Word-final Stop Research Articles

A Preliminary Investigation of Within-Word Silent Intervals Produced by Children With and Without Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

The categorization of silent intervals during speech production is necessary for accurate measurement of articulation rate and pauses. The primary purpose of this preliminary study was to examine the within-word silent interval associated with the stop closure in word-final stop consonants produced by children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders. Seven children diagnosed with either cerebral palsy or Down syndrome (i.e., children with neurodevelopmental disorders) and eight typically developing children produced a reading passage. Participants were between the ages of 11 and 16 years. Fifty-eight words from the reading passage were identified as having word-final stop consonants. The closure duration of the word-final stop consonant was calculated, both in absolute duration and percent pause time. The articulation rate of the entire passage was calculated. The number of closure durations that met or exceeded the minimum duration threshold to be considered a pause (150 ms) was examined descriptively. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders produced significantly longer closure durations and significantly slower articulation rates than typically developing children. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders produced closure durations that met or exceeded the minimum duration threshold of a pause, but typically developing children, generally, did not. These data indicate the need to examine the location of silent intervals that meet the minimum duration threshold of a pause and correct for articulatory events during the measurement of articulation rate and pauses in children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Language Contact Within the Speaker: Phonetic Variation and Crosslinguistic Influence.

A recent model of sound change posits that the direction of change is determined, at least in part, by the distribution of variation within speech communities. We explore this model in the context of bilingual speech, asking whether the less variable language constrains phonetic variation in the more variable language, using a corpus of spontaneous speech from early Cantonese-English bilinguals. As predicted, given the phonetic distributions of stop obstruents in Cantonese compared with English, intervocalic English /b d g/ were produced with less voicing for Cantonese-English bilinguals and word-final English /t k/ were more likely to be unreleased compared with spontaneous speech from two monolingual English control corpora. Whereas voicing initial obstruents can be gradient in Cantonese, the release of final obstruents is prohibited. Neither Cantonese-English bilingual initial voicing nor word-final stop release patterns were significantly impacted by language mode. These results provide evidence that the phonetic variation in crosslinguistically linked categories in bilingual speech is shaped by the distribution of phonetic variation within each language, thus suggesting a mechanistic account for why some segments are more susceptible to cross-language influence than others.

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.

Hitz-bukaerako herskariak: kontsonante talkak

Euskaraz hitz-bukaerako herskariek oso maiztasun txikia dute hiztegian, baina oso maiztasun handia solasean; /-t/ eta /-k/ kontsonanteak maiztasun handiko atzizki batzuetan aurkitzen baitira. Lan honetan hitz-bukaerako herskarien gauzatze fonetikoa aztertzen dugu, eta bereziki bi hitzen arteko kontsonante taldeetan jartzen dugu arreta. Datuak elkarrizketa libretik atera ditugu. Intentsitate neurketak erakusten du talde horietan kontsonanteak oso ahulak direla gehienetan. Espektrogramak miatuz baieztatzen dugu /-k/ eta /-t/ kontsonanteak beste kontsonante baten aurrean gehiengoetan galtzen edo hurbilkari ahostun gisa ahoskatzen direla. Bestalde, ahoskabetze gertakariak (adib. /k#b/ --> [p]) ez dira batere normalak gure corpusean.

L1 Interference in Koreans' Perception of Released Word-final Stops in English

This study investigated L1 interference in the perception of released word-final stops in English by performing perception experiments on Korean and English listeners. Stimuli with conflicting cues were used in experiments in which the ‘long CV’ and the ‘short vowel CV’ were rejoined with six silent closure duration intervals and two release bursts of [g] and two release bursts of [k]. The perception results show that Korean listeners perceived significantly more [k] compared to English listeners when ‘k’ release was attached to a ‘long CV.’ We suggest that this is due to different phonological systems in Korean and English. In Korean, a released stop occurs only in the onset position in which the VOT and the stop closure duration are important acoustic cues for the identity of a stop. Thus, the English coda [k] with voiceless release burst could be perceived as an onset with long VOT, namely [k], by Korean listeners. In contrast, English listeners mostly perceived a voiced stop due to the long preceding vowel (cf. Raphael, 1972). With the stimuli of ‘short CV’ with ‘g’ release, Korean listeners perceived significantly more [g] than NE listeners did. English coda [g] with a voiced release may be perceived as an onset [g] with a short VOT by Korean listeners. In contrast, English listeners perceived a voiceless stop [k] due to the preceding short vowel. This paper also showed that Korean listeners would perceive finer distinctions than two levels of release, ‘g’ release and ‘k’ release.

