1. |
- Agwuele, Augustine, et al.
(author)
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The Effect of Speaking Rate on Consonant Vowel Coarticulation
- 2008
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 1423-0321 .- 0031-8388. ; 65:4, s. 194-209
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In 2007 Lindblom et al. introduced a methodological tool to disentangle consonant-vowel (CV) coarticulation attributable to emphatic stress apart from the vowel expansion effects known to accompany the prosodic overlay. After empirically accounting for the altered vowel positions, they reported small but consistent increases in F2 transition onsets in emphatically produced CVs that could not be attributed to vowel context influences, and that differed across stop place. At issue is whether the findings of these authors can be replicated, but in the opposite direction, for CVs produced at fast speaking rates. A modified locus equation regression metric was similarly used to account for rate-induced vowel reduction effects in predicting frequencies of F2 transition onsets in rapid speech. Six American-English speakers produced [V1.CV2] sequences embedded in a carrier sentence, at three speaking tempos: normal, fast, and fastest. Significant differences were found between ‘predicted’ and ‘observed’ F2 onsets across stops, with alveolars and velars showing greater decreases in F2 onsets during more rapid speech than labials. The complementary findings are discussed relative to a unified view of anticipatory coarticulation in CV production across a continuum of hyperarticulated spectral expansion to hypoarticulated spectral reduction.
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2. |
- Ambrazaitis, Gilbert
(author)
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Between Fall and Fall-Rise : Substance-Function Relations in German Phrase-Final Intonation Contours
- 2005
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In: Phonetica. - Basel : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 1423-0321 .- 0031-8388. ; 62:2-4, s. 196-214
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study investigates an intonation contour of German whose status has not been established yet: a globally falling contour with a slight rise at the very end of the phrase (FSR). The contour may be said to lie on a phonetic continuum between falling (F) and falling-rising (FR) contours. It is hypothesized that F, FR and FSR differ with respect to their communicative functions: F is terminal, FR is non-terminal, and FSR is pseudo-terminal, respectively. The hypotheses were tested in two steps. First, measurements in a labelled corpus of spontaneous speech provided the necessary background information on the phonetics of the contours. In the second step, the general hypothesis was approached in a perceptual experiment using the paradigm of a semantic differential: 49 listeners judged 17 systematically generated stimuli on nine semantic scales, such as ‘impolite/polite’. The hypotheses were generally confirmed. Both F and FSR were associated with a conclusive statement, while FR was more likely to be judged as marking a question. FSR differs from F in that it does not express features such as categoricalness, dominance or impoliteness. The results are interpreted as an instance of the frequency code: the addition of a slight rise means avoidance of extremely low F0; the functional consequence is a reduction of communicated dominance.
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3. |
- Anikin, Andrey
(author)
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A moan of pleasure should be breathy : The effect of voice quality on the meaning of human nonverbal vocalizations
- 2020
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0031-8388 .- 1423-0321. ; 77:5, s. 327-349
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Prosodic features, such as intonation and voice intensity, have a well-documented role in communicating emotion, but less is known about the role of laryngeal voice quality in speech and particularly in nonverbal vocalizations such as laughs and moans. Potentially, however, variations in voice quality between tense and breathy may convey rich information about the speaker’s physiological and affective state. In this study breathiness was manipulated in synthetic human nonverbal vocalizations by adjusting the relative strength of upper harmonics and aspiration noise. In experiment 1 (28 prototypes × 3 manipulations = 84 sounds), otherwise identical vocalizations with tense versus breathy voice quality were associated with higher arousal (general alertness), higher dominance, and lower valence (unpleasant states). Ratings on discrete emotions in experiment 2 (56 × 3 = 168 sounds) confirmed that breathiness was reliably associated with positive emotions, particularly in ambiguous vocalizations (gasps and moans). The spectral centroid did not fully account for the effect of manipulation, confirming that the perceived change in voice quality was more specific than a general shift in timbral brightness. Breathiness is thus involved in communicating emotion with nonverbal vocalizations, possibly due to changes in low-level auditory salience and perceived vocal effort.
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4. |
- Bye, Patrik, et al.
(author)
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Phonetic Duration, Phonological Quantity and Prosodic Structure in Inari Saami
- 2009
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0031-8388 .- 1423-0321. ; 66:4, s. 199-221
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Inari Saami, an endangered Finno-Ugric language of Northern Finland, is reported to have a three-way surface contrast in consonant length (short, half-long and long). We studied disyllabic words (C)V1CxV2(C) using data from 5 native speakers under two conditions, with short and long preceding vowel, V-1, and found support for the claim that Inari Saami has a ternary contrast in consonant length. The three-way length contrast is more robust following a short V-1. The duration of V-2 correlates negatively with the length of the medial consonant. However, there is one major departure from this pattern. When both V-1 and the medial consonant are long, V-2 is also longer. This finding supports the idea that disyllables of this class differ from the others in their prosodic structure in having two metrical feet rather than one. This interpretation tallies with independent evidence from synchronic morphophonology and the historical development of the prosodic system of Inari Saami. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel
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5. |
- Carlson, Rolf, et al.
