scholarly journals Prosodic vowel lengthening in a spontaneous speech corpus of Vimeu Picard

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-88
Author(s):  
Eric Halicki
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Speech Corpus ◽  
General Increase ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
Rate Of Speech ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
Phonological Phrase

Abstract The goal of this paper is to present findings about vowel lengthening at morpho-syntactically defined prosodic boundaries. The data come from a corpus of spontaneous speech from Vimeu Picard, a Gallo- Romance language. A total of 10 672 vowel durations are measured, and 5336 vowel ratios are calculated, providing data for the prosodic word, clitic group, phonological phrase, intonational phrase, and the utterance. A general increase in vowel duration is observed as one ascends the prosodic hierarchy, without adjusting for rate of speech. Significant differences in vowel ratio are found between the clitic group and all other phrases, the prosodic word and the intonational phrase, the phonological phrase and the intonational phrase, and the intonational phrase and the utterance. Contrary to what was expected, vowel ratios at the utterance edge were found to be significantly shorter than vowel ratios at the intonational phrase edge. This may be because pauses are greater for the utterance than for the intonational phrase.

Temporal Characteristics of Speech in Simultaneous Communication

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 1014-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Whitehead ◽  
Nicholas Schiavetti ◽  
Brenda H. Whitehead ◽  
Dale Evan Metz
Keyword(s):  
Pause Duration ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Temporal Characteristics ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Temporal Features ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Word Duration ◽  
Rate Of Speech ◽  
Speech Condition

The purpose of this investigation was twofold: (a) to determine if there are changes in specific temporal characteristics of speech that occur during simultaneous communication, and (b) to determine if known temporal rules of spoken English are disrupted during simultaneous communication. Ten speakers uttered sentences consisting of a carrier phrase and experimental CVC words under conditions of: (a) speech, (b) speech combined with signed English, and (c) speech combined with signed English for every word except the CVC word that was fingerspelled. The temporal features investigated included: (a) sentence duration, (b) experimental CVC word duration, (c) vowel duration in experimental CVC words, (d) pause duration before and after experimental CVC words, and (e) consonantal effects on vowel duration. Results indicated that for all durational measures, the speech/sign/fingerspelling condition was longest, followed by the speech/sign condition, with the speech condition being shortest. It was also found that for all three speaking conditions, vowels were longer in duration when preceding voiced consonants than vowels preceding their voiceless cognates, and that a low vowel was longer in duration than a high vowel. These findings indicate that speakers consistently reduced their rate of speech when using simultaneous communication, but did not violate these specific temporal rules of English important for consonant and vowel perception.

The Medium and the Message

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
Special Stress ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Phonological Phrase ◽  
The Relationship

In natural communication, the medium through which language is transmitted plays an important and systematic role. Sentences are broken up rhythmically into chunks; certain elements receive special stress; and, in spoken language, intonational tunes are superimposed onto these chunks in particular ways — all resulting in an intricate system of prosody. Investigations of prosody in Israeli Sign Language demonstrate that sign languages have comparable prosodic systems to those of spoken languages, although the phonetic medium is completely different. Evidence for the prosodic word and for the phonological phrase in ISL is examined here within the context of the relationship between the medium and the message. New evidence is offered to support the claim that facial expression in sign languages corresponds to intonation in spoken languages, and the term “superarticulation” is coined to describe this system in sign languages. Interesting formaldiffer ences between the intonationaltunes of spoken language and the “superarticulatory arrays” of sign language are shown to offer a new perspective on the relation between the phonetic basis of language, its phonological organization, and its communicative content.

scholarly journals UNPREPARED READING AS A TYPE OF SPONTANEOUS SPEECH (on Signs of Spontaneity in Reading in a Non-Native Language)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-46
Author(s):  
Сhunxia Kong ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Language ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Speech Corpus ◽  
Integral Characteristics ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Whole Word

The article discusses unprepared reading in a non-native language and shows it to have all the signs of spontaneity that are traditionally considered integral characteristics of any spontaneous speech: hesitation pauses, both physical (ɭ) and filled with non-speech sounds (uh, m-m), word breaks, reading the whole word or part of it by syllables, vocalization of a consonant, and so forth. The material for the analysis included 40 monologues of reading the story by M. Zoshchenko Fantasy Shirt and a non-plot excerpt from V. Korolenko’s story The Blind Musician recorded from 20 Chinese informants. All the monologues are included in the block of Russian interfering speech of the Chinese as part of the monologic speech corpus Ba­lanced Annotated Text Library. As the analysis showed, it is more often that there is not one sign of spontaneity but a whole complex of such signs, and together they fill hesitation pauses, help the speaker to control the quality of speech or correct what was said, etc. In addition, the occurrence of various signs of spontaneity in the course of unprepared reading is closely related to the individual characteristics of the speaker/reader. In general, we have found that there are more signs of spontaneity in the speech of men (3,244 cases; 40.7 %) than in the speech of women (2,049; 27.7 %), in the speech of informants with a lower level of proficiency in Russian B2 (2,993; 37.9 %) than in the speech of informants with a higher level C1 (2,300; 30.8 %), in the speech of extroverts (1,521; 38 %) than in the speech of ambiverts (1,694; 35,2 %) and introverts (2,078; 31,7 %). As to the type of the source text, there turned out to be more signs of spontaneity in monologues of reading a plot text than in monologues of reading a non-plot text (3,031; 40.3 vs 2,283; 31 %). The paper concludes that reading should be recognized as a spontaneous type of speech activity.

scholarly journals Configuraciones tonales de frases entonativas en enunciados aseverativos del español de la Ciudad de México

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-141
Author(s):  
Alberto Rodríguez Márquez
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
The Other ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Speech Corpus ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Speech Data ◽  
Intonational Phrases

The objective of this paper is to describe the prosodic features of the final intonation contour of minor intonational phrases (ip) and the tonemes of major intonational phrases (IP) in Mexico City’s Spanish variety. The speech data was taken from a spontaneous speech corpus made from speakers from two social networks: neighborhood and labor. Final intonation contours of ip show a predominantly rising movement. These contours are generally produced with greater length in the last syllable of the ip, which represents the most significant difference between both networks in the case of oxitone endings. On the other hand, tonemes are predominantly descendant, although the circumflex accent has an important number of cases within the data set. Tonemes produced by the neighborhood network are produced with larger length than those from the labor network.

