Vowel Insertion Research Articles

Supervised prediction of production patterns using machine learning algorithms

Abstract When an English word ending in a stop is adapted to Korean, a vowel is variably inserted after the final stop: some words always take the epenthetic vowel, and some never do, while some vary between these alternatives. Although there are different linguistic factors that possibly affect this insertion, it is not easy to determine which pattern will be chosen if a new word comes into the borrowing language. This study conducted classification data analyses of production patterns based on machine learning algorithms including support vector machines and random forests. These two classifiers show similar results where vowel tenseness is the best predictor among all the possible predictors. This indicates that vowel tenseness is most influential in classifying the patterns (no vowel insertion, optional vowel insertion, or vowel insertion). Results suggest that while vowel tenseness remains significant, other factors such as stop voicing and stop place also hold some importance, albeit to a lesser degree. The contribution of this study is that it provides insight into the factors that regulate vowel insertion, and these findings support the need for a behavioral experiment to see if the current results can make right predictions with respect to the behavior of nonce items.

Phonological impairments in Hindi aphasics: Error analyses and cross-linguistic comparisons

ABSTRACT We assessed phonological and apraxic impairments in Hindi persons with aphasia (PwA) and compared them to Italian PwA reported in previous studies. Overall, we found strong similarities. Phonological errors were present across production tasks (repetition, reading and naming), most errors were non-lexical and, among those, a majority involved individual phonemes. There were significant effects of length, but not frequency. Hindi PwA, like the Italian PwA, showed strong effects of syllabic structure, with most errors occurring on consonants and weak syllabic positions, preserving syllable structure and simplifying phonemes or syllabic templates. These similarities were modulated by some language-specific patterns. Vowel insertions were more common in Hindi, possibly due to the presence of a central vowel, and segmental simplifications concentrated on marked aspiration and retroflection features. We hope our study will encourage further research in Hindi and other Indian languages. This will improve clinical diagnosis and our understanding of cross-linguistic differences.

Phonological Basis of Mispronunciation in Spoken English of Kabarasi People in Social Setting

The phonological basis of mispronunciation in spoken English by Kabarasi speakers in social settings includes voicing and devoicing, vowel insertion, substitution or avoidance, and syllable misplacement. The study adopted the contrastive analysis hypothesis theory by Khresheh (2016), which describes how errors are transferred from L1 to L2 and the degree of strength of errors transferred, whether positive or negative. The data was presented and analyzed in tables from which sounds of both English and Kabarasi were written. English has 25 consonant sounds, while Kabarasi has 23. Some sounds clash while others (voiceless) match, but the mismatch rate is higher than positive transfer, leading to errors in spoken English. Such errors can be minimized by practice in English elocution and oral skills based on minimal pairs. However, all the errors in spoken English by Kabarasi speakers can not be eradicated completely, provided that the utterer is a native speaker of Lukabrasi.

The Effect of Distributional Restrictions in Speech Perception: A Case Study From Korean and Taiwanese Southern Min.

In Korean, voiced oral stops can occur intervocalically as allophones of their voiceless lenis counterparts; they can also occur initially as variants of nasal stops as a result of initial denasalization (e.g., /motu/→[bodu] "all"). However, neither [ŋ] nor [ɡ] (the denasalized variant of the velar nasal) is allowed in the initial position due to the phonotactic restriction against initial [ŋ] in Korean. Given the distribution of nasal and voiced stops in Korean, this study draws on the idea of cue informativeness, exploring (a) whether Korean listeners' attention to nasality and voicing cues is based on the distributional characteristics of nasal and voiced stops, and (b) whether their attention can be generalized across different places of articulation without such linguistic experience. In a forced-choice identification experiment, Korean listeners were more likely than Taiwanese listeners to perceive items on the voiced oral-to-nasal stop continua as nasal when they occurred in the initial position than in the intervocalic position, with the exception of velar stops. The results demonstrate that the Korean listeners attended to the nasality cue more reliably in the medial position than in the initial position, since the nasality cue in this position is less informative due to initial denasalization. Two additional forced-choice identification experiments suggested that upon hearing initial velar nasal [ŋ], Korean listeners variably employed different perceptual strategies (i.e., vowel insertion and place change) to repair the phonotactic illegality. These findings provide support for exemplar models of speech perception in which cue attention is specific to the position of a word, and to segments rather than to features.

