Vowels In Syllables Research Articles

Exploring groupings of Taiwan Mandarin Vowels through ultrasound imaging and cluster analysis

Previous studies have not reached a consensus on the number of phonemic vowels in Mandarin, with proposed systems ranging from four to six vowels. Since traditional top-down approaches have not led to a unified conclusion, this study employs a novel method using cluster analysis on ultrasound lingual images of Taiwan Mandarin vowels, hoping this bottom-up approach offers new insights into the debate. A total of 2700 tokens of consonant-vowel (CV) and isolated vowel (V) syllables were recorded from a female native speaker of Taiwan Mandarin. Preprocessed ultrasound images from vowel midpoints were analyzed using K-means clustering. To determine the optimal number of clusters, the elbow method and KneeLocator from the kneed package were used. Although KneeLocator suggested four clusters as optimal, the elbow plot did not show a clear elbow point. This mirrors the inconclusive results of previous studies on the Mandarin vowel system. Similar to the elbow plot, the clustering visualization using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) did not show distinct clustering patterns, indicating potential limitations of K-means clustering for our data. Future research may benefit from exploring alternative clustering algorithms and preprocessing techniques, such as noise reduction in ultrasound images. This preliminary study shows the potential of using cluster analysis on ultrasound images for phonetic research and highlights on the challenges in defining Mandarin vowel inventory.

Initial Syllable Vowel Duration as a Temporal Measure in Persons with Stuttering: Implication for Speech Motor Control

Stuttering is a fluency disorder characterized by involuntary repetitions, prolongations and hesitation. “Relational Speech Timing Task (RST)” refers to a phenomenon where in, when a set of words with a common base word, is used with progressively increasing length of suffixes it results in progressive reduction in the duration of vowel of the initial syllable. Since individuals with stuttering are reported to have difficulties in the temporal aspects of speech, this study aimed to assess and compare the Initial Syllable Vowel Shortening(ISVS) among individuals with stuttering and Fluent age matched controls. Eight males with stuttering and eight age and gender matched fluent adults served as subjects. Eight sets of meaningful Tamil words were developed for the RST tasks. The subjects were asked to repeat the modelled stimuli and only the stutter free responses were taken for the analysis. The duration of the initial vowel in the words were measured and compared between the two groups. Results revealed that individuals with stuttering exhibited difficulties for multisyllabic words, demonstrating the subtle timing difficulties in individuals with stuttering.

An exploratory investigation of interactions between syllabic prominence, initial geminates, and phrasal boundaries in Pattani Malay

AbstractThis study investigates interactions among relative syllabic prominence, initial geminates (IGs), and prosodic boundaries in Pattani Malay (PM) against a background of previous analyses claiming that IGs are moraic and trigger a ‘stress shift’ or the linking of a pitch accent to the initial syllable. We conducted an acoustic study with fourteen PM speakers, producing singleton–IG minimal pairs in naturalistic sentences. Our results show that the presence of IGs is not associated with the hypothesized phonological changes. Instead, it is associated with moderate increases in the duration of initial syllables, the intensity of the initial syllable vowels, and the f0 of the initial and final syllable vowels. On the other hand, the presence of a phrase-final prosodic boundary correlates with more drastic changes: in phrase-final position, final syllables exhibit final lengthening and falling contours of f0 and intensity, while, in the phrase-medial position, no lengthening is observed and f0 contours are rising. Furthermore, the effects of IGs are strongest in the phrase-final position, suggesting interactions between IGs and prosodic boundaries. Taken together, results cast doubts on the claim that IGs are moraic and associated with categorical differences in syllabic prominence profiles in PM and show that IG effects are modulated by prosodic boundaries.

