scholarly journals The production of the English stop voicing contrast by Arab L2 speakers of English

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 434-444
Author(s):  
Mohd Hilmi Hamzah ◽  
Ahmed Elsayed Samir Madbouly ◽  
Hasliza Abdul Halim ◽  
Abdul Halim Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Acoustic Parameter ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Phonological Contrast ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Voiceless Stop ◽  
Speech Learning

The English voiceless stop /p/ and voiced stop /ɡ/ are absent in the consonant inventory of Arabic. This difference provides a fertile ground for empirical research in L2 speech learning among Arab L2 speakers of English. The current study, therefore, aims to explore the English stop voicing contrast as produced by Arab native speakers. Focusing on Voice Onset Time (VOT) as an acoustic parameter, the study seeks to examine the extent to which (1) Arab L2 speakers of English maintain the English stop voicing contrast for /p-b/ and /k-ɡ/, and (2) the L2 VOT continuum by Arab L2 speakers follows or deviates from the L1 VOT continuum in English. The acoustic phonetic experiment involved elicited materials of /p-b/ and /k-ɡ/ from four male native speakers of Arabic. The tokens were recorded in isolation (utterance-initial position) and in a carrier sentence (utterance-medial position). The data were then acoustically analysed following standard segmentation, annotation and measurement criteria. Results reveal that the Arab L2 speakers can, to a large extent, maintain the English stop voicing contrast across all places of articulation, with voiced stops usually being produced with “normal” negative VOT (prevoicing) and voiceless stops usually being produced with “normal” positive VOT and also accompanied with aspiration in the long-lag region. There are also exceptional cases of “abnormal” negative VOT (prevoicing) for voiceless stops and “abnormal” positive VOT (devoicing) for voiced stops, with an extremely larger number of devoiced tokens for voiced stops in comparison to prevoiced tokens for voiceless stops. The results accord well with the Speech Learning Model’s prediction that phonetically “new” sounds are relatively easier to learn than phonetically “similar” sounds. The conclusion is drawn that languages sharing the same sound contrast may exhibit different phonetic implementations in marking a phonological contrast.

Acquisition of the Voicing Contrast by Language-Delayed and Normal-Speaking Children

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. S. Bond ◽  
Howard F. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Normal Speaking

Voicing is a phonological contrast which emerges early in the speech of children. However, the acoustic correlates of the voicing contrast for stop consonants are fairly complex. In the initial position, voicing is cued primarily by the relative timing of articulatory versus laryngeal gestures. In the final position, the duration of the preceding vowel is associated with the voicing contrast of stop consonants. The purpose of this study was to examine the pattern of acquisition of the voicing contrast in the speech of ten children diagnosed as language-delayed in comparison with the acquisition of the voicing contrast by normal speaking children. The language-delayed and normal-speaking children were matched according to mean length of utterance (MLU) and placed in one of Brown's five developmental stages. Each participant was first given a short test, using natural speech, to determine his or her ability to identify minimal pairs differing in the voicing of stop consonants. Those who passed the test were recorded under standard recording conditions repeating 12 test words. The test words contrasted voiced and voiceless stop consonants in initial and final positions. Spectrograms of the three best productions of each word were used to examine voice-onset time for stops in initial position and preceding vowel duration for stops in final position. Although the language-delayed and normal-speaking children showed equivalent linguistic sophistication (as measured by MLU), the language-delayed children's control of the acoustic-phonetic details of the voicing contrast was less mature than that of the normal-speaking children.

The Effects of Fundamental Frequency Level on Voice Onset Time in Normal Adult Male Speakers

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 1013-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. McCrea ◽  
Richard J. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Adult Male ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Normal Adult ◽  
Frequency Level ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Voiceless Stop

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of fundamental frequency (F 0 ) on stop consonant voice onset time (VOT). VOT was measured from the recordings of 56 young men reading phrases containing all 6 English voiced and voiceless stops in word-initial position across high-, medium-, and low-F 0 levels. Separate analyses of variance for the voiced and voiceless stops revealed no significant main effect for F 0 for the voiced stops but a significant F 0 effect for the voiceless stops. Across the voiceless stops, productions at high F 0 s displayed significantly shorter VOTs than productions at low or mid F 0 s. The findings indicated that researchers must take into account the F 0 level at which voiceless stop VOT is measured.

The acquisition of the voicing contrast in Spanish: a phonetic and phonological study of word-initial stop consonants

1980 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlys A. Macken ◽  
David Barton
Keyword(s):  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Instrumental Analysis ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
Phonological Knowledge ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Spanish Word ◽  
Voiceless Stop

ABSTRACTThis paper reports on the acquisition of the voicing contrast in Mexican–Spanish word-initial stops. In Study 1, three monolingual children were recorded every two weeks for seven months, beginning when the children were about 1; 7. In Study 2, four monolingual children about 3; 10 were recorded once or twice. Two analyses were done. Instrumental analysis of the stop productions revealed that not even by age 3; 10 were the children consistently distinguishing between voiced–voiceless stop cognate pairs on the basis of adult-like voice-onset time characteristics. The spirantization analysis, however, more clearly revealed the children's phonological knowledge. Discussion focuses on the implications of the data for phonological development in general and for the phonological description of voicing in Spanish.

