The Interaction of Word Complexity and Word Duration in an Agglutinative Language

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.

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Posesivní Genitiv Redivivus

Journal of Linguistics/Jazykovedný casopis ◽

10.2478/jazcas-2019-0026 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 69 (3) ◽

pp. 497-501

Author(s):

Oldřich Uličný

Keyword(s):

Written Form ◽

Last Stage ◽

Agglutinative Language ◽

Language Type

Abstract In the contemporary Czech, in both spoken and especially in written form, possessive adjectives are replaced by possessive genitives, which are originally colloquial constructions only. In the last stage of this development, the postpositive genitive changes into prepositive: Klárčina maminka, maminka Klárky, Klárky maminka (‘Klárka’s mother’). The Czech language thus loses another means of inflection and gets closer to an agglutinative language type. This change (deflective tendency) is also supported by the loss of introflexion, i.e. the loss of morphophonological alternations, in our example k – č, in other cases r – ř, g – ž, ch – š, etc. (Klárčin – Klárky [‘Klárka’s’], sestra – sestřin [‘sister’s’], Olga – Olžin [‘Olga’s’] etc.).

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Networks in the mind – what communities reveal about the structure of the lexicon

Open Linguistics ◽

10.1515/opli-2021-0012 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 181-199

Author(s):

László Kovács ◽

András Bóta ◽

László Hajdu ◽

Miklós Krész

Keyword(s):

Word Association ◽

Mental Lexicon ◽

Association Network ◽

Community Structures ◽

Associative Structure ◽

The Mind ◽

Agglutinative Language

Abstract The mental lexicon stores words and information about words. The lexicon is seen by many researchers as a network, where lexical units are nodes and the different links between the units are connections. Based on the analysis of a word association network, in this article we show that different kinds of associative connections exist in the mental lexicon. Our analysis is based on a word association database from the agglutinative language Hungarian. We use communities – closely knit groups – of the lexicon to provide evidence for the existence and coexistence of different connections. We search for communities in the database using two different algorithms, enabling us to see the overlapping (a word belongs to multiple communities) and non-overlapping (a word belongs to only one community) community structures. Our results show that the network of the lexicon is organized by semantic, phonetic, syntactic and grammatical connections, but encyclopedic knowledge and individual experiences are also shaping the associative structure. We also show that words may be connected not just by one, but more types of connections at the same time.

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The Veps Illative: The Applicability of an Abstractive Approach to an Agglutinