scholarly journals Vowel duration, vowel quality, and perceptual compensation

1979 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tore Janson
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality

scholarly journals Shared Vowels in English Loanwords in Arabic: Variation in Similarity-Based Adaptation

2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Sound ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Vowel Systems ◽  
Saudi Arabic ◽  
Vowel Height

This paper investigates vowel adaptation in English-based loanwords by a group of Saudi Arabic speakers, concentrating exclusively on shared vowels between the two languages. It examines 5 long vowels shared by the two vowel systems in terms of vowel quality and vowel duration in loanword productions by 22 participants and checks them against the properties of the same vowels in native words. To this end, the study performs an acoustic analysis of 660 tokens (loan and native vowel sounds) through Praat to measure the first two formants (F1: vowel height and F2: vowel advancement) of each vowel sound at two temporal points of time (T1: the vowel onset and T2: the peak of the vowel) as well as a durational analysis to examine vowel length. It reports that measurements of the first two formants of vowels in native words appear to be stable during the two temporal points while values of the same vowel sounds occurring in loanwords are fluctuating from T1 to T2 and that durational differences exist between loanword vowels in comparison with vowels of native words in such a way that vowels in native words are longer in duration than the same vowels appearing in loanwords.

scholarly journals Effects of Surprisal and Entropy on Vowel Duration in Japanese

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A. Shaw ◽  
Shigeto Kawahara
Keyword(s):  
Shannon Entropy ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
Word Duration ◽  
Communicative Efficiency ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
Positive Effect

Research on English and other languages has shown that syllables and words that contain more information tend to be produced with longer duration. This research is evolving into a general thesis that speakers articulate linguistic units with more information more robustly. While this hypothesis seems plausible from the perspective of communicative efficiency, previous support for it has come mainly from English and some other Indo-European languages. Moreover, most previous studies focus on global effects, such as the interaction of word duration and sentential/semantic predictability. The current study is focused at the level of phonotactics, exploring the effects of local predictability on vowel duration in Japanese, using the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese. To examine gradient consonant-vowel phonotactics within a consonant–vowel-mora, consonant-conditioned Surprisal and Shannon Entropy were calculated, and their effects on vowel duration were examined, together with other linguistic factors that are known from previous research to affect vowel duration. Results show significant effects of both Surprisal and Entropy, as well as notable interactions with vowel length and vowel quality. The effect of Entropy is stronger on peripheral vowels than on central vowels. Surprisal has a stronger positive effect on short vowels than on long vowels. We interpret the main patterns and the interactions by conceptualizing Surprisal as an index of motor fluency and Entropy as an index of competition in vowel selection.

scholarly journals Prosodic disambiguation of noun/verb homophones in child-directed speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 734-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERIN CONWELL
Keyword(s):  
Quality Measures ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Pitch Change ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Natural Child

AbstractOne strategy that children might use to sort words into grammatical categories such asnounandverbisdistributional bootstrapping, in which local co-occurrence information is used to distinguish between categories. Words that can be used in more than one grammatical category could be problematic for this approach. Using naturalistic corpus data, this study asks whether noun and verb uses of ambiguous words might differ prosodically as a function of their grammatical category in child-directed speech. The results show that noun and verb uses of ambiguous words in sentence-medial positions do differ from one another in terms of duration, vowel duration, pitch change, and vowel quality measures. However, sentence-final tokens are not different as a function of the category in which they were used. The availability of prosodic cues to category in natural child-directed speech could allow learners using a distributional bootstrapping approach to avoid conflating grammatical categories.

Stylistic Variation in Heritage Spanish Vowel Production

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ronquest
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Vowel Production ◽  
Stylistic Variation ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Space Expansion ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish ◽  
Expansion Effect

While recent studies of Spanish vowels produced by heritage speakers of Spanish (HSS) have revealed important differences in acoustic distribution and unstressed vowel reduction in comparison to monolingual norms (Alvord & Rogers, 2014; Boomershine, 2012; Ronquest, 2013; Willis, 2005), the influence of speech style on vowels produced by HSS remains relatively unexplored. Previous research examining stylistic variation in monolingual and bilingual varieties of Spanish report vowel space expansion in controlled speech relative to spontaneous speech (Alvord & Rogers, 2014; Harmegnies & Poch-Olivé, 1992; Poch-Olivé, Harmegnies, & Martín Butragueño, 2008) and increased vowel duration (Bradlow, 2002), although many of these studies included a small number of participants or did not examine the entire vowel system. The present investigation extends previous research by including a larger number of speakers and three novel tasks, as well as examining the effects of style on both quality and duration throughout the system as a whole. Acoustic and statistical analyses confirmed an overall vowel space expansion effect in controlled speech similar to that reported in previous studies, although not all vowels varied equally and along the same dimensions. Furthermore, vowel duration exhibited less variation than expected and was limited to the lowest vowels, suggesting that vowel quality and duration may be affected independently of one another. Combined, the general results not only reveal that speech style has a similar impact on vowels produced by HSS and other bilingual and monolingual populations, but also emphasize the importance of analyzing the entire vowel system on multiple dimensions.

The phonetics of code-switched vowels

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasia Muldner ◽  
Leah Hoiting ◽  
Leyna Sanger ◽  
Lev Blumenfeld ◽  
Ida Toivonen
Keyword(s):  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Switching Method ◽  
Target Words

Aims and Objectives: This study investigates the effects of code-switching on vowel quality, pitch and duration among English–French bilinguals. Code-switching has been claimed to influence the morphology, syntax and lexicon, but not the phonology of the switched language. However, studies on voice-onset time have found subtle phonetic effects of code-switching, even though there are no categorical phonological effects. We investigate this further through the following three questions: (1) Are F1 and F2 influenced in the process of code-switching? (2) Are code-switched words hyper-articulated? (3) Does code-switching have an effect on vowel duration before voiced and voiceless consonants? Methodology: To address our research questions we relied on an insertional switching method where words from one language were inserted into carrier phrases of the other to simulate English–French code-switching environments. Bilingual speakers were recorded while they read code-switched sentences as well as sentences that did not involve code-switching, that is, monolingual sentences. Data and Analysis: The vowels of target words in the recorded utterances were compared – code-switched contexts against monolingual contexts – for vocalic duration, F0, F1 and F2. Findings/Conclusions: Like previous voice-onset time studies, our results indicate that code-switching does not shift the phonology to that of the embedded language. We did, however, find subtle lower level phonetic effects, especially in the French target words; we also found evidence of hyper-articulation in code-switched words. At the prosodic level, target switch-words approached the prosodic contours of the carrier phrases they are embedded in. Originality: The approach taken in this study is novel for its investigation of vowel properties instead of voice-onset time. Significance: This new approach to investigating code-switching adds to our understanding of how code-switching affects pronunciation.

scholarly journals Ternary vowel length in Shilluk

Phonology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-125
Author(s):  
Bert Remijsen ◽  
Otto Gwado Ayoker ◽  
Signe Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Mean Values ◽  
Acoustic Study ◽  
The Mean

Ternary or three-level vowel length is typologically rare, and supporting evidence is limited. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the hypothesised case of this configuration in Shilluk. We first describe the role of vowel length in Shilluk phonology and morphology, and then report on an acoustic study in which minimal sets for vowel length (short, long, overlong) are measured for vowel duration, coda duration, vowel quality and fundamental frequency. Short, long and overlong vowels differ significantly and substantially in terms of vowel duration: 96% of the items can be classified successfully for vowel length on the basis of this measurement alone. Of the other measurements, only vowel quality is significant, and this effect is considerably smaller. The mean values for vowel duration – 68, 111 and 150 ms for short, long and overlong vowels respectively – are similar to those reported for ternary vowel length in Dinka.

scholarly journals Context of learning and second language development of Spanish vowels

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avizia Y. Long ◽  
Megan Solon ◽  
Silvina Bongiovanni
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Home Group ◽  
Second Language Development ◽  
Studying Abroad ◽  
Home Context ◽  
Context Of Learning ◽  
Study Abroad Program ◽  
At Home

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.

Phonation types in production of phonological tone: the case of Green Mong

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 37-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean E. Andruski ◽  
Martha Ratliff
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Discriminant Functions ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
Discriminant Analyses ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
High Vowels

This study looks at the relative importance of phonation type in identifying tones in languages with a ‘mixed’ pitch/phonation tone system. Green Mong is a tone language with an inventory of 7 contrastive tones and a tonal system that incorporates both fundamental frequency (FO) and phonation type distinctions. The study examines 3 Green Mong tones, which have similar FO contours and are characterized by the distinctive use of breathy, creaky and modal phonation. Acoustic analyses of 3 male and 3 female speakers' productions indicate that the tones are distinguished by their FO, relative amplitude of lower and higher harmonics (H1-H2), vowel duration, vowel quality and voice onset times. Discriminant analyses, used to estimate the relative value of these different cues, indicate that H1-H2 is the best predictor of tone category membership. This is the case for both high and low vowels, although the magnitude of the H1-H2 difference is substantially smaller for high vowels. The 2 predictor variables which are next most strongly correlated with the discriminant functions also relate to phonation type. However, FO does continue to play a role in classification of tokens into tone categories.

Bulgarian Speech Rhythm: Stress-Timed or Syllable-Timed?

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 27-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Snezhina Dimitrova
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Work ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Intermediate Position ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
And Function

Experimental work on Bulgarian speech rhythm has failed to determine which of the two “traditional” rhythmic categories the language belongs to. Using the model put forward by Dauer (1987), the present paper attempts to characterise the rhythm of Bulgarian in scalar rather than in dichotomous terms. For such an assessment, six of the components proposed by Dauer are relevant. Bulgarian is assigned two pluses (for intonation and function of accent), two zeros (for vowel duration and vowel quality) and two minuses (for syllable structure and consonant quality). According to the model, the more pluses a language has, the more likely it is that this language is “stress-timed”. From the relative rhythm “score” obtained for Bulgarian one can predict that, on a scale of rhythm, the language will occupy an intermediate position. This accounts for the contradictory conclusions reached in earlier studies. Dauer's model thus provides a useful starting point for a study of the rhythm of a given language, but it can be further improved, for example by adding zero marks for some of the components.

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