Pronunciation challenges faced by Brazilian EFL learners

The present study aims to identify the most prominent pronunciation challenges faced by Brazilian learners in a language course affiliated with Universidade Federal do Pará, and discuss which errors seemed to pose the greatest issues for communication. This study proposes to describe the articulation features of English sounds in association with pronunciation, as well as present the importance of teaching the speaking skill with an attention to pronunciation. In order to reach its main objective, it was necessary to gather sufficient data by observing these students during their classes. Furthermore, the study goes on to confirm that the errors presented by the authors Mascherpe (1970), Lessa (1985), Lieff (1993), Nunes (1993) and Baptista (2001), also occur in the group of learners who were the object of this investigation, and the results suggest that the most prominent issues were caused by errors related to stress placement, vowel insertion and consonants. However, the errors which caused the most problems for communication happened on the suprasegmental features of language, which in this case is represented by the category of stress placement.

Diacronía de los resultados secundarios del diptongo /ue/ en judeoespañol

AbstractJudeo-Spanish presents some surprising results as regards the secondary evolution of the diphthong /ˈue/. Contrary to Spanishjueves‘Thursday’,tuerto‘one-eyed’,sueño‘dream’,nuera‘daughter-in-law’, Judeo-Spanish hasĵugüeves,tugüerto,(e)sfueño, andelmuera. That is, /ˈue/ has evolved either into /u.ˈgue/, it has developed a fricative before the diphthong (/ˈsue/ > /s.ˈfue/), or labialized the previous nasal (/ˈnue/ > /ˈmue/).In this study we present an explanation for this phenomenon that combines the regular Ibero-Romance phonic evolution and some language-specific features of the evolution of Judeo-Spanish, without an explicit appeal to exceptional solutions. Our hypothesis is based on the realization of the sequence /ˈue/ as a hiatus (ĵu.e.ves,tu.er.to,su.e.ño,nu.e.ra) which eventually developed an epenthetic consonant. This epenthesis was velar (ĵugueves,tuguerto), the latter case also involving further vowel insertion in agreement with the historical phonetics of Judeo-Spanish (ĵugüeves,tugüerto). Examples with labial fricatives or nasals preceding the diphthong have followed this evolution and then lost the pretonic vowel, giving way to a consonantal cluster in which the second consonant is partially assimilated to the first (sueño> *s(u)güeño>sfueñooresfueño;nuera>n(u)güera> *enmuera>elmuera,ermuera>muera).

Constraints on Ease of Articulation in the Phonetics of Israeli Hebrew Casual Speech

Abstract: In the casual speech register, speakers naturally tend to facilitate ease of articulation, usually through processes of assimilation, reduction and elision, occasionally by insertion of certain vowels or consonantal glides. Such processes of assimilation, reduction or elision usually affect elements perceived to be weak, or minimal, and whose presence is not truly required (phonetically, or semantically), or that are easily recoverable from the context. There are, however, constraints on ease of articulation processes, preventing them from violating certain phonetic restrictions. There are also independent considerations that prevent reduction, elision or assimilation if they may affect significant semantic distinctions that are too essential to ignore. Thus, for instance, there exists a preference for secondary stress assignment resulting in alternating rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables in connected Hebrew speech; the configuration realigns itself in cases of vowel deletion, or when a "minimal" vowel is inserted to prevent sonority-hierarchy violations, or when a "stress clash" arises, and one of the syllables may need to be destressed to accommodate the alternating stress rhythm. However, another constraint assures that no destressing of the main stress of regular lexical items occur if the word concerned cannot easily be reconstructed from the context. Furthermore, no shifting is allowed in the placement of the main lexical stress, unless it is a function word or a very frequent, easily identified lexical item. A few phonetic constraints will be discussed in some detail, as well as semantic ones reassuring that the processing of meaning will not be negatively affected by phonetic "ease-of-articulation" processes.

Korean Nasalization as L1 Interference on English Production by Korean EFL Learners

The present study aims to analyze how L1 interference of Korean nasalization processes influences English speech by Korean EFL speakers according to their English proficiency. 20 Korean EFL speakers (experimental group) and four native speakers of English (control group) participated in this study. Korean EFL speakers were divided into two groups of ten according to their English proficiency. This study measures the values of three factors: the frequency of nasalization processes, final stop release, and vowel insertion. Through this study, the following results were found. The English proficiency of Korean EFL speakers is found to influence the realization of nasalization processes and vowel insertion in their English speech in that they are realized more frequently by the group with lower English proficiency than the group with higher English proficiency. For final stop release, although no particular difference is found when comparing the frequency of the final stop release of the three speaker groups, it is found that the group with English native speakers has a higher frequency of final stop release than the two Korean speaker groups, and the group with higher English proficiency is likely to have a higher frequency of final stop release compared to the group with lower English proficiency in most cases. The findings suggest that the group with higher English proficiency speaks closer to English native speakers than the group with lower English proficiency.

Perceptual similarity is not all: online perception of English coda stops by Korean listeners

AbstractThis study examines conscious judgments of perceptual similarity between foreign and native structures, focusing on vowel epenthesis following coda stops in English nonwords borrowed into Korean. In a similarity judgment experiment, Korean listeners heard a triplet consisting of an English stop-final form and two Korean forms, one ending in a stop and one ending in stop-vowel; then they indicated which of the two Korean forms the English form sounded more similar to. This study investigated six different predictors: release, voicing and place of coda stop, vowel tenseness, final stress, and word length. Similarity judgment choices showed that Korean CVCV is judged as more similar to English CVC than Korean CVC when the English final stop is released or dorsal or when the English word is monosyllabic. Although this result confirms that stop release is indeed a major factor explaining vowel insertion in this context, no effects of stop voicing and vowel tenseness are not compatible with the perceptual similarity hypothesis, which is surprising since they have been previously argued to involve acoustic cues affecting L2 speech perception. These findings support the need for further research that concentrates more on direct perception rather than judgments of perceptual similarity.

A CONSTRAINT-BASED ANALYSIS OF THE SYLLABLE STRUCTURE OF IKHIN

This study investigates the syllable structure of Ikhin, an Edoid language in South-South, Nigeria. Being a phonological study, it is the first full-length investigation and analysis of Ikhin syllable structure which hitherto had not been studied to this depth. The previous study mainly dwells on the phonetics of the language. I examine the syllable structure of Ikhin at the phonetic and phonemic levels. The study observes that the Ikhin syllable structure types are CV and V at the phonemic level. Further reviews show that Ikhin does not have syllabic nasal as is found in some other Edoid languages. This paper observes that these phonemic syllable structure types, CV and V, sometimes have surface CCV structures. The study reveals that the C2, in CCV syllable is due to the creation of approximants and the possible C2 is [j] or [w]. As in the case of related Edoid languages that have been previously described, the study confirms that the created approximants are a result of the glide formation rule. In the case of [Cj], previous study on Ikhin language observes an assimilatory process known as palatalization. Therefore, this study undertakes some analyses of these suspicious segments [Cj] and [Cw] in Ikhin with a view to confirming that it is a sequence of a consonant and a glide, not a single segment. Thus, using a descriptive approach, the paper presents syllable structure processes such as glide formation, vowel elision and vowel insertion in Ikhin. Optimality theory is used in analyzing and presenting the data.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0567/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Effects of Final Stop Release and Vowel Insertion on Nasalization in English Speech by Korean EFL Speakers

This study aims to investigate how Korean nasalization processes influence English speech by Korean EFL (English as Foreign Language) speakers as L1 interference. Specifically, the study focuses on the effects of final stop release and vowel insertion on nasalization. 24 speakers participated in the experiment. Among them, four speakers were Native American English speakers and 20 were Korean EFL speakers. The Korean-speaking participants were divided into two groups of ten according to their English proficiency; a group with high-intermediate English proficiency and a group with low English proficiency. Through this study, the following points were noted. First, the realization of final stop release and vowel insertion influences the realization of nasalization processes in English speech by Korean EFL speakers. The higher the frequency of final stop release and vowel insertion, the lower the frequency of the realization of nasalization processes when analyzed by prosodic domains and voicing and place of the final stops. Second, it was found that the effects of final stop release and vowel insertion on nasalization processes are more noticeable in the group with lower English proficiency than the group with higher English proficiency. These findings suggest that Korean nasalization processes influence English speech by Korean EFL speakers as L1 interference and the realization of Korean nasalization is closely related to the realization of final stop release and vowel insertion.