Phonetic marking of stance in a collaborative-task spontaneous-speech corpus

2014 ◽  
Vol 135 (4) ◽  
pp. 2295-2295
Author(s):  
Valerie Freeman ◽  
Gina A. Levow ◽  
Richard Wright
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Speech Corpus ◽  
Collaborative Task

Deaccenting in Spontaneous Speech in Barcelona Spanish

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajiv Rao
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Speech Data ◽  
Phonological Phrase ◽  
Pitch Movement

AbstractRecent literature on Spanish intonation assumes that deaccenting occurs when a lexical item fails to cue stress via an F0 rise or some other pitch movement through its stressed syllable. Inspired by the findings and suggestions for future research by Face (2003), the present study fills in research gaps by examining seven potential influences on deaccenting, working with spontaneous speech, and addressing the understudied Barcelona dialect of Spanish. The analysis of 160-170 minutes of spontaneous speech data collected at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona reveals that the odds of deaccenting increase in words that are high frequency in Spanish, have fewer syllables, are verbs or adverbs, are uttered multiple times within a recent timeframe, or are in initial or medial positions of the phonological phrase. Finally, high frequency verbs and adverbs, as well as adverbs, nouns, and verbs with fewer syllables are all especially prone to deaccenting.

The Foot is not an obligatory constituent of the Prosodic Hierarchy: “stress” in Turkish, French and child English

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Öner Özçelik
Keyword(s):  
Regular Word ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Opposite Edge ◽  
Early Child ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
Foot Structure ◽  
Edge Stress ◽  
Phonological Phrase

AbstractThis paper proposes that the presence/absence of the Foot is parametric; that is, contra much previous research (see e. g. Selkirk, Elisabeth (1995). Sentence prosody: intonation, stress and phrasing. In J. Goldsmith (ed.)The handbook of phonological theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. 550–569., Vogel, Irene (2009). Universals of prosodic structure. In S. Scalise, E. Magni, & A. Bisetto (eds.)Universals of language today. Dordrecht: Springer. 59–82.), it is argued here that the Foot is not a universal constituent of the Prosodic Hierarchy; rather, some languages, such as Turkish and French, as well as early child languages, are footless. Several types of evidence are presented in support of this proposal, from both Turkish and French, as well as child English. A comparison of regular (word-final) and exceptional stress in Turkish reveals, for example, that regular “stress” is intonational prominence falling on the last syllable of prosodic words in the absence of foot structure. Both acoustic and formal evidence are presented in support of this proposal, as well as evidence from syntax-prosody interface. The paper also presents evidence for the footless status of French, which, unlike Turkish, is proposed to be completely footless. Several arguments are presented in support of this position, such as the fact that, in French, the domain of obligatory prominence is the Phonological Phrase (PPh), not the Prosodic Word (PWd); in a PPh consisting of several PWds, therefore, nonfinal PWds can surface without any kind of stress or prominence, suggesting that, at least for non-final PWds, one cannot assume stress or foot structure. Finally, the proposal is extended to additional languages, such as those demonstrating Default-to-Opposite Edge stress.

scholarly journals In which Clause do Subordinate Conjunctions Prosodically Belong?

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-224
Author(s):  
Zuzana Komrsková ◽  
Petra Poukarová
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
Functional Differences

Abstract This paper deals with the position of three Czech subordinating conjunctions že ’that’, když ‘when’, and až ‘when’ within the prosodic word, using the phonetic annotation in the ORTOFON corpus. The position of subordinating conjunctions is traditionally described as initial within the subordinate clause, but the situation in spontaneous speech is not so clear. This paper shows the functional differences between the various positions within the prosodic word and presents the words which are most frequently combined with the selected conjunctions.

scholarly journals Vowel duration and the voicing effect across English dialects

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Tanner ◽  
Morgan Sonderegger ◽  
Jane Stuart-Smith ◽  
SPADE Data Consortium
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Extreme Values ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Connected Speech ◽  
Expected Effect ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Wide Range

The ‘voicing effect’ – the durational difference in vowels preceding voiced and voiceless consonants – is a well-documented phenomenon in English, where it plays a key role in the production and perception of the English final voicing contrast. Despite this supposed importance, little is known as to how robust this effect is in spontaneous connected speech, which is itself subject to a range of linguistic factors. Similarly, little attention has focused on variability in the voicing effect across dialects of English, bar analysis of specific varieties. Our findings show that the voicing of the following consonant exhibits a weaker-than-expected effect in spontaneous speech, interacting with manner, vowel height, speech rate, and word frequency. English dialects appear to demonstrate a continuum of potential voicing effect sizes, where varieties with dialect-specific phonological rules exhibit the most extreme values. The results suggest that the voicing effect in English is both substantially weaker than previously assumed in spontaneous connected speech, and subject to a wide range of dialectal variability.

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