First language phonetic drift in second language instructional environment

Recent research demonstrates that second language learning can affect first language speech production. This has been shown for proficient long-term second language learners in immigration settings (Flege, 1987) as well as novice learners in the study abroad setting (Chang, 2013). The question addressed in the present study is whether learners acquiring a second language in a classroom setting in the first language-dominant environment are also subject to L1 phonetic drift. A group of American students enrolled in intermediate-level Russian language courses at a major Mid-Western university were recorded reading a list of Russian and English words designed to investigate the acoustic realization if word-initial and word-final stop voicing. Several acoustic correlates of initial and final voicing were measured (VOT, onset f0, preceding vowel duration, glottal pulsing, etc.) and compared to data from monolingual speakers of American English from the same geographic region. Results demonstrate that learners’ realization of both initial and final voicing in English are affected by exposure to Russian. In the majority of measures, the drift occurred in the direction of norms characteristic of Russian voicing. Divergence from Russian was detected in the use of negative VOT for initial voiced stops.

Acoustics of the tense-lax stop contrast in Semarang Javanese

Javanese has a contrast between tense and lax stops. While both tense and lax stops are voiceless and unaspirated, the contrast at least in word-initial position is realized through acoustic differences in the following vowel, including lower f0, breathier voice quality, and higher F1 for the lax stops relative to their tense counterparts. However, previous reports have indicated substantial cross-speaker variation, and in some cases involve differing characterizations of the acoustic contrast, possibly due to small sample sizes. Moreover, it is still unclear whether (and how) this contrast is maintained in word-final position. In this study, we investigate the tense-lax contrast based on audio recordings of 27 speakers of Central Javanese from Semarang, Indonesia who each read 30 or more items with a word-initial or word-final stop in a carrier phrase. Stops and their adjacent vowels were hand-annotated, and measurements were taken including voice onset and offset time, stop closure and release duration, f0, formant frequencies, and spectral tilt and noise levels. Discussion will focus on how the tense-lax contrast is realized in both word-initial and word-final positions, as well as how different acoustic correlates co-vary within and across speakers.

The Effect of first language (L1) in cross-language speech perception : comparison of word-final stop discrimination by English, Japanese and Thai listeners

The Effect of first language (L1) in cross-language speech perception : comparison of word-final stop discrimination by English, Japanese and Thai listeners

Effects of Stress, Stop Release, and Familiarization on Speech Recognition Thresholds

Objective: This study examined outcomes of common procedural variations of speech recognition threshold (SRT) testing, specifically related to the effects of equal syllable stress, word-final stop consonant release, and prior-familiarization, with the participants’ language status taken into account. Methods: SRTs were obtained from 40 adults with normal hearing. Twenty participants received prior-familiarization with the spondee list and the other 20 received no prior-familiarization. Repeated SRT tests were administered using three different recordings which varied in syllable stress and word-final stop release patterns. Results: The group with prior-familiarization demonstrated a threshold that was significantly lower than the group without prior-familiarization, by approximately 5 dB HL. Despite the statistically significant effects of equal syllable stress and word-final stop release on SRTs, the magnitude of SRT changes elicited by these acoustic-phonetic variations was only slightly above 1 dB HL. The monolinguals generally outperformed the bilinguals in SRT outcomes with the threshold difference less than 3 dB HL. Conclusion: Findings from the present study suggest that familiarizing listeners with test vocabulary prior to SRT administration should continue to remain an important procedural requirement. Future research addressing the extent to which acoustic-phonetic variations of spondee production affect SRTs in individuals with hearing impairments is warranted.

Transferring cue-weighting from second language into first language: Group trends and individual differences

Second language learning has been shown to affect first language production (Flege, 1987; Major, 1992; Sancier & Fowler, 1997, inter alia). Less is known about whether and how experience with another language may affect first language perception. The present study examines the use of preceding vowel duration vs. voicing during closure as cues to word-final and word-medial stop voicing by three groups of listeners: native speakers of American English (34), native speakers of Russian (34), and Russian expatriates in the United States (24). The results suggest that bilingual listeners are transferring a greater reliance on vowel duration, characteristic of English perceptual mode, into native speech categorization. The transfer occurred in word-final condition where vowel duration as a correlate of voicing is of very different importance in the two languages. Individual trends revealed that bilinguals’ reliance on vowel duration may even be exaggerated in native, compared to non-native, speech perception. Th...

Phonetic categorisation and cue weighting in adolescents with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

This study investigates phonetic categorisation and cue weighting in adolescents and young adults with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). We manipulated two acoustic cues, vowel duration and F1 offset frequency, that signal word-final stop consonant voicing ([t] and [d]) in English. Ten individuals with SLI (14.0–21.4 years), 10 age-matched controls (CA; 14.6–21.9 years) and 10 non-matched adult controls (23.3–36.0 years) labelled synthetic CVC non-words in an identification task. The results showed that the adolescents and young adults with SLI were less consistent than controls in the identification of the good category representatives. The group with SLI also assigned less weight to vowel duration than the adult controls. However, no direct relationship between phonetic categorisation, cue weighting and language skills was found. These findings indicate that some individuals with SLI have speech perception deficits but they are not necessarily associated with oral language skills.

