obstruent in word-internal clusters of [sonorant + obstruent + sonorant] coronal consonants, possibly due to the preceding homorganic nasal consonant. In the case of sonorants [nasal + voiceless stop + vibrant] that are not identical in place and manner of articulation, the closure part of the dental stop becomes voiced throughout, with this phonation type accommodation not leading, nevertheless, to the voiced / voiceless phoneme neutralization since the contrast in question is still maintained by phonetic parameters other than voice (phonation itself). These are closure duration, burst duration, and relative overall intensity. On the contrary, in the case of dental sonorants [nasal + voiceless stop + nasal] being identical in place and manner of articulation, the contrast in burst duration is eliminated since no burst of dental stop is found in the position before homorganic nasal, with the closure part of the stop not acquiring voicing to prevent the voiced / voiceless phoneme neutralization. In conclusion, it is argued that in Standard Modern Russian, the phonetic parameter [relative overall intensity] is less significant in the hierarchical structure of distinctive phonological feature than [closure voicing] and [burst duration] ones since it cannot serve as the only parameter distinguishing the voiced and voiceless obstruents in the intersonorant position.

Social distancing as a strategy to prevent respiratory virus infections.

Social distancing as a strategy to prevent respiratory virus infections.

Ареалы и происхождение различных типов фонаций в тюркских языках Южной Сибири

Ареалы и происхождение различных типов фонаций в тюркских языках Южной Сибири

The Effects of Age and Gender on VOT, F0, and H1-H2 in Korean Voiceless Stops Produced by Daegu Speakers

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of age and gender on VOT, F0, and H1-H2 in Korean voiceless stops produced by Daegu speakers. The results revealed that VOT, F0, and H1-H2 are primary acoustic cues for the distinction between male and female speakers. For the effect of age, F0 plays a role in differentiating three age groups while VOT distinguishes between the child and the two adult groups. However, the H1-H2 is not affected by age. With regard to phonation type, Daegu speakers use VOT for a three-way laryngeal contrast, but both F0 and H1-H2 make a two-way distinction, which indicates that VOT is a primary cue for the phonation type. Furthermore, the young female speakers show a unique characteristic revealing that the VOT difference between the lenis and the aspirated stop categories was smaller than other groups, which implies that they are sensitive to a sound change and prefer to use standard language. Regarding the place of articulation, only VOT distinguishes the place of articulation on the stops.

The cross‐linguistic patterns of phonation types

AbstractWe provide an update on the state of research on phonation (the production of sound by the vocal folds) since Gordon and Ladefoged's, Journal of Phonetics, 2001 29, 383–406 overview, focusing on the acoustics of breathiness, creak, and other linguistic voice qualities. We highlight cross‐linguistic variation, introduce measuring techniques, and discuss the relationship between phonation and other phonological dimensions (e.g., tone, vowel quality). We also review perceptual literature, an area of phonation research that has greatly expanded recently. Taken together, the studies reviewed demonstrate that phonation types indeed lie not just on a single continuum, but in a multidimensional space.

Cross-Gender Differences in English/French Bilingual Speakers: A Multiparametric Study.

The present study concerns speech productions of female and male English/French bilingual speakers in both reading and semi-spontaneous speech tasks. We investigated various acoustic parameters: average fundamental sound frequency (F0), F0 range, F0 variance (SD), vowel formants (F1, F2, and F3), voice onset time (VOT) and H1-H2 (intensity difference between the first and the second harmonic frequencies, used to measure phonation type) in both languages. Our results revealed a significant effect of gender and language on all parameters. Overall, average F0 was higher in French while F0 modulation was stronger in English. Regardless of language, female speakers exhibited higher F0 than male speakers. Moreover, the higher average F0 in French was larger in female speakers. On the other hand, the smaller F0 modulation in French was stronger in male speakers. The analysis of vowel formants showed that overall, female speakers exhibited higher values than males. However, we found a significant cross-gender difference on F2 of the back vowel [u:] in English, but not on the vowel [u] in French. VOT of voiceless stops was longer in Female speakers in both languages, with a greater difference in English. VOT contrast between voiceless stops and their voiced counterparts was also significantly longer in female speakers in both languages. The scope of this cross-gender difference was greater in English. H1-H2 was higher in female speakers in both languages, indicating a breathier phonation type. Furthermore, female speakers tended to exhibit smaller H1-H2 in French, while the opposite was true in males. This resulted in a smaller cross-gender difference in French for this parameter. All these data support the idea of language- and gender-specific vocal norms, to which bilingual speakers seem to adapt. This constitutes a further argument to give social factors, such as gender dynamics, more consideration in phonetic studies.