Multinomial regression modeling of vowel insertion patterns: adaptation of coda stops from English to Korean

Abstract When an English word ending in a stop is adapted to Korean, a vowel is variably inserted after the final stop. Vowel insertion in this position is surprising because voiceless stops are permissible in coda position in Korean and it is not motivated by Korean native phonology. This study examines five factors that have been hypothesized to affect the likelihood of vowel insertion, i.e., tenseness of the pre-final vowel, voicing and place of the English final stop, word size and final stress. These possibilities were tested using a corpus of Korean loanwords whose source word ends in a stop. Patterns of vowel insertion were classified as no vowel insertion, vowel insertion, or optional vowel insertion, and analyzed using multinomial regression modeling. The results confirmed that all the relevant factors significantly increased the likelihood of vowel insertion and optional vowel insertion patterns relative to no vowel insertion patterns compared with the reference condition rates. These findings suggest that particular features indeed impact production patterns in loanword phonology. My Results support the need for further research into how other possible auditory factors such as stop release may shape speech perception in loanword adaptation.

MORPHO-PHONEMIC ADAPTATION OF ENGLISH LOAN VERBS IN LUKABARAS

English as an official language in Kenya has apparently influenced the Kenyan indigenous languages. Since it is the language of formal instruction in schools and other institutions, a large number of loan words have been integrated in the local languages. This paper thus investigated the adaptation of English loan verbs in Lukabaras which is one of the ethnic languages spoken in the Western region of Kenya. The study endeavoured to describe the morphological and phonological constraints evident in the integration of these items in Lukabaras. A sample of 20 lexical items was picked through purposive sampling technique and analysed descriptively. The study established that English verbs are incorporated in Lukabaras through the prefix {okhu-} and the verbal radical suffix {a}. It was further observed that in the process of integration the verbs are subject to phonological conditions such as consonant devoicing, vowel insertion, gliding and vowel reduction.

What is second language pronunciation proficiency? An empirical study

The current study set out to examine which segmental and suprasegmental factors discriminate different levels of global second language (L2) pronunciation proficiency. First, a total of 40 extemporaneous speech samples were elicited from Japanese learners of English with diverse experience/proficiency levels. Subsequently, experienced raters holistically assessed the global pronunciation qualities of the samples using the rubrics in IETLS Pronunciation Scale (Low to High). Finally, the dataset was submitted to a comprehensive set of segmental and suprasegmental measures. The results revealed that the raters attended to, in particular, the ratio of segmental errors with high communicative value (determined via the functional load principle) to distinguish between Low- and Mid-level L2 pronunciation proficiency. Other specific measures—segmental errors with low communicative value, the schwa vowel insertion in complex syllables, and the absence of word stress—played a significant role in the raters’ decision to assign high ratings to identify High-level L2 pronunciation proficiency.

Vowel Pronunciation of English Words By Filipino Speakers in “Everglow” Short Movie

Language is a way of communication with other people. People can make conversation through a set of words that become a sentence. There is one language that uses as the International language to communicate with other people who come from other countries in this world. Thus, English is used as an intermediate language for communication. One of nations, that use English to communicate, is the Philippines. The research found some phenomena that exist when Filipino speakers speak English. There were two objectives to be analyzed in this study: to find out the English words that the vowel is changing from English vowel into Tagalog vowel and identify the phonological process of Filipino speakers’ pronunciation in the vowel change. The phonological approach is used to solve the problem formulation of the research. The research analyzed a short movie entitled “Everglow” from the Philippines and analyzed the vowel changes in Filipino speakers’ pronunciation. The analysis showed that there were 11 English vowels changes in Filipino speakers’ pronunciation. Furthermore, three phonological processes were found in the vowel change, such as vowel lengthening, vowel raising, and vowel insertion. However, the most phonological process that was usually found in the vowel changes was the vowel lengthening. Keywords: vowel change, Filipino, phonology.

Adult English Language Learners’ Reading Habits and Attitudes Regarding Picturebooks as an Educational Resource

The primary purpose of this study is to verify the validity in identifying the characteristics of the production of consonant clusters of Korean L2 learners through an analysis of vowel insertion occurrences. This is of significance as vowel insertion is regarded as the most frequent form of error in the production of English consonant clusters among Korean learners. For this specific purpose, the pronunciation of Korean L2 learner children and adults was analyzed using a set of six English words which contained consonant clusters in their onsets and fourteen English words which contained consonant clusters in their codas. The results of this study suggest the possibility of further investigation to clarify the characteristics with regard to the production of consonant clusters according to the age of Korean EFL learners. In addition, the phonological analysis process presented in this study is expected to assist researchers in this field in the future.