(author)
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Gunnar Fant 1920-2009 In Memoriam
- 2009
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0031-8388 .- 1423-0321. ; 66:4, s. 249-250
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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6. |
- Edlund, J., et al.
(author)
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Exploring prosody in interaction control
- 2005
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0031-8388 .- 1423-0321. ; 62:04-feb, s. 215-226
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper investigates prosodic aspects of turn-taking in conversation with a view to improving the efficiency of identifying relevant places at which a machine can legitimately begin to talk to a human interlocutor. It examines the relationship between interaction control, the communicative function of which is to regulate the flow of information between interlocutors, and its phonetic manifestation. Specifically, the listener's perception of such interaction control phenomena is modelled. Algorithms for automatic online extraction of prosodic phenomena liable to be relevant for interaction control, such as silent pauses and intonation patterns, are presented and evaluated in experiments using Swedish map task data. We show that the automatically extracted prosodic features can be used to avoid many of the places where current dialogue systems run the risk of interrupting their users, as well as to identify suitable places to take the turn.
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7. |
- Eklund, Ingegerd, et al.
(author)
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Comparative study of male and female whispered and phonated versions of the long vowels of Swedish
- 1997
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In: Phonetica. - 0031-8388 .- 1423-0321. ; 54:1, s. 1-21
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Confusions in vowel quality and in speaker sex for whispered and phonated versions of the long vowels of Swedish have been analysed. The recognition rate was higher than that obtained in other studies, and this is attributed to the use of real words (letter names). The recognition of vowel quality was observed to interact with that of speaker sex in the whispered versions, but not in the phonated ones. The paper also reports on F0 and the frequency positions of the first three formants, and their dynamics, as well as on the overall spectral shape of the vowels. Intrinsic pitch and the observed upward shift of the lower formants in whispering as well as the spectral level differences agree largely with those found in other languages. Similarities and discrepancies with previous descriptions of the Swedish vowels are discussed.
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8. |
- Gross, Johan, 1982-, et al.
(author)
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Weak Lips? A Possible Merger of /i/ and /y:/ in Gothenburgh
- 2020
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0031-8388 .- 1423-0321. ; 77, s. 268-288
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND/AIMS: This study investigates a possible merger in the early stages between /i:/ and /y:/ among young speakers in Gothenburg, Sweden.METHODS: (1) A large-scale online perception experiment testing listeners' abilities to identify the two vowels and (2) acoustic analysis of 705 vowels from 19 speakers.RESULTS: The perception study shows that listeners classify the horizontally centralized /y:/ as /i:/, both in isolated vowel items and in items containing the full word. This indicates that /y:/ is moving into the perceptual space of /i:/. Listeners also classify the unmerged /y:/ as /i:/ when listening to [y:] in isolation, indicating that lip rounding is a perceptually weak feature, for this centralized vowel, in this variety. The acoustic analysis shows that /i:/ tends to be produced as [ɨ:], and that there is no acoustic difference between /i:/ and /y:/ in measurements correlated with the first two formants, i.e. lip rounding is the most important distinctive feature.CONCLUSION: Results point in the direction of an incipient vowel merger, following a merger-by-approximation model. These results indicate a lack of perceptual strength of an articulatory feature in the disappearing phoneme, namely lip rounding, and the consequent perceptual similarities between the horizontally centralized [ɨ:] and /y:/.
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9. |
- Horne, Merle, et al.
(author)
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Gösta Bruce 1947-2010 In Memoriam
- 2010
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0031-8388 .- 1423-0321. ; 67:4, s. 268-270
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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10. |
- Karlsson, Anastasia, et al.
(author)
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Intonation Adapts to Lexical Tone: The Case of Kammu
- 2012
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In: Phonetica. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 1423-0321 .- 0031-8388. ; 69:1-2, s. 28-47
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, we investigate how lexical tones interact with intonation, using data from the Austroasiatic language Kammu, one of few languages with two dialects whose only major phonological difference is the presence or absence of lexical tones. Northern (and Western) Kammu have developed tones in connection with the merger of voiceless and voiced initial consonants, while the non-tonal Eastern dialect kept the segmental opposition with no tones. We found the following prosodic hierarchy: (1) lexical tones, (2) phrase-final boundary tone, (3) focus marking. The results strongly suggest that the intonational systems of the two Kammu dialects are basically identical, and that the main differences between the dialects are adaptations of intonation patterns to the lexical tones when the identities of the tones are jeopardized.
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