Compensatory effects of foot structure in segmental durations of Soikkola Ingrian disyllables and trisyllables

This acoustic study explores compensatory influences of foot structure on segmental duration and quantity in the foot nuclei of 22 trisyllabic and four disyllabic structures in vanishing Soikkola Ingrian (Finnic). A robust ternary quantity contrast of consonants is confirmed for both disyllables and trisyllables. While in the shortest disyllables the contrast is “pure” (i.e., not significantly reinforced by the durations of other segments), in all trisyllables it is enhanced through the durationally inverse (compensatory) effects in other segments. In this, the situation in trisyllables is closer to that attested in other languages with ternary consonantal quantity than the situation in disyllables. The phonological quantity contrast has been lost from the second syllable vowel of trisyllables, and its duration is now inversely related to the first syllable complexity. In the segments preceding this vowel, all compensatory effects are purely phonetic. Shorter segmental durations and stronger compensatory effects in trisyllables than in disyllables indicate tendencies for both polysegmental and polysyllabic shortening. We discuss a potential relation of observed compensatory effects of shortening and lengthening (a “half-long” vowel) to foot isochrony and metrical stress.

Simulating vocal learning of spoken language: Beyond imitation

Computational approaches have an important role to play in understanding the complex process of speech acquisition, in general, and have recently been popular in studies of vocal learning in particular. In this article we suggest that two significant problems associated with imitative vocal learning of spoken language, the speaker normalisation and phonological correspondence problems, can be addressed by linguistically grounded auditory perception. In particular, we show how the articulation of consonant–vowel syllables may be learnt from auditory percepts that can represent either individual utterances by speakers with different vocal tract characteristics or ideal phonetic realisations. The result is an optimisation-based implementation of vocal exploration – incorporating semantic, auditory, and articulatory signals – that can serve as a basis for simulating vocal learning beyond imitation.

Iconic Associations Between Vowel Acoustics and Musical Patterns, and the Musical Protolanguage Hypothesis

Vowels are the most musical and sonic elements of speech. Previous studies found non-arbitrary associations between vowel intrinsic pitch and musical pitch in senseless syllables. In songs containing strings of senseless syllables, vowels are connected to melodic direction in close correspondence to their intrinsic pitch or the frequency of the second formant F2. This paper shows that also vowel intrinsic duration is related to musical patterns. It is generally assumed that low vowels like [a ɔ o] have a higher intrinsic duration than high vowels like [i y u] and that there is a positive correlation between the first formant F1 and duration. Analyzing 20 traditional Alpine yodels I found that vowels with longer intrinsic duration tend to align with longer notes, whereas vowels with shorter intrinsic duration with shorter notes. This new result might shed some light on size-sound symbolism in general: Since there is a direct match between vowel intrinsic duration and the “size” of musical notes, there is no need to explain the “size” of musical notes via Ohala's “frequency code” hypothesis. Moreover, I will argue that the iconic associations found between vowel acoustics and musical patterns support the idea of a sound-symbolic musical protolanguage. Such a protolanguage may have started with vowel syllables conveying pitch, timbre, as well as emotional, indexical, and sound-symbolic information.

Фонетические особенности языка монгольской исторической хроники Erdenitunumalneretü sudur (начало XVII века)

This paper is the first ever study providing a detailed analytical overview of some phonetic particularities of the “History of Altan Khan” (Mo. Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur), a unique Mongolian manuscript of the early 17th century presently kept at the library of the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences (Hohhot). The author presents an analysis of the following phonetic features attested in the language of the monument: rounding harmony and its violations, vowel height assimilation, prebreaking of *i, development of contracted long vowels, elision of non-initial syllable vowels, and vowel epenthesis in non-initial syllables. The language system of the chronicle may be identified as belonging to a transitional stage between Preclassical and early Classical periods in the development of Written Mongol and is considered to be a vivid example of a mixture of linguistic archaisms and innovations typical for the documents of the transitional stage. It contains both archaic (occasional lack of rounding harmony) and clearly innovative features (development of contracted long vowels, elision of non-initial syllable vowels). Also, some vocalic developments may be considered as early Common Mongolic innovations dating back from at least the early Post-Proto-Mongolic if not the Proto-Mongolic period (development of rounding harmony, vowel height assimilation, prebreaking of *i, vowel epenthesis in non-initial syllables). The sound system of the chronicle is quite similar to the language of Sino-Mongolian glossaries of the turn of the 16th-17th centuries and Written Mongol documents of the Preclassical and early Classical periods.

Development and Evaluation of a Language-Independent Test of Auditory Discrimination for Referrals for Cochlear Implant Candidacy Assessment.

Objectives:The purpose of this study was to (1) develop a Language-independent Test of Auditory Discrimination (LIT-AD) between speech sounds so that people with hearing loss who derive limited speech perception benefits from hearing aids (HAs) may be identified for consideration of cochlear implantation and (2) examine the relationship between the scores for the new discrimination test and those of a standard sentence test for adults wearing either HAs or cochlear implants (CIs).Design:The test measures the ability of the listener to correctly discriminate pairs of nonsense syllables, presented as sequential triplets in an odd-one-out format, implemented as a game-based software tool for self-administration using a tablet computer. Stage 1 included first a review of phonemic inventories in the 40 most common languages in the world to select the consonants and vowels. Second, discrimination testing of 50 users of CIs at several signal to noise ratios (SNRs) was carried out to generate psychometric functions. These were used to calculate the corrections in SNR for each consonant-pair and vowel combination required to equalize difficulty across items. Third, all items were individually equalized in difficulty and the overall difficulty set. Stage 2 involved the validation of the LIT-AD in English-speaking listeners by comparing discrimination scores with performance in a standard sentence test. Forty-one users of HAs and 40 users of CIs were assessed. Correlation analyses were conducted to examine test–retest reliability and the relationship between performance in the two tests. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between demographic characteristics and performance in the LIT-AD. The scores of the CI users were used to estimate the probability of superior performance with CIs for a non-CI user having a given LIT-AD score and duration of hearing loss.Results:The LIT-AD comprises 81 pairs of vowel–consonant–vowel syllables that were equalized in difficulty to discriminate. The test can be self-administered on a tablet computer, and it takes about 10 min to complete. The software automatically scores the responses and gives an overall score and a list of confusable items as output. There was good test–retest reliability. On average, higher LIT-AD discrimination scores were associated with better sentence perception for users of HAs (r = −0.54, p <0.001) and users of CIs (r = −0.73, p <0.001). The probability of superior performance with CIs for a certain LIT-AD score was estimated, after allowing for the effect of duration of hearing loss.Conclusions:The LIT-AD could increase access to CIs by screening for those who obtain limited benefits from HAs to facilitate timely referrals for CI candidacy evaluation. The test results can be used to provide patients and professionals with practical information about the probability of potential benefits for speech perception from cochlear implantation. The test will need to be evaluated for speakers of languages other than English to facilitate adoption in different countries.

Perception of Incongruent Audiovisual Speech: Distribution of Modality-Specific Responses

Multimodal sensory integration in audiovisual (AV) speech perception is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Modality-specific responses such as auditory left, auditory right, and visual responses to dichotic incongruent AV speech stimuli help in understanding AV speech processing through each input modality. It is observed that distribution of activity in the frontal motor areas involved in speech production has been shown to correlate with how subjects perceive the same syllable differently or perceive different syllables. This study investigated the distribution of modality-specific responses to dichotic incongruent AV speech stimuli by simultaneously presenting consonant-vowel (CV) syllables with different places of articulation to the participant's left and right ears and visually. A dichotic experimental design was adopted. Six stop CV syllables /pa/, /ta/, /ka/, /ba/, /da/, and /ga/ were assembled to create dichotic incongruent AV speech material. Participants included 40 native speakers of Norwegian (20 women, M age = 22.6 years, SD = 2.43 years; 20 men, M age = 23.7 years, SD = 2.08 years). Findings of this study showed that, under dichotic listening conditions, velar CV syllables resulted in the highest scores in the respective ears, and this might be explained by stimulus dominance of velar consonants, as shown in previous studies. However, this study, with dichotic auditory stimuli accompanied by an incongruent video segment, demonstrated that the presentation of a visually distinct video segment possibly draws attention to the video segment in some participants, thereby reducing the overall recognition of the dominant syllable. Furthermore, the findings here suggest the possibility of lesser response times to incongruent AV stimuli in females compared with males. The identification of the left audio, right audio, and visual segments in dichotic incongruent AV stimuli depends on place of articulation, stimulus dominance, and voice onset time of the CV syllables.

