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.

Our words matter: acceptability, grammaticality, and ethics of research on singular 'they'-type pronouns

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Marie Ackerman
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Experimental Work ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Singular Form ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ethics Of Research ◽  
Formal Properties

Until now, there has been little experimental work investigating the processing and formal properties of the singular they suite of pronouns. As scientific and popular attention to singular they increases, it will be critical for research to acknowledge theoretical and ethical issues regarding discussion of this phenomenon. This commentary uses the recent paper by Doherty & Conklin (2017) as a starting point to discuss issues surrounding work on the various forms of singular they. It concludes that there is sufficient theoretical and empirical evidence to claim they has a grammatically singular form (at least in colloquial English). It also recommends care be taken in academic discussions of the grammaticality and acceptability of terms which are associated with marginalised communities.

Acoustic and Kinematic Correlates of Heterosyllabicity in Different Phonological Contexts

2022 ◽  
pp. 002383092110657
Author(s):  
Chiara Celata ◽  
Chiara Meluzzi ◽  
Chiara Bertini
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Structure Data ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Phonological Contrast ◽  
Consonant Gemination ◽  
Production Dynamics ◽  
Kinematic Properties

We investigate the temporal and kinematic properties of consonant gemination and heterosyllabic clusters as opposed to singletons and tautosyllabic clusters in Italian. The data show that the singleton versus geminate contrast is conveyed by specific kinematic properties in addition to systematic durational differences in both the consonantal and vocalic intervals; by contrast, tautosyllabic and heterosyllabic clusters differ significantly for the duration of the consonantal interval but do not vary systematically with respect to the vocalic interval and cannot be consistently differentiated at the kinematic level. We conclude that systematic variations in acoustic vowel duration and the kinematics of tongue tip gestures represent the phonetic correlates of the segmental phonological contrast between short and long consonants, rather than of syllable structure. Data are only partly consistent with the predictions of both moraic and gesture-based models of the syllable about the effects of syllable structure on speech production dynamics and call for a more gradient view of syllabification.

scholarly journals Measures of speech rhythm and the role of corpus-based word frequency: a multifactorial comparison of Spanish(-English) speakers

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Harris ◽  
Stefan Th. Gries
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Binary Logistic Regression ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Multiple Metrics ◽  
Main Effects ◽  
The Impact

In this study, we address various measures that have been employed to distinguish between syllable and stress- timed languages. This study differs from all previous ones by (i) exploring and comparing multiple metrics within a quantitative and multifactorial perspective and by (ii) also documenting the impact of corpus-based word frequency. We begin with the basic distinctions of speech rhythms, dealing with the differences between syllable-timed languages and stress-timed languages and several methods that have been used to attempt to distinguish between the two. We then describe how these metrics were used in the current study comparing the speech rhythms of Mexican Spanish speakers and bilingual English/Spanish speakers (speakers born to Mexican parents in California). More specifically, we evaluate how well various metrics of vowel duration variability as well as the so far understudied factor of corpus-based frequency allow to classify speakers as monolingual or bilingual. A binary logistic regression identifies several main effects and interactions. Most importantly, our results call the utility of a particular rhythm metric, the PVI, into question and indicate that corpus data in the form of lemma frequencies interact with two metrics of durational variability, suggesting that durational variability metrics should ideally be studied in conjunction with corpus-based frequency data.

Interarticulator Coordination in Dysarthria

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 1247-1261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Weismer ◽  
Yana Yunusova ◽  
John R. Westbury
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Experimental Work ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Global Synchronization ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Acoustic Target ◽  
Temporal Location ◽  
Lateral Sclerosis

Articulatory discoordination is often said to be an important feature of the speech production disorder in dysarthria, but little experimental work has been done to identify and specify the coordination difficulties. The present study evaluated the coordination of labial and lingual gestures for /u/ production in persons with Parkinson's disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and in control participants. Both tongue backing/raising and reduction of the area enclosed by the lips can produce the characteristic low F2 of /u/. The timing of these articulatory gestures with respect to the acoustic target of a low F2 was inferred from X-ray microbeam data. Pellet motions of the tongue dorsum and lips revealed the timing of the lingual and labial gestures to be strongly linked together (synchronized), predictive of the temporal location of the lowest F2 within the vocalic nucleus, and scaled proportionately to the overall vowel duration in control participants. Somewhat surprisingly, essentially the same findings were obtained in the speakers with dysarthria. These relationships were noisier among the speakers with dysarthria, but the global synchronization patterns applied to all 3 groups. Further analyses revealed the synchronization to be less well defined and more variable across speakers with ALS, as compared to speakers with PD and the controls. Results are discussed relative to concepts of coordination in dysarthria.

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.

History Undone: Towards a Deleuzo-Guattarian Philosophy of History

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-119
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Work ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
First Line ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Antonio Negri ◽  
The Way

For those familiar with the work of Deleuze, and Deleuze and Guattari, it might at first seem unwise to pursue a Deleuze and Guattarian philosophy of history. After all, is it not Deleuze who, in an interview with Antonio Negri, argues that ‘What history grasps in an event is the way it’s actualized in particular circumstances; the event's becoming is beyond the scope of history'? (Deleuze 1995 : 170). And more damningly, Deleuze adds, ‘History isn’t experimental, it's just the set of more or less negative preconditions that make it possible to experiment with something beyond history' (Deleuze 1995 : 170). History, in short, is a starting point for experimental work, but it is precisely history ‘that one leaves behind in order to “become,” that is, to create something new’ (1995: 171). Similarly in A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that ‘History is made by those who oppose history (not by those who insert themselves into it, or even reshape it)’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987 : 295). In the very first line of his book, Lampert recognizes the possible conclusion these citations might lead one to, namely, ‘Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of becoming seems at times opposed to the very idea of historical succession' (1); and yet, as Lampert adeptly demonstrates, it would be a mistake to conclude that opposing history to ‘create something new’, ‘something beyond history’, necessarily entails being hostile to history, to the ‘idea of historical succession’, and thus to a philosophy of history.

English Speech Rhythm: Form and Function in Everyday Verbal Interaction

Language ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 663
Author(s):  
David Deterding ◽  
Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Interaction ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
And Function

Duration of syllable nuclei in Spanish

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-280
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Aldrich ◽  
Miquel Simonet
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Consonant Cluster ◽  
Articulatory Phonology ◽  
Using Data

AbstractIn many languages, vowel duration is modulated by syllable structure — a phenomenon known asvowel compression— so that vowels are shorter in syllables with more segments than in syllables with fewer segments. Most instrumental evidence to date has reported an effect, in many languages, of the presence (and complexity) of a coda, and some studies have also documented effects of the presence (and complexity) of an onset. However, no prior studies on Spanish vowel duration have captured any effects of syllable structure. Using data from nine speakers and controlled speech materials, the present study addresses the following research question: Does syllable structure modulate vowel duration? The findings are as follows: (a) Relative to simplex onsets (those with a singleton consonant), complex onsets (those with a consonant cluster) trigger vowel compression; and (b) neither simplex nor complex codas consistently drive vowel compression — i.e. codas do not systematically affect vowel duration. Together with the facts for other languages, our findings support a view according to which syllable structure — in particular,onsetcomplexity — modulates acoustic vowel duration. The study discusses the theoretical implications of this finding, which are argued to be in line with some of the principles of the Articulatory Phonology framework or, alternatively, suggest that codas should not be considered part of the articulatory syllable.

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