Complex onsets and coda markedness in Persian

This paper argues for the Coda Condition to be a universal set of violable constraints on the basis of new vowel epenthesis data from Persian (Farsi). Vowel insertion in L2 phonology, loanwords, and nonce-words is driven by a strict ban on consonant clusters in syllable onsets. The choice between anaptyxis and prothesis is determined by the Coda Condition. As there is no detectable evidence for a coda condition in the existing Persian lexicon, it would be impossible for speakers of Persian to have acquired the Coda Condition as part of the L1 acquisition process. Moreover, this study contradicts two claims made in the literature: first, that anaptyxis/prothesis splits are always caused by the Syllable Contact Law, and second, that all coda condition effects can be reanalysed with positional faithfulness. Going beyond the Persian data, the paper argues for a formulation of the Coda Condition as positional licensing rather than simple markedness in interaction with positional faithfulness.

Perception of foreign segments in loanword phonology

One puzzle in loanword adaptation involves a situation in which a foreign sound structure is modified even when the original form would be phonotactically legal in the borrowing language. An example of this apparently unnecessary repair is the tendency to insert a vowel after a word-final stop in English borrowed words into Korean since Korean native words can end in a stop. This study investigates the effects of different linguistic factors, i.e., release and voicing of the English final stop and tenseness of pre-stop vowel, on the likelihood of vowel insertion to determine whether this unmotivated vowel insertion derives from the misperception of English words. The current study separates out the effects of these linguistic factors in a perception experiment designed to help in testing the hypotheses of the adaptation-in-perception approach. In the categorization task, Korean listeners heard English nonwords ending in a stop or in a stop-vowel sequence and categorized each word as consonant-final or vowel-final. Although the present results concerning the main effects of all factors are compatible with the adaptation-in-perception approach, the interaction effects between stop voicing and vowel tenseness suggest that alongside the phonological factors that were considered in this study, other possible factors may play a role in loanword adaptation, e.g., maintaining perceptual similarity in production, stop place, word size, and final syllable containing stress. This indicates that unnecessary vowel insertion is not a straightforward outcome that happens in adaptation but an intricate linguistic phenomenon that involves the complex interaction of perception, production and several other factors.

Comparison of Consonant Cluster Production between Korean EFL Children and Adults and Phonological Analysis: Preliminary Study

The primary purpose of this study is to verify the validity in identifying the characteristics of the production of consonant clusters of Korean L2 learners through an analysis of vowel insertion occurrences. This is of significance as vowel insertion is regarded as the most frequent form of error in the production of English consonant clusters among Korean learners. For this specific purpose, the pronunciation of Korean L2 learner children and adults was analyzed using a set of six English words which contained consonant clusters in their onsets and fourteen English words which contained consonant clusters in their codas. The results of this study suggest the possibility of further investigation to clarify the characteristics with regard to the production of consonant clusters according to the age of Korean EFL learners. In addition, the phonological analysis process presented in this study is expected to assist researchers in this field in the future.

Insertion of vowels in English syllabic consonantal clusters pronounced by L1 Polish speakers

AbstractThe aim of this study was an attempt to verify whether Polish speakers of English insert a vowel in the word-final clusters containing a consonant and a syllabic /l/ or /n/ due to the L1–L2 transfer. L1 Polish speakers are mostly unaware of the existence of syllabic consonants; hence, they use the Polish phonotactics and articulate a vocalic sound before a final sonorant which is deprived of its syllabicity. This phenomenon was examined among L1 Polish speakers, 1-year students of English studies, and the recording sessions were repeated a year later. Since, over that time, they were instructed with regard to phonetics and phonology but also the overall practical language learning, the results demonstrated the occurrence of the phenomenon of vowel insertion on different levels of advanced command of English. If the vowels were inserted, their quality and length were monitored and analysed. With regard to the English system, pronouncing vowel /ə/ before a syllabic consonant is possible, yet not usual. That is why another aim of this study is to examine to what extent the vowels articulated by the subjects differ from the standard pronunciation of non-final /ə/. The quality differences between the vowels articulated in the words ending with /l/ and /n/ were examined as well as the potential influence from the difference between /l/ and /n/ on the occurrence of vowel reduction. Even though Polish phonotactics permit numerous consonantal combinations in all word positions, it proved to be challenging for L1 Polish speakers to pronounce word-final consonantal clusters containing both syllabic sonorants. This result carries practical implications for the teaching methodology of English phonetics.