Pulling Out All the Stops: Referee Design and Phonetic Correlates of Gay Men’s English

Studies of intraspeaker variation and the linguistic indexing of sexual identity have formed an important part of recent research in variationist sociolinguistics. This study investigates patterns of word-final stop release in the speech of a flamboyantly gay television host, Graham Norton. The results indicate a significant correlation between the rate of released word-final stops and the sexual orientation of an absent referee, as defined by Bell (1984, 2001), with a higher proportion of released stops for gay-identified referees. We argue that this pattern demonstrates the linguistic indexing of an ingroup identity, which Norton shares with referees who identify as gay. In this way, the variable of word-final stop release can be considered a ‘building block’ (Barrett 2002:33) in the construction of Norton's sexual identity.

Issues in the Instrumental Study of Poetry Reading

AbstractThis paper presents in a nutshell aspects of the author’s research in poetry reading (rhythmical performance and voice quality). At the beginning it states the impossibility of straightforward instrumental research in poetic rhythm, and suggests a work-around within a comprehensive theory (the Perception-Oriented Theory of Metre). All rules for metrical vs unmetrical are violated by the greatest masters of musicality in English poetry (Milton and Shelley, for instance); instead, the theory places the constraints in the performer’s ability or willingness to perform the verse line rhythmically, a rhythmical performance being one in which conflicting patterns of language and versification are simultaneously perceptible. At a pre-instrumental stage the author applied hypotheses derived from the empirical research of others (stress perception, nonlinguistic tick-tack perception and performance of nonsense lines) to account for the peculiar nature of the trochaic metre; as well as hypotheses derived from the limited-channel-capacity hypothesis and gestalt theory to account for the mental processes that govern the vocal devices used in a rhythmical performance. He put to a non-instrumental test this theory in an experiment with the rhythmical performance of stress maxima in the seventh position in the iambic pentameter. Finally, he presents six case studies illustrating six theoretical issues, through computer analysis of recorded readings and electronic manipulations thereof in order to compare minimal pairs of alternative solutions. These case studies explore enjambment, convergent and divergent delivery style, triple-encodedness, listener response, voice quality and issues of interpretation.Such variety of effects is achieved by a homogeneous set of vocal manipulations: grouping and overarticulation which, in the final resort, boil down to conflicting phonetic cues for continuity and discontinuity at the same time. At the end of an utterance in ordinary speech there is, usually, redundancy of cues. We cue discontinuity by a pause, falling intonation contour, prolongation of the last syllable or speech sounds of the utterance, overarticulation of word-final stop releases, if any, overarticulation of the last word boundary, and so forth. In enjambment, for instance, where a syntactic unit overrides the line ending, the performer may have recourse to conflicting cues, indicating at the same time syntactic continuity and discontinuity of the versification unit. When a stressed syllable occurs in a weak position, overarticulation of the phonemes and of the syllable boundaries may save mental processing space, allowing to perceive the conflicting patterns of language and versification. At the same time, continuity must be indicated, to preserve syntactic coherence. A stress maximum (that is, a stressed syllable between two unstressed ones in mid-phrase or mid-word) in the seventh (weak) position of an iambic pentameter line renders it, according to Halle and Keyser, unmetrical. Experienced performers, however, seem to be able to perform such verse lines rhythmically, and tend to have recourse to similar vocal strategies. They are surprised to discover that they over- rather than under-emphasize the deviant stress, isolating the last four syllables as a perceptual unit, and generating a perceptual drive toward the last (tenth) position, where the two patterns have a coinciding downbeat, emphatically closing the verse line. After the sixth position cues for discontinuity are required to perceptually isolate the last four metric positions, but also cues for syntactic continuity (in mid-phrase). As to triple-encodedness, the same phonetic cues, e. g., overarticulated word-final voiceless plosives may indicate, at the same time, sentence ending, line ending and, e. g., a dominant, determined personality. As to convergent and divergent delivery styles, the distinction refers to the performer’s tendency to have recourse where possible to redundant or conflicting phonetic cues to effect a rhythmical performance, within the constraints of the conflicting linguistic and versification patterns of the text.