Acoustic and articulatory analysis and synthesis of shouted vowels

Acoustic and articulatory differences between spoken and shouted vowels were analyzed for two male and two female subjects by means of acoustic recordings and midsagittal magnetic resonance images of the vocal tract. In accordance with previous acoustic findings, the fundamental frequencies, intensities, and formant frequencies were all generally higher for shouted than for spoken vowels. The harmonics-to-noise ratios and H1-H2 measures were generally lower for shouted vowels than for spoken vowels. With regard to articulation, all subjects used an increased lip opening, an increased jaw opening, and a lower tongue position for shouted vowels. However, the changes of vertical larynx position, uvula elevation, and jaw protrusion between spoken and shouted vowels were inconsistent among subjects. Based on the analysis results, a perception experiment was conducted to examine how changes of fundamental frequency, subglottal pressure, vocal tract shape, and phonation type contribute to the perception of stimuli created by articulatory synthesis as being shouted. Here, fundamental frequency had the greatest effect, followed by vocal tract shape and lung pressure, with no measurable effect of phonation type.

Glottal Airflow and Glottal Area Waveform Characteristics of Flow Phonation in Untrained Vocally Healthy Adults

To examine flow phonation characteristics with regard to vocal fold vibration and voice source properties in vocally healthy adults using multimodality voice measurements across various phonation types (breathy, neutral, flow, and pressed) and loudness conditions (typical, loud, and soft). Vocal fold vibration, airflow, acoustic, and subglottal pressure was analyzed in 13 untrained voices (six female and seven male). Participants repeated the syllable / pæ:/ using breathy, neutral, flow, and pressed phonation during typical, loud, and soft loudness conditions. Glottal area (GA) waveforms were extracted from high-speed videoendoscopy; glottal flow was derived from inverse filtering the airflow or the audio signal; and subglottal pressure was measured as the intraoral pressure during /p/ occlusion. Changes in phonation type and loudness conditions resulted in systematic variations across the relative peak closing velocity derived from the GA waveform for both males and females. Amplitude quotient derived from the flow glottogram varied across phonation types for males. Multimodality evaluation using the GA waveform and the inverse filtered waveforms revealed a complex pattern that varied as a function of phonation types and loudness conditions across males and females. Emerging findings from this study suggests that future large-scale studies should focus on spatial and temporal features of closing speed and closing duration for differentiating flow phonation from other phonation types in untrained adults with and without voice disorders.

Multidimensionality of tone in Pahari

The current study investigated the contribution of different acoustic dimensions to tonal contrasts in Pahari, an understudied language in the Pakistan-administrated part of Kashmir. While previous research on the tonal languages of the region focused only on overall pitch patterns, the present study analyzed fundamental frequency (F0), duration, intensity and phonation type. Monosyllabic lexical words that form minimal triplets with identical CV structures were recorded from eight native speakers. Detailed acoustic analyses showed that Pahari is tonal at the lexical level with three distinct tones, High, Mid and Low, characterized by high-falling, mid-level and low-rising F0 contours respectively. The study established that five acoustic cues jointly contribute to the lexical tonal contrast in Pahari. The height of F0 is the most salient and final velocity helps to distinguish the Low tone from the other two tones. Intensity and phonation help to distinguish the Low tone from the Mid tone and duration helps to distinguish the High tone from the Mid and Low tones. It is concluded that Pahari has a three-way tonal contrast realized with multiple phonetic cues. The multiplicity of cues for the tonal contrast in the language raises interesting questions about the notion of distinctive features and the principle of economy of representation.