Teaching Beginners to Decode Consonant–Vowel Syllables Using Grapheme–Phoneme Subunits Facilitates Reading and Spelling as Compared With Teaching Whole‐Syllable Decoding

ABSTRACTIn this experiment, we examined whether beginning readers benefit more from grapheme–phoneme decoding (GPD) than from whole‐syllable decoding (WSD) instruction in learning to read and write words. Sixty Brazilian Portuguese‐speaking first graders (M age = 6 years 1 month) who knew letter names but could not read or write words were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. The GPD group was taught to decode 40 consonant–vowel (CV) syllables by sounding out and blending grapheme–phoneme constituents (combinations of 10 consonants and five vowels). The WSD group was taught to decode the same CV syllables as whole graphosyllabic units. The individual grapheme–phoneme (IGP) group was taught the same 15 grapheme–phonemes as single units but no decoding. Groups were taught to a mastery criterion. Results showed that GPD instruction was much more effective than WSD and IGP instruction in enabling beginners to read CV syllables, multisyllabic words, and pseudowords; to learn to read words from memory; to write words; and to segment and blend spoken words phonemically. Also, GPD instruction facilitated phonological memory for spoken pseudowords. Despite receiving much practice in reading whole CV syllables, the WSD group learned few, if any, grapheme–phoneme subunits. Results support theories that reading instruction is most effective when it begins by teaching students to decode with small grapheme–phoneme units rather than with larger syllabic units, even when syllables are salient spoken and written units in the writing system.

Графический анализ вокализма первого слога в ненецких словарях из архива А. М. Шёгрена

This article describes the graphic features of the first syllable vowels in Pustozersk and Obdorsk dictionaries from A. M. Sjögren’s archive. The graphic analysis is carried out against the background of the Proto-Samoyed reconstructions by J. Janhunen, Nenets current literary norm, “Nenets-Russian Dictionary” by N. M. Tereschenko, “A Morphological Dictionary of Tundra Nenets Language” by T. Salminen, and “Dialectal Dictionary of the Nenets Language” by S. I. Burkova et al. The dialectal features of the dictionaries are compared to the modern ones. The area of the Pustozersk region is referred to as the territory where the central (Bolshezemelskiy) dialect is spoken. In one word the graphic representation of the 18th century Pustozersk dictionary coincides with the form of the modern Eastern dialect word. At the same time, in another word, the Western variant is attested. The territory where the Obdorsk dictionary was recorded is the territory where the speakers of the Eastern dialects of the Nenets language reside. In the Obdorsk dictionary, a variant that coincides with the Eastern variant is recognized. Some outstanding consonant features of the first syllable are also taken into consideration. For example, in the Pustozersk dictionary, the initial /ŋ/ is not represented graphically, as in Proto-Samoyedic reconstructions. The Obdorsk dictionary contains three graphic variants of the modern initial /ŋ/. The results are presented in comparison tables. The word examples are presented accordingly. In many ways, the reflexes presented in the Pustozersk dictionary correspond with modern ones. The reconstructed diphthongoids are graphically represented by the diphthongs in the Pustozersk dictionary, which is not the case for modern dictionaries. In comparison with modern dictionaries, reflexes in the Obdorsk dictionary are more diverse. The diphthongs are also used in the place of reconstructed diphthongoids.

