Vowel Quality Research Articles

The Accentuation of Proto-Slavic *-ęt Stems in Light of Polish Historical and Dialect Data

This article describes the distribution of vowel quality in unmotivated *-et stems in Polish dialects. The results of the analysis are compared to the reflexes of the Proto-Slavic accentual paradigms in other Slavic languages, in particular the other West Slavic languages, where the correspondences are remarkably consistent.

Contrast in vowel quality in Burmese and Thai Mon varieties: Phonetic indicators towards a restructured language

The Mon language, a register language, has a number of vowels with on-gliding phases that could eventually develop into diphthongs. These have never been acoustically studied. The objective of this study was to clarify the vowel characteristics in order to assess the possibility for change toward a restructured language. The results showed that some F1, F2, and F3 values in Burmese Mon (BM) could be used to differentiate clear from breathy vowels, especially in the on-gliding phase. F3 values as well as a tendency to diphthongization could be crucial factors in how BM vowels differ from Thai Mon (TM) vowels. Nonetheless, it is likely to take some time to justify whether the Mon language will change and whether BM will ultimately become a different language type from TM. These Mon varieties seem to be on the continuum of language change.

A regression approach to vowel normalization for missing and unbalanced data.

Researchers investigating the vowel systems of languages or dialects frequently employ normalization methods to minimize between-speaker variability in formant patterns while preserving between-phoneme separation and (socio-)dialectal variation. Here two methods are considered: log-mean and Lobanov normalization. Although both of these methods express formants in a speaker-dependent space, the methods differ in their complexity and in their implied models of human vowel-perception. Typical implementations of these methods rely on balanced data across speakers so that researchers may have to reduce the data available in the analyses in missing-data situations. Here, an alternative method is proposed for the normalization of vowels using the log-mean method in a linear-regression framework. The performance of the traditional approaches to log-mean and Lobanov normalization against the regression approach to the log-mean method using naturalistic, simulated vowel-data was investigated. The results indicate that the Lobanov method likely removes legitimate linguistic variation from vowel data and often provides very noisy estimates of the actual vowel quality associated with individual tokens. The authors further argue that the Lobanov method is too complex to represent a plausible model of human vowel perception, and so is unlikely to provide results that reflect the true perceptual organization of linguistic data.

Lexical tone is perceived relative to locally surrounding context, vowel quality to preceding context.

Important speech cues such as lexical tone and vowel quality are perceptually contrasted to the distribution of those same cues in surrounding contexts. However, it is unclear whether preceding and following contexts have similar influences, and to what extent those influences are modulated by the auditory history of previous trials. To investigate this, Cantonese participants labeled sounds from (a) a tone continuum (mid- to high-level), presented with a context that had raised or lowered fundamental frequency (F0) values and (b) a vowel quality continuum (/u/ to /o/), where the context had raised or lowered first formant (F1) values. Contexts with high or low F0/F1 were presented in separate blocks or intermixed in 1 block. Contexts were presented following (Experiment 1) or preceding the target continuum (Experiment 2). Contrastive effects were found for both tone and vowel quality (e.g., decreased F0 values in contexts lead to more high tone target judgments and vice versa). Importantly, however, lexical tone was only influenced by F0 in immediately preceding and following contexts. Vowel quality was only influenced by the F1 in preceding contexts, but this extended to contexts from preceding trials. Contextual influences on tone and vowel quality are qualitatively different, which has important implications for understanding the mechanism of context effects in speech perception. (PsycINFO Database Record

Stress-Induced Acoustic Variation in L2 and L1 Spanish Vowels

Aim: We assessed the effect of lexical stress on the duration and quality of Spanish word-final vowels /a, e, o/ produced by American English late intermediate learners of L2 Spanish, as compared to those of native L1 Argentine Spanish speakers. Methods: Participants read 54 real words ending in /a, e, o/, with either final or penultimate lexical stress, embedded in a text and a word list. We measured vowel duration and both F1 and F2 frequencies at 3 temporal points. Results: stressed vowels were longer than unstressed vowels, in Spanish L1 and L2. L1 and L2 Spanish stressed /a/ and /e/ had higher F1 values than their unstressed counterparts. Only the L2 speakers showed evidence of rising offglides for /e/ and /o/. The L2 and L1 Spanish vowel space was compressed in the absence of stress. Conclusion: Lexical stress affected the vowel quality of L1 and L2 Spanish vowels. We provide an up-to-date account of the formant trajectories of Argentine River Plate Spanish word-final /a, e, o/ and offer experimental support to the claim that stress affects the quality of Spanish vowels in word-final contexts.

