Calibrating the detection of spontaneous speech: From sentences to noun phrases

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Parker ◽  
Jennifer Pardo
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spontaneous Speech

scholarly journals Variable plural marking in Palenquero Creole

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-315
Author(s):  
Estilita María Cassiani Obeso ◽  
Hiram L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Subject Role ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Spanish Bilinguals

AbstractOne of the most salient putative African features of Palenquero, an Afro-Hispanic creole spoken in northern Colombia, is the prenominal plural marker ma. However, plural number is not categorically marked with ma, which alternates with bare forms in plural contexts and also occurs in singular contexts. In a principled sample of noun phrases (n = 1,186) from the spontaneous speech of twenty-seven Palenquero-Spanish bilinguals, the rate of ma (versus zero) is 51% in plural and 13% in singular contexts. Singular ma is favored with subjects and specific objects, consistent with an association with definiteness. In plural contexts, where it is robust, selection of ma is favored with specific and generic referents in subject role. This conditioning indicates that plural marking is favored for discourse referential nouns, in accordance with the cross-linguistic generalization that morphological marking tends to appear on instances that approach the prototypical function of a category (Hopper & Thompson, 1984).

scholarly journals Acquisition of adjectives in Quebec French as revealed by elicitation data

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHAEDRA ROYLE ◽  
DANIEL VALOIS
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Elicitation Study ◽  
Speech Corpora ◽  
Quebec French ◽  
Early Acquisition

ABSTRACTThis study presents data from an elicitation study on French size and color adjectives in noun phrases (DPs), both early acquired structures. Thirty-two francophone children aged 3–5 years participated in the study. Adjectives were elicited using specially designed puzzles and spontaneous speech corpora. We observed that errors in French variable adjectives are produced in the early acquisition stages, especially in the context of feminine colour DPs. We propose that the source of difficulty for feminine variable adjectives is the retrieval of a lexicalized form that competes with the masculine adjective denoting the same concept.

Syntactic distinctions in child language

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bloom
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
English Word ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
Linguistic Categories ◽  
Syntactic Theories

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a study of young children's understanding of a constraint on English word order, which is that pronouns and proper names cannot be modified by prenominai adjectives. For adults, this is a syntactic constraint: adjectives can only precede nouns, and pronouns and proper names are lexical Noun Phrases (NPs). In two analyses, the spontaneous speech of 14 one- and two-year-old children was studied. These analyses show that even in children's very first word combinations, they almost never say things like big Fred or big he. Some non-syntactic theories of this phenomenon are discussed and found to have serious descriptive problems, supporting the claim that children understand knowledge of word order through rules that order abstract linguistic categories. A theory is proposed as to how children could use semantic information to draw the noun/NP distinction and to acquire this restriction on English word order.

Effects of Gender, Parental Role, and Time on Infant- and Adult-Directed Read and Spontaneous Speech

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (11) ◽  
pp. 4001-4014
Author(s):  
Melanie Weirich ◽  
Adrian Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Parental Involvement ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
First Year ◽  
Space Size ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Description Task

Purpose The study sets out to investigate inter- and intraspeaker variation in German infant-directed speech (IDS) and considers the potential impact that the factors gender, parental involvement, and speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech) may have. In addition, we analyze data from 3 time points prior to and after the birth of the child to examine potential changes in the features of IDS and, particularly also, of adult-directed speech (ADS). Here, the gender identity of a speaker is considered as an additional factor. Method IDS and ADS data from 34 participants (15 mothers, 19 fathers) is gathered by means of a reading and a picture description task. For IDS, 2 recordings were made when the baby was approximately 6 and 9 months old, respectively. For ADS, an additional recording was made before the baby was born. Phonetic analyses comprise mean fundamental frequency (f0), variation in f0, the 1st 2 formants measured in /i: ɛ a u:/, and the vowel space size. Moreover, social and behavioral data were gathered regarding parental involvement and gender identity. Results German IDS is characterized by an increase in mean f0, a larger variation in f0, vowel- and formant-specific differences, and a larger acoustic vowel space. No effect of gender or parental involvement was found. Also, the phonetic features of IDS were found in both spontaneous and read speech. Regarding ADS, changes in vowel space size in some of the fathers and in mean f0 in mothers were found. Conclusion Phonetic features of German IDS are robust with respect to the factors gender, parental involvement, speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech), and time. Some phonetic features of ADS changed within the child's first year depending on gender and parental involvement/gender identity. Thus, further research on IDS needs to address also potential changes in ADS.

Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Naturalness in Speakers of Varying Gender Identities

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2054-2069
Author(s):  
Brandon Merritt ◽  
Tessa Bent
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Rating Task ◽  
Gender Identification ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Perceptual Evaluation ◽  
Speech Training ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Speech Naturalness

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how speech naturalness relates to masculinity–femininity and gender identification (accuracy and reaction time) for cisgender male and female speakers as well as transmasculine and transfeminine speakers. Method Stimuli included spontaneous speech samples from 20 speakers who are transgender (10 transmasculine and 10 transfeminine) and 20 speakers who are cisgender (10 male and 10 female). Fifty-two listeners completed three tasks: a two-alternative forced-choice gender identification task, a speech naturalness rating task, and a masculinity/femininity rating task. Results Transfeminine and transmasculine speakers were rated as significantly less natural sounding than cisgender speakers. Speakers rated as less natural took longer to identify and were identified less accurately in the gender identification task; furthermore, they were rated as less prototypically masculine/feminine. Conclusions Perceptual speech naturalness for both transfeminine and transmasculine speakers is strongly associated with gender cues in spontaneous speech. Training to align a speaker's voice with their gender identity may concurrently improve perceptual speech naturalness. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12543158

Functional Spontaneous Speech Phenomena

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-20
Author(s):  
Jean E. Fox Tree
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document