An optimal dichotic-listening paradigm for the assessment of hemispheric dominance for speech processing.

Dichotic-listening paradigms are widely accepted as non-invasive tests of hemispheric dominance for language processing and represent a standard diagnostic tool for the assessment of developmental auditory and language disorders. Despite its popularity in research and clinical settings, dichotic paradigms show comparatively low reliability, significantly threatening the validity of conclusions drawn from the results. Thus, the aim of the present work was to design and evaluate a novel, highly reliable dichotic-listening paradigm for the assessment of hemispheric differences. Based on an extensive literature review, the paradigm was optimized to account for the main experimental variables which are known to systematically bias task performance or affect random error variance. The main design principle was to minimize the relevance of higher cognitive functions on task performance in order to obtain stimulus-driven laterality estimates. To this end, the key design features of the paradigm were the use of stop-consonant vowel (CV) syllables as stimulus material, a single stimulus pair per trial presentation mode, and a free recall (single) response instruction. Evaluating a verbal and manual response-format version of the paradigm in a sample of N = 50 healthy participants, we yielded test-retest intra-class correlations of rICC = .91 and .93 for the two response format versions. These excellent reliability estimates suggest that the optimal paradigm may offer an effective and efficient alternative to currently used paradigms both in research and diagnostic.

N400 and short speech stimuli

ABSTRACT In some children who have cochlear implants (CI), the expected speech-language outcome is not achieved despite fulfilment of requirements for its successful use. This may be attributed to processing difficulties at higher levels of the auditory pathway. The aim of this study was to investigate the processing of speech stimuli at the auditory-cortex level in 20 children aged 8 to 10 years who have a hearing impairment and have been using cochlear implants, by means of cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEP). The children were divided into two groups, depending on the outcome: 10 successful implant users and 10 unsuccessful implant users, whose speech-language development has not progressed as expected. The control group comprised of 10 age-matched children with typical hearing and speech-language development. Two double consonant+vowel syllables (CVCV) were used as stimuli, presented in an oddball paradigm that required the subjects to react consciously. Latencies and amplitudes of CAEP waves were measured. In addition to the waves that typically occur in CAEP and reflect auditory processing at the level of the auditory cortex, N400 wave (associated with semantic processing) was recorded in the normally hearing group and successful CI users, but not in the unsuccessful CI users. Additionally, successful CI users and controls had comparable latencies of the P300 wave (preceding the N400) as well. Although P300 and N400 reflect two processes, they are related so that if P300 does not reach the expected amplitude and latency, neither will N400.

Dichotic Listening Test-Retest Reliability in Children.

Purpose The objective of the study was to compare test-retest reliability of three dichotic listening tests: SCAN-3 Competing Words Test (Words; Keith, 2009a , 2009b ), Double Dichotic Digits Test (Digits; Musiek, 1983a ), and Bergen Dichotic Listening Test With Consonant-Vowel Syllables (Syllables; Hugdahl & Hammar, 1997 ). Method Sixty English-speaking children, 7-14 years old with normal hearing, had a single study visit during which each test was administered twice. Changes on retest were summarized by within-subject standard deviation ( S w), compared among tests, and compared with binomial model predictions. Correlates of variance were explored. Results Scores based on 40 items were more precise ( S w = 5%) than those based on 20-30 items ( S w = 6%-8%). All 3 tests had reliability within bounds predicted by binomial model. Changes on retest for Words and Digits Test were weakly associated with age, but this is confounded by the trend for older children to have higher Words and Digits scores. Conclusions Digits Right, Digits Left, and Words Total scores-each based on 40 items-had the best reliability among the clinically used scores. Scores based on fewer items were less precise. Poor precision may contribute to misdiagnosis in clinic and to nondifferential misclassification in research. More precise estimates of dichotic listening ability require longer tests.