Acoustic evolution of old Italian violins from Amati to Stradivari

The shape and design of the modern violin are largely influenced by two makers from Cremona, Italy: The instrument was invented by Andrea Amati and then improved by Antonio Stradivari. Although the construction methods of Amati and Stradivari have been carefully examined, the underlying acoustic qualities which contribute to their popularity are little understood. According to Geminiani, a Baroque violinist, the ideal violin tone should "rival the most perfect human voice." To investigate whether Amati and Stradivari violins produce voice-like features, we recorded the scales of 15 antique Italian violins as well as male and female singers. The frequency response curves are similar between the Andrea Amati violin and human singers, up to ∼4.2 kHz. By linear predictive coding analyses, the first two formants of the Amati exhibit vowel-like qualities (F1/F2 = 503/1,583 Hz), mapping to the central region on the vowel diagram. Its third and fourth formants (F3/F4 = 2,602/3,731 Hz) resemble those produced by male singers. Using F1 to F4 values to estimate the corresponding vocal tract length, we observed that antique Italian violins generally resemble basses/baritones, but Stradivari violins are closer to tenors/altos. Furthermore, the vowel qualities of Stradivari violins show reduced backness and height. The unique formant properties displayed by Stradivari violins may represent the acoustic correlate of their distinctive brilliance perceived by musicians. Our data demonstrate that the pioneering designs of Cremonese violins exhibit voice-like qualities in their acoustic output.

Acoustic Characteristics of Pakistani English Vowel Sounds

The purpose of this investigation was to document acoustic characteristics of Pakistani English (PaKE) vowel sounds. The experiment was designed to examine the properties of ten vowels produced by Pakistani ESL learners. The analysis is based on the voice samples of recorded 50 CVC words. Total 5000 (10 10 50=5000) voiced samples were analyzed. The data consisted of 50 words of ten English vowel sounds [i: ɪ e ɔ: æ ə ɑ: u: ɒ ʊ]. Ten ESL speakers recorded their voice samples on Praat speech processing tool installed on laptop. Three parameters were considered i.e., fundamental frequency (F0), vowel quality (F1-F2) and duration. Formant patterns were judged manually by visual inspection on Praat Speech Processing Tool. Analysis of formant frequency shows numerous differences between male and female of F1 and F2, fundamental frequency and duration of English vowels. The voice samples provide evidence for higher and lower frequency of vowel sounds. Additionally, the data analysis illustrates that there were statistical differences in the values of short and long vowels coupled with vowel space plot showing explicit differences in locating the production of vowels of male & female vowel space acoustic realizations.

Phonology modulates the illusory vowels in perceptual illusions: Evidence from Mandarin and English

Native speakers perceive illusory vowels when presented with sound sequences that do not respect the phonotactic constraints of their language (Dupoux, Kakehi, Hirose, Pallier, & Mehler, 1999; Kabak & Idsardi, 2007). There is, however, less work on the quality of the illusory vowel. Recently, it has been claimed that the quality of the illusory vowel is also modulated by the phonology of the language, and that the phenomenon of illusory vowels can be understood as a result of the listener reverse inferring the best parse of the underlying representation given their native language phonology and the acoustics of the input stream (Durvasula & Kahng, 2015). The view predicts that listeners are likely to hear different illusory vowels in different phonological contexts. In support of this prediction, we show through two perceptual experiments that Mandarin Chinese speakers (but not American English speakers) perceive different illusory vowels in different phonotactic contexts. Specifically, when presented with phonotactically illegal alveopalatal coda consonants, Mandarin speakers perceived an illusory /i/, but in illegal alveolar stop coda contexts, they perceived a /ə/.

Context of learning and second language development of Spanish vowels

Abstract The present study explored development in Spanish vowel production during a short-term study abroad program. The production patterns of a group of learners studying abroad in a 4-week program in the Dominican Republic were compared in terms of overall vowel quality, tendency to diphthongize /e/ and /o/, and vowel duration to those of a similar group of learners studying in the at-home context. Results revealed no significant changes or differences between groups in vowel quality or diphthongization, but a significant improvement (i.e., reduction) in vowel duration for /a/, /o/, and /u/ for the at-home group only. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research, and areas for future research are outlined.