Amount and Characteristics of Speaking and Singing Voice Use in Vocally Healthy Female College Student Singers During a Typical Week

Singers, college students, and females are groups known to be at an elevated risk of developing functional/hyperfunctional voice disorders; therefore, female college students majoring in vocal performance may be at an even higher risk. To mitigate this risk, it would be helpful to know the "safe limits" for voice use that would help maintain vocal health in this vulnerable group, but there is a paucity of high-quality objective information upon which to base such limits. This study employed weeklong ambulatory voice monitoring in a large group of vocally healthy female college student singers to begin providing the types of objective data that could be used to help develop improved vocal health guidelines. Participants included 64 vocally healthy females currently enrolled in a vocal performance or similar program at a college or university. An ambulatory voice monitor recorded neck-surface acceleration throughout a typical week. A singing classifier was applied to the data to separate singing from speech. Weeklong vocal dose measures and distributional characteristics for standard voice measures were computed separately for singing and speech, and for both types of phonation combined. Participants spent 6.2% of the total monitoring time speaking and 2.1% singing (with total phonation time being 8.4%). Singing had a higher fo mode, more pitch variability, higher average sound pressure level (SPL), negatively skewed SPL distributions, lower average CPP, and higher H1-H2 values than speaking. These results provide a basis for beginning to establish vocal health guidelines for female students enrolled in college-level vocal performance programs and for future studies of the types of voice disorders that are common in this group. Results also demonstrate the potential value that ambulatory voice monitoring may have in helping to objectively identify vocal behaviors that could contribute to voice problems in this population.

Objective Characterization of Phonation Type Using Amplitude of Flow Glottogram Pulse and of Voice Source Fundamental

Phonation type, a phonatory dimension ranging from hypofunctional/breathy to hyperfunctional/pressed, is important both from a clinical and acoustical point of view; hyperfunctional voice can lead to voice disorders and hypofunctional voice reduces text intelligibility. Five male singers sang diminuendo sequences of the syllable /pae/ and three of them also produced speech or singing samples with different phonation types which were rated for phonatory pressedness by a panel of voice experts. The sequences were analyzed by inverse filtering and the associated subglottal pressures were estimated as the oral pressures during the /p/ occlusion. The results showed strong quasi-linear correlations between the peak-to-peak amplitude of the flow glottogram (henceforth pulse amplitude) and mean subglottal pressure, mean airflow, and the level difference between the first and second voice source partials L1-L2. These correlations were found to vary systematically with phonation type. Regardless of phonation type, the correlation between the pulse amplitude and the amplitude of the voice source fundamental frequency was very close to 1.0. The level difference between the first and second spectrum partials L1-L2 in narrow-band long-term-average spectra of speech and singing was found to vary systematically with phonation type in a manner related to voice experts' ratings of perceived degree of pressedness. The findings support the assumption that the combination of subglottal pressure and level of the voice source fundamental is useful for an objective measure of phonation type.

Phonation type contrasts and tone in Chichimec.

Chichimec (Otomanguean) has two tones, high and low, and a phonological three-way phonation contrast: modal /V/, breathy /V¨/, and creaky /Ṽ/. Tone and phonation type contrasts are used independently. This paper investigates the acoustic realization of modal, breathy, and creaky vowels; the timing of phonation in non-modal vowels; and the production of tone in combination with different phonation types. The results of cepstral peak prominence and three spectral tilt measures showed that phonation type contrasts are not distinguished by the same acoustic measures for women and men. In line with expectations for laryngeally complex languages, phonetic modal and non-modal phonation are sequenced in phonological breathy and creaky vowels. With respect to the timing pattern, however, the results show that non-modal phonation is not, as previously reported, mainly located in the middle of the vowel. Non-modal phonation is, instead, predominantly realized in the second half of phonological breathy and creaky vowels. Tone is distinguished in all three phonation types, and non-modal vowels do not exhibit distinct F0 ranges except for creaky vowels produced by women in which F0 declines in the creaky portion. The results of the acoustic analysis provide additional insights to phonological accounts of laryngeal complexity in Chichimec.

Analysis and classification of phonation types in speech and singing voice

Both in speech and singing, humans are capable of generating sounds of different phonation types (e.g., breathy, modal and pressed). Previous studies in the analysis and classification of phonation types have mainly used voice source features derived using glottal inverse filtering (GIF). Even though glottal source features are useful in discriminating phonation types in speech, their performance deteriorates in singing voice due to the high fundamental frequency of these sounds that reduces the accuracy of source-filter separation in GIF. In the present study, features describing the glottal source were computed using three signal processing methods that do not compute source-filter separation. These three methods are zero frequency filtering (ZFF), zero time windowing (ZTW) and single frequency filtering (SFF). From each method, a group of scalar features were extracted. In addition, cepstral coefficients were derived from the spectra computed using ZTW and SFF. Experiments were conducted with the proposed features to analyse and classify phonation types using three phonation types (breathy, modal and pressed) for speech and singing voice. Statistical pair-wise comparisons between the phonation types showed that most of the features were capable of separating the phonation types significantly for speech and singing voices. Classification with support vector machine classifiers indicated that the proposed features and their combinations showed improved accuracy compared to usually employed glottal source features and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs).

Творчество новгородских самобытных певцов как эталон для современного народно-певческого образования

The article presents the theoretical grounding of the folk-singing technologies of Novgorod original singers (authentic performers) as fundamental to the developed author’s methods: intonational-formulaic, vocal-phonatory, polyphonic-specific, local-style. The identified features of authentic intonation-formulaic education and the study resulted singing fund of children’s song folklore became “key” and end-to-end mechanisms in the author’s method of forming and developing skills of sustainable singing intonation with each participant in the educational process aimed at preserving and further developing the traditions of Novgorod folk-song creation. Based on the study of the general-style singing specifics, vocal-phonation and polyphonic texture of ensemble singing of Novgorod authentic singers developed local-style singing classification, which, according to the terminology of the author of the article, Novgorod folk-singing styles are: old Slavic, Old Russian, part singing, as well as four mixed folk-singing styles. The differentiating mechanism of classification is the potential of the applied types of folk vocal phonation, polyphony in the ensemble singing and the type of singing articulation. On this local-style foundation, the author formed a specific Novgorod mixed folk-singing style, combining locally-style folk-singing technologies of Novgorod authentic performers and the academic school of Russian folk singing. This style is used in the singing of teachers and students of the Novgorod Children’s Music School of Russian Folklore. The implementation of the technologies developed by the author in pedagogical practice helps children achieve a high level of singing training and become ethno performer, a future ethnophore and a bearer of Russian local / regional folk song traditions.

Acoustic analysis of Korean stop sounds in patients with dysarthrias

Purpose Korean ‘stops’ are considered an especially good acoustic variable since they are sensitive to speech intelligibility and reflect physiological coordination between laryngeal and supra-laryngeal mechanisms. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the acoustic characteristics of both the dysarthria and control groups in the production of nine Korean stops, /p, p′, ph, t, t′, th, k, k′, kh/, in VCV contexts. Methods The participants comprised eight patients with dysarthria and eight age- and gender-matched normal adults. After the acoustic analysis of the closure duration, aspiration duration, and the ratio of closure duration to closure-aspiration combined duration, the results were compared among three types of phonation and places of articulation for Korean stops. Results The dysarthria group (DG) had longer closure durations, suggesting slower articulatory movements of the DG than the normal control group (NC). Although statistically not significant except for /ap′a/ and /at′a/, the absolute aspiration durations of the DG were still longer than those of the NC. This resulted in the normal levels of ratios in the DG between closure duration and closure-aspiration combined durations. Furthermore, the DG could change the durational aspects of stop production distinctively according to types of phonation more than they could according to the places of articulation. This trend was more prominent during the closure duration than during the aspiration duration. Conclusions This finding suggested that while the DG has centralized tongue positions, they control the tenseness and the timing coordination between laryngeal and supra-laryngeal articulators to distinctively produce different types of phonation of stops. Keywords: Dysarthria; Acoustic analysis; Korean stops; Closure duration; Aspiration duration

Vot Features Of Consonants In Abaza

Voice onset time (VOT) is a parameter which distinguishes the way consonants are articulated . This parameter is widely used in acoustic phonetics. In particular, there are many studies of it in the languages of the world. This paper presents an analysis of VOT in the Abaza language (Northwest Caucasian). We measured the VOT of plain consonants and ejectives, extracted annotated values and performed mixed effects regression showing the influence of the place of articulation and phonation type on VOT values.