Examining suprasegmental and morphological effects on constriction degree with ultrasound imaging

Two case studies of ultrasound imaging use tongue shape differences to investigate whether suprasegmental influences affect the articulatory implementation of otherwise equivalent phonemic sequences. First, we examine whether word-medial and word-final stop codas have the same degree of constriction (e.g., "blacktop" vs. "black top"). Previous research on syllable position effects on articulatory implementation have conflated syllable position with word position, and this study investigates whether each prosodic factor has an independent contribution. Results indicate that where consistent differences are found, they are due not to the prosodic position but to speaker-specific implementation. Second, we examine whether morphological status influences the darkness of American English /l/ in comparing words like "tallest" and "flawless." While the intervocalic /l/s in "tall-est" and "flaw-less" are putatively assigned the same syllabic status, the /l/ in "tallest" corresponds to the coda /l/ of the stem "tall" whereas that of "flawless" is the onset of the affix "-less." Results indicate that /l/ is darker—the tongue is lower and more retracted—when corresponding to the coda of the stem word. Data in both studies were analyzed with smoothing spline ANOVA, an effective statistical technique for examining differences between whole tongue curves.

A study of asymmetry relations between perception and production in the word-final stop voicing

This study tries to investigate whether the main acoustic properties in the production differ from those in the perception. The experimental design is intended to support the hypothesis that phonetic cues with equal amounts of acoustic information by production should be reinterpreted in the perception level. In the experiments, how the real prominent cues influence perceiving English stop voicing is examined. The results from both experiments clearly prove the asymmetry between production and perception. Even though phonetic cues measured in the production exert similar statistical significance, they could be re-ordered or rearranged in the level of perception. Through the experiments, this study supports the weak or indirect theory between the two.

Korean Learners’ Production of the Voicing Contrast in English Word-Final Stops

Korean Learners’ Production of the Voicing Contrast in English Word-Final Stops

Variable Vowel Adaptations of English Word-final Stops in Korean Loanword Phonology

This paper examines the patterns of vowel epenthesis in English loanword adaptation that occur when English loanwords that end in postvocalic word-final stops are borrowed into Korean. We then provide a variable rule analysis of the three vowel epenthesis patterns: vowel epenthesis, no vowel epenthesis and variable vowel epenthesis, according to four linguistic factor groups, the tenseness of pre-final vowel (tense vs. lax), the voicing of the final stop (voiced vs. voiceless), the place of articulation of the final stop (coronal vs. labial vs. dorsal), and the number of syllables (monosyllabic vs. polysyllabic). Our analysis reveals that ‘tense’, ‘voiced’, ‘coronal’, and ‘monosyllabic’ are, in this order, the most significant factors for vowel epenthesis, whereas ‘labial’, ‘lax’, ‘polysyllabic’, ‘dorsal’, and ‘voiceless’ are the most crucial factors for no vowel epenthesis. It is also found that variable vowel epenthesis is most likely to occur when the factors are set as ‘lax’, ‘coronal’ and ‘voiceless’.

Effects of age and experience on the production of English word-final stops by Korean speakers

This study examined the effect of second language (L2) age of acquisition and amount of experience on the production of word-final stop consonant voicing by adult native Korean learners of English. Thirty learners, who differed in amount of L2 experience and age of L2 exposure, and 10 native English speakers produced 8 English monosyllabic words ending in voiced and voiceless stops. These productions were presented to 10 English listeners for perceptual judgment and subjected to acoustic analyses to determine how well learners produced vowel duration and closure (stop gap) duration, two cues to stop consonant voicing. Results revealed that even learners with 10 years of L2 experience did not always produce stop consonant voicing accurately, that learners' age of acquisition influenced their production of both cues, that vowel duration was easier to learn than closure duration, and that English listeners used both these cues in their judgments of production accuracy.

Vowel Length Contrast and Word-final Stop Deletion in the Phonological Acquisition of English.

Vowel Length Contrast and Word-final Stop Deletion in the Phonological Acquisition of English.

Native Cantonese Listeners' Perception of Word-Final Stops in English and Thai

AbstractThis study examined the discrimination of word-final stop contrasts (/p/-/t/, /p/-/k/, /t/-/k/) in English and Thai by 13 native speakers of Cantonese [C]. The C participants' discrimination accuracy was c ompared to the results previously obtained from two groups of 18 participants (Australian English [AE], Thai [T]) in order to assess the influence of first language (L1) on cross-language speech perception. The second aim was to examine how difference in familiarity with stimulus languages might affect the C participants' discrimination of stop contrasts.Word-final stops in Cantonese and Thai are unreleased whereas they may be released in English. This may enable the C participants to discriminate Thai final stops more accurately than the AE participants, but a lack of familiarity with Thai may keep them from reaching their optimal discrimination accuracy.A discrimination test with an oddity design was used to test participants' discrimination of stop contrasts. The C group did not show an advan...