Sound Symbolic Patterns in Pokémon Names

This paper presents a case study of sound symbolism, cases in which certain sounds tend to be associated with particular meanings. We used the corpus of all Japanese Pokémon names available as of October 2016. We tested the effects of voiced obstruents, mora counts, and vowel quality on Pokémon characters' size, weight, strength parameters, and evolution levels. We found that the number of voiced obstruents in Pokémon names correlates positively with size, weight, evolution levels, and general strength parameters, except for speed. We argue that this result is compatible with the frequency code hypothesis of Ohala. The number of moras in Pokémon names correlates positively with size, weight, evolution levels, and all strength parameters. Vowel height is also shown to have an influence on size and weight - Pokémon characters with initial high vowels tend to be smaller and lighter, although the effect size is not very large. Not only does this paper offer a new case study of sound symbolism, it provides evidence that sound symbolism is at work when naming proper nouns.

Some remarks on stress and reduction correlations in Spanish

Spanish is well-known for its consonant reduction processes across all dialects. At the same time, its vowel inventory is not particularly rich, with 5 evenly distributed, stable vowel categories that tend not to change their qualities regardless of stress and rhythm. Meanwhile, several Spanish varieties show vowel reduction, but crucially without accompanying advancement in terms of consonantal weakening. Based on this evidence it is proposed that the two types of reduction are correlated to the extent that one excludes the other. Given the extraordinary stability of the Spanish vowels in the vast majority of the dialects, the paper investigates various cues to stress and reduction, which is followed by a discussion of empirical studies on SLA and speech perception and production. These studies point to the fact that given the distribution of Spanish sounds and the Spanish stress system, changes in stress and vowel quality inhibit comprehension of native categories (sounds, words and prosodic elements). This should be taken as a point of departure for further studies on speech perception, second language acquisition by speakers of languages with rigid vowel systems and the correlation between vocalic and consonantal weakening (reduction).

A sociophonetic analysis of gay male speech stereotypes in Buenos Aires, Argentina

The present study expands academic knowledge on the phonetic cues that index “gay speech” beyond the English language by examining speech produced by gay Buenos Aires Spanish (porteno) speakers. Research has been conducted on gay speech in other parts of Latin America or on the Spanish language in general (Pahis 2017, Ezquerra 2015, Mack 2011, Mendes 2007, Sivori 2005), but not on the porteno dialect. Acoustic features (vowel quality, pitch, speech rate, and degree of aspiration of pre-consonantal and syllable-final /s/) corresponding to public stereotypes on porteno gay speech were measured. Speech from gay and straight men, as well as actors interpreting gay & straight roles in film and television, was analyzed. It is hypothesized that gay men will have higher pitch and that vowels be more clearly articulated than straight counterparts, that pre-consonantal and syllable-final /s/ will be aspirated less frequently and that pitch contours will be more pronounced in the speech of gay men. In addition, the speech of actors playing gay roles will align more closely with the stereotypes of gay speech than with actual phonetic properties, in accordance with Cartei and Reby 2011.

The encoding of subjects and objects in Jumjum, a Nilotic OV language

This article shows that in Jumjum, a little-described language belonging to the Southern Burun subbranch of Western Nilotic, subjects and objects are obligatorily cross-referenced in the verb. Only definite patients are coded as objects, while indefinite patients are coded as non-core arguments of antipassive verbs. Jumjum and its sister language Mabaan are morphosyntactically unique among the Western Nilotic languages in three respects. Firstly, the object of a transitive verb always precedes the verb (OV order). Secondly, subjects and objects are always expressed by the inflection of the verb, which thus cross-references subject and object noun phrases. And thirdly, some subject suffixes are deleted before some object suffixes, which gives rise to many cases of segmentally homonymous forms, but these forms are kept phonologically distinct by their tone patterns. The article documents these features by also taking into account the effect of derived verb stems and of tense inflection on the expression of cross-reference. To some extent, the derivational morphemes are expressed by suffixation, but in addition, root-internal alternations play a major role, including alternations in vowel quality, vowel length, and the root-final consonant.

Shifting from the shift: Loss of dialect distinction in the US

Historically, /ae/ in the Northern Cities Shift (NCS) dialect area is realized as raised, lengthened, and diphthongized in all consonantal contexts (Boberg and Strassel 2000) and that pre-oral /ae/ is realized with as much nasalization as pre-nasal /ae/ (Plichta 2004). Recent studies suggest that young speakers in the dialect area are adopting a nasal pattern for /ae/ such that only tokens before nasal consonants are raised and fronted in phonetic space (in Lansing, MI (Wagner et al. 2016), in Syracuse, NY (Driscoll and Lape 2015), in Upstate NY (Thiel and Dinkin 2017), in Detroit, MI (Acton et al. 2017)). Through acoustic analysis of 1310 /ae/ tokens produced by 26 speakers born and raised in Lansing, MI (date of birth 1991–1997), the current study finds that younger speakers are not simply lowering and retracting this vowel, they are rejecting all phonetic components of the NCS /ae/ system. For these speakers, only pre-nasal /ae/ tokens are realized as long, diphthongal, and nasalized, while pre-oral tokens are short, monophthongal, and have little to no nasalization. Vowel quality for /ae/ in the NCS dialect area is thus undistinguishable from that in the western and midland states in the US (e.g., California and Kansas).

Sinewave vowel sounds: The role of vowel qualities, frequencies and harmonicity of sinusoids, and perceived pitch for vowel recognition

In the literature, the recognition of sinewave vowels replicating statistical formant patterns is reported as impaired when compared to natural sounds. However, the corresponding formant simulating sinusoids were harmonically unrelated, with synthesised signals only accidentally being quasi-periodic, and vowel confusion was indicated to relate to vowel height. Involving five phonetic expert listeners, the present study tested vowel and pitch recognition of three sinusoid replicas based on statistical F1-F2-F3 patterns of the Standard German closed and mid-open vowels /i-y-e-ø-o-u/ for women, “corrected” approximations of these patterns with harmonically related sinusoids, and harmonical patterns with fixed first and third sinusoids, yet varying only the second sinusoid so as to effect a change in harmonic relation. The results showed strong vowel confusions for mid-open but only limited confusions for closed vowels. Additional effects on vowel recognition were indicated to concern harmonicity and specific frequencies of the sinusoids, and perceived pitch (range recognised = 165-440Hz). Thus, sinewave replications of formant frequencies seem to represent perceived vowel qualities not per se but only in relation to specific vowel qualities, sinusoid configuration and pitch, supporting earlier claims of spectral representation of vowel quality as being non-systematic and pitch-related.

Formant pattern and spectral shape ambiguity in vowel synthesis: The role of fundamental frequency and formant amplitude

When investigating formant pattern and spectral shape ambiguity in Klatt synthesis, an earlier study showed that the perceived vowel quality of Standard German vowel sounds can be changed by varying fundamental frequency only [Maurer et al. (2017). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141(5):3469-3470]. In this follow-up study, the previous original synthesis experiment was repeated twice, firstly, with fundamental frequencies (fo) of the corresponding sounds lowered by one octave, and secondly, with different ratios of the first and second formant amplitudes. Here, the role of the fo range and the formant amplitudes for the investigation of formant pattern and spectral shape ambiguity in vowel synthesis was further examined. The same five phonetic expert listeners that participated in the previous experiment also identified all of the newly synthesised sounds in a multiple-choice identification task. Results revealed that the perceived vowel quality only changes for fos above 200 Hz and that, for back vowels, the ratio of the formant amplitudes used in the Klatt synthesis also affects vowel recognition. Thus, the results of the experiments confirm earlier indications of a non-systematic relation between fo or pitch and formant patterns or spectral envelopes for vowel recognition.

Intuitions for phonological constraints in binomials: A psycholinguistic investigation