Age-related differences in Voice-Onset-Time in Polish language users: An ERP study

Using the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) paradigm we investigated for the first time cortical responses to consonant - vowel (CV) syllables differing in Voice-Onset-Time (VOT) for Polish, a member of the Slavic group of languages. The study aimed at testing age-related effects on different ERP responses in young (20–30 years of age) and elderly (60–68 years) native Polish speakers. Participants were presented with a sequence of voiced and voiceless stop CV syllables /to/ and /do/ with different VOT values (−100 ms, −70 ms, −30 ms, −20 ms, +20 ms, +50 ms). We analyzed MMN and P1, N1, N1′, P2, N2 components. Our results showed an age-related decline in voicing perception in all tested ERP components. This decline could be explained in relation to a general slowing in neural processing with advancing age and may be associated with difficulties in temporal- and spectral-information processing in elderly people. Our findings revealed also that specific features of Slavic languages influence ERP morphology in a different way than reported in the literature for aspirating languages.

The acoustic correlates of quantity in Inari Saami

This paper studies the phonetic realisation of the ternary length opposition of consonants in Inari Saami disyllabic feet focussing on the distinction between half-long and long geminates. Inari Saami is compared with other Saami and Finnic languages. Segmental durations, fundamental frequency and intensity are analysed. The results show a three-way distinction in consonant duration most robustly after a short stressed syllable vowel. In the case of a long stressed syllable vowel there is no difference between half-long and long geminates. In all of the analysed word structures, segments are inversely related to each other, as with an increase in consonant duration the durations of the surrounding vowels decrease. The fall in the fundamental frequency contour is less steep in words with a long geminate than in those with a short consonant or a half-long geminate. The intensity of the unstressed vowel decreases with the increasing quantity of the intervocalic consonant. The results indicate that the three-way quantity distinction in Inari Saami is primarily manifested by durational properties in a disyllabic foot, while fundamental frequency and intensity have a less important role.

Cross-modal phonetic encoding facilitates the McGurk illusion and phonemic restoration.

In spoken language, audiovisual (AV) perception occurs when the visual modality influences encoding of acoustic features (e.g., phonetic representations) at the auditory cortex. We examined how visual speech (mouth movements) transforms phonetic representations, indexed by changes to the N1 auditory evoked potential (AEP). EEG was acquired while human subjects watched and listened to videos of a speaker uttering consonant vowel (CV) syllables, /ba/ and /wa/, presented in auditory-only or AV congruent or incongruent contexts or in a context in which the consonants were replaced by white noise (noise replaced). Subjects reported whether they heard "ba" or "wa." We hypothesized that the auditory N1 amplitude during illusory perception (caused by incongruent AV input, as in the McGurk illusion, or white noise-replaced consonants in CV utterances) should shift to reflect the auditory N1 characteristics of the phonemes conveyed visually (by mouth movements) as opposed to acoustically. Indeed, the N1 AEP became larger and occurred earlier when listeners experienced illusory "ba" (video /ba/, audio /wa/, heard as "ba") and vice versa when they experienced illusory "wa" (video /wa/, audio /ba/, heard as "wa"), mirroring the N1 AEP characteristics for /ba/ and /wa/ observed in natural acoustic situations (e.g., auditory-only setting). This visually mediated N1 behavior was also observed for noise-replaced CVs. Taken together, the findings suggest that information relayed by the visual modality modifies phonetic representations at the auditory cortex and that similar neural mechanisms support the McGurk illusion and visually mediated phonemic restoration. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Using a variant of the McGurk illusion experimental design (using the syllables /ba/ and /wa/), we demonstrate that lipreading influences phonetic encoding at the auditory cortex. We show that the N1 auditory evoked potential morphology shifts to resemble the N1 morphology of the syllable conveyed visually. We also show similar N1 shifts when the consonants are replaced by white noise, suggesting that the McGurk illusion and the visually mediated phonemic restoration rely on common mechanisms.

A Nonsense Consonant-Vowel-Consonant Word Test to Assess Auditory Processing.