Voice onset time in Persian initial and intervocalic stop production

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmood Bijankhan ◽  
Mandana Nourbakhsh
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Vowel Context ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Voiceless Stop ◽  
High Vowels

The purpose of this study is to examine voice onset time as a phonetic correlate of voicing distinction in standard Persian. Issues pertinent to VOT are also addressed: namely, the effect of place of articulation, vowel context and sex of speakers. The VOTs were measured from recordings of five male and five female speakers reading 65 words that contained a full set of Persian oral stops in word initial and intervocalic positions. This acoustic experiment indicated that VOT distinguishes voiced from voiceless stops. The results also revealed that Persian uses mainly {voiceless unaspirated} and {voiceless aspirated} categories for [±voice] distinction in initial position and {voiced} and {voiceless aspirated} categories in intervocalic position. Vowel context also affected VOT values but the only significant difference was due to high vowels, which caused the preceding voiceless stop to have a longer VOT. Examining sex differences in the VOT values indicated that for voiced items females produced longer VOTs than males. However, voiceless items displayed no significant sex differences for VOT values. Fundamental frequency (F0) of the onset of the following vowel was also examined as another cue to voice distinction. Although the F0 values of voiceless tokens were higher than those of the voiced ones in each voiced–voiceless category, the results suggest that F0 is not a major cue distinguishing the two stop categories.

Laryngeal Systems in Dutch, English, and German: A Contrastive Phonological Study on Second and Third Language Acquisition

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Simon ◽  
Torsten Leuschner
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Third Language Acquisition ◽  
Phonological Contrast ◽  
Moderate Effect ◽  
The Way

Although Dutch, English, and German all have a phonological contrast between voiced and voiceless plosives, they differ in the way these stops are realized. While English and German contrast voiceless aspirated with phonetically voiceless stops, Dutch has a contrast between voiceless unaspirated and prevoiced stops. This study compares these three laryngeal stop systems and examines the acquisition of the English and German systems by a group of native speakers of Dutch. The analysis reveals that both trained and untrained participants transferred prevoicing from Dutch into English and German but acquired aspiration and thus showed a “mixed” laryngeal system in both their L2 (English) and their L3 (German). Since even untrained participants produced voiceless stops in the target Voice Onset Time range, pronunciation training has only a moderate effect.*

Phonetic feature size in second language acquisition: Examining VOT in voiceless and voiced stops

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110089
Author(s):  
Daniel J Olson
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Acoustic Similarity ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Voiceless Stop ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

Featural approaches to second language phonetic acquisition posit that the development of new phonetic norms relies on sub-phonemic features, expressed through a constellation of articulatory gestures and their corresponding acoustic cues, which may be shared across multiple phonemes. Within featural approaches, largely supported by research in speech perception, debate remains as to the fundamental scope or ‘size’ of featural units. The current study examines potential featural relationships between voiceless and voiced stop consonants, as expressed through the voice onset time cue. Native English-speaking learners of Spanish received targeted training on Spanish voiceless stop consonant production through a visual feedback paradigm. Analysis focused on the change in voice onset time, for both voiceless (i.e. trained) and voiced (i.e. non-trained) phonemes, across the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest. The results demonstrated a significant improvement (i.e. reduction) in voice onset time for voiceless stops, which were subject to the training paradigm. In contrast, there was no significant change in the non-trained voiced stop consonants. These results suggest a limited featural relationship, with independent voice onset time (VOT) cues for voiceless and voices phonemes. Possible underlying mechanisms that limit feature generalization in second language (L2) phonetic production, including gestural considerations and acoustic similarity, are discussed.

Voice onset time as a perceptual cue in voicing contrast in Tulu language

2010 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parinitha Shetty ◽  
Rubia N. Sada ◽  
Ajith U. Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Voicing Contrast

Variation in Voice Onset Time for Korean Stops

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Silva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
The United States ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Acoustic Data ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Phonemic Level ◽  
The Voice

Abstract. Acoustic data elicited from 34 native speakers of Korean living in the United States pro-vide evidence for diachronic change in the voice onset time (VOT) of phrase-initial aspirated and lax stop phonemes. While older speakers produce aspirated and lax stops with clearly differentiated average VOT values, many younger speakers appear to have neutralized this difference, producing VOTs for aspirated stops that are substantially shorter than those of older speakers, and comparable to those for corresponding lax stops. The data further indicate that, within each age group, older speakers manifest sex-based differences in VOT while younger speakers do not. Despite this appar-ent shift in VOT values, the acoustic evidence suggests that all speakers in this study, regardless of age, continue to mark underlying differences between aspirated and lax stops in terms of stop closure and the fundamental frequency of the following vowel. It is concluded that the data point to a recent phonetic shift in the language, whereby VOT no longer serves as the primary cue to differentiate between lax and aspirated stops. There is not, however, evidence of any reorganization of the lan-guage as the phonemic level: the language's underlying lax ~ aspirated ~ tense contrasts endure.

scholarly journals The Use of Vowel Length in Making Voicing Judgments by Native Listeners of English and Spanish: Implications for Rate Normalization

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 436-452
Author(s):  
Navin Viswanathan ◽  
Annie J. Olmstead ◽  
M. Pilar Aivar
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Typical Range

Among other characteristics, voiced and voiceless consonants differ in voice onset time (VOT; Lisker & Abramson, 1964). In addition, in English, voiced consonants are typically followed by longer vowels than their unvoiced counterparts (Allen & Miller, 1999). In Spanish, this relationship is less systematic (Zimmerman & Sapon, 1958). In two experiments, we investigated perceptual sensitivities of English and Spanish native speakers to following vowel length (VL) in categorizing syllables that ranged from a prevoiced bilabial stop [ba] to a long-lag bilabial stop [pa]. According to our results, English speakers show sensitivity to following vowels with VLs falling within an English-typical range (Experiment 1), but not when vowels are shorter and in a Spanish-typical range (Experiment 2). Interestingly, Spanish native speakers do not show sensitivity to following VL in either condition. These results suggest that VOT-VL tradeoffs in perception reflect phonological sensitivities of listeners and are not reducible to speech rate compensation.

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