Binomials (e.g., spic and span; hanky-panky) are lexicalized sequences of two or more constituents whose irreversible order is determined by semantic and phonological factors (Benor and Levy, 2006; Cooper and Ross, 1975). As an extension of early psycholinguistic work (Pinker and Birdsong, 1979) the present experimental study examines speakers' sensitivities to proposed phonological constraints on constituent ordering in binomials. Intuitions for preferred constituent order by native English and French speakers, and those of advanced L2 English and L2 French speakers, were elicited with a computer-based judgment task, using pairs of nonsense sequences, structured in such a way that one expression conforms to a specific constraint, and the other violates it (e.g., rigster and ragster vs. *ragster and rigster). The constraints in question involve quality and number of consonants, and quality and length of vowels in constituent elements of binomials. Experimental results revealed that the intuitions of native English speakers were generally more in line with the proposed constraints than those of native French speakers. Further, the intuitions of advanced nonnative speakers of both languages were overall not significantly different from those of natives, suggesting that subtle nativelike sensitivities to the phonological constraints in question may be acquired. A planned analysis revealed that intuitions are similar for coordinated type (e.g., wheeling and dealing) and hyphenated (reduplicative) type (e.g., razzle-dazzle) items, a heretofore unexplored distinction. A further analysis showed that participants displayed sensitivities to vowel quality and coda complexity. The result partially concords with accounts on invariable word order that derive from principles of phonoiconicity and markedness (Birdsong, 1979; Sobkowiak, 1993).

A reconstruction of the system of verb aspects in proto-Berbero-Semitic

AbstractSeveral verbal forms reconstructed for proto-Semitic strongly resemble reconstructed forms in proto-Berber: compare Semitic yV-PaRRaS to Berber y-əFăRRăS, Semitic yV-PRaS to Berber y-əFRăS, and Semitic yV-PRuS and yV-PRiS to Berber y-ăFRəS. We suggest that these forms are historically related and sketch a line of development from the reconstructed meanings to their attested uses. yVPaRRaS, originally imperfective, retains that value in both Berber and Semitic. yVPRas, originally stative, gained a perfective meaning in Berber and Semitic; the stative meaning is retained in Berber, but was largely lost in Semitic. yVPRus/yVPRiS, originally perfective, retained that meaning in Semitic, merging with the newly perfective yVPRas forms; in Berber, yVPRaS completely replaced perfective yVPRuS/yVPRiS, relegating the latter to non-aspectual uses. We conclude by considering the quality of the first vowel; the alternation seen in Berber y-əFRăS and y-ăFRəS supports reconstructions as yiPRaS and yaPRuS/yaPRiS, conforming to the Barth–Ginsberg Law of Semitic.

Phrasal alternation in Kerinci

This dissertation is a descriptive study of a linguistic phenomenon known as phrasal alternation, focusing on the Pondok Tinggi (PT) dialect of Kerinci, spoken in Indonesia. In essence, almost every Kerinci word displays two forms, labeled absolute and oblique. These forms differ in the shape of their final-syllable rime (i.e. kursai ABS, kursei OBL ‘chair’). Phrasal alternationoccurs on the level of the phrase. The absolute form denotes genericity and neutrality, whereas the oblique form is used with a restricting specification (i.e. a patient in active constructions, an agent in passive constructions, a possessor in noun phrases, etc.). This specification can be overt or covert. General rules determine the patterns of phrasal alternation, but a variety of details and exceptions across grammatical categories make this process less predictable. An additional mechanism is the so-called K/G-word alternation. G-words are defined as words containing a non-prenasalized voiced obstruent, whereas K-words do not. Like phrasal alternation, this mechanism also affects the vowel quality of the final rime. G-words trigger higher phonological realizations than K-words. Therefore, the shape of most of PT lexicon depends on two oppositions: absolute vs. oblique and K-word vs. G-word. This four-way distinction is at the core of Kerinci word formation.

Tone marks as vowel diacritics in two scripts: repurposing tone marks for non-tonal phenomena in Cado and other Southeast Asian languages

Many scripts in Southeast Asia have developed ways of marking tone. When adapting such scripts to write non-tonal languages, language communities often find other uses for these symbols. The case of Cado, an Austroasiatic language of the Katuic sub-branch in Vietnam and Laos, is particularly striking in that they use tone marks as vowel diacritics in two different scripts. Because Cado speakers live on both sides of the Vietnamese-Lao border, they have chosen to use two separate writing systems based on their respective national languages. This paper presents preliminary orthographies for Cado in the Roman and Lao scripts, based on the Vietnamese and Lao orthographies. Cado has no phonation contrast, but it does retain vowel length contrast. Both Cado orthographies adapt tone marks from the Vietnamese and Lao orthographies to distinguish either vowel length or vowel quality respectively. The phonetic motivation for this cross-categorical use of tone marks is discussed, and examples of other orthographies in Southeast Asia that adapt tone marks and other symbols beyond their traditional phonetic category are given and compared with Cado.