Dichotic listening (DL), or how the two ears work together as a team, is often used in the assessment of auditory processing disorders in both children and adults. Currently, the battery of dichotic tests includes stimuli containing words, digits, and nonsense consonant-vowel syllables. Single-syllable nonsense words are of particular use in assessing processing abilities because they can evaluate auditory processing without a listener's dependence on linguistic knowledge. Therefore, nonsense words may assess auditory processes independently of previous vocabulary knowledge. This study is designed to assess the clinical applicability and face validity of a nonsense word DL test in a young adult population. This study included an experimental design to investigate the performance of young adult listeners on a Dichotic Nonsense Word (DNW) test spoken by a male and female speaker. The results were compared with one study that investigated young adult listener's performance on dichotic tests of English words. A total of 100 young adult participants were recruited from the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh to participate in the study. The participants ranged in age from 20 to 30, with an average age of 23, and all participants had normal hearing. DL performance was measured in all participants using the Dichotic Words Test (DWT) and the newly developed DNW test. Kolmogorov-Smirnoff tests of normality were used to assess distribution of right- and left-ear scores. Criterion cutoff scores were determined for the percent correct scores in the nondominant ear and dominant ear and for ear advantage. Scores were significantly different between the two tests in the right ear, Z = -8.258, p < 0.001, and in the left ear, Z = -8.471, p < 0.001. Scores within each test were higher for the right ear than for the left ear, and scores for both ears were significantly lower on the DNW test than for the DWT. Ear advantage scores from the DNW test were significantly larger than those obtained from the DWT. The low and high 95% criterion cutoff ranges for the DNW test were considerably wider than the 95% criterion cutoff ranges for the DWT. Results indicate that the new DNW test may be a useful clinical tool within a test battery for evaluating auditory processing skills independent of vocabulary knowledge.

Enhancing speech intelligibility in reverberant spaces by a speech features distributions dependent pre-processing

In this paper, we deal with a pre-processing based on speech envelope modulation for intelligibility enhancement in reverberant large dimension public enclosed spaces. In fact, the blurring effect due to reverberation alters the speech perception in such conditions. This phenomenon results from the masking of consonants by the reverberated tails of the previous vowels. This is particularly accentuated for elderly persons suffering from presbycusis. The proposed pre-processing is inspired from the steady-state suppression technique which consists in the detection of the steady-state portions of speech and the multiplication of their waveforms with an attenuation coefficient in order to decrease their masking effect. While the steady-state suppression technique is performed in the frequency domain, the pre-processing described in this paper is rather performed in the temporal domain. Its key novelty consists in the detection of the speech voiced segments using a priori knowledge about the distributions of the powers and the durations of voiced and unvoiced phonemes. The performances of this pre-processing are evaluated with an objective criterion and with subjective listening tests involving normal hearing persons and using a set of nonsense Vowel–Consonant–Vowel syllables and railway station vocal announcements.

Phonotactic restrictions condition the realization of vowel nasality and nasal coarticulation: Duration and airflow measurements in Québécois French and Brazilian Portuguese

This study examines the nasal airflow and duration patterns of vowels and nasal appendices in Québécois French (QF) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) in order to determine if phonotactic restrictions on nasal and nasalized vowels have an influence on the realization of nasality contrasts. Results show that QF nasal vowels in syllables with more possible contrastive structures (Ṽ$ vs. VN$) show less variability than nasal vowels in syllables with more limited contrasts (ṼC$ does not contrast with *VNC$). Furthermore, nasal airflow of VN sequences rises earlier in syllable structures in which the distribution of nasal and nasalized oral vowels is restricted (VN$, but *ṼN$) than in those in which the distribution is not restricted (V$N and Ṽ$N are both possible). BP, which has stricter phonotactic restrictions on vowel nasality than QF, exhibits greater overall variability in the nasal airflow of V$N sequences and in the duration of nasal appendices. This supports the hypothesis according to which contrast in context influences the realization of phonological contrasts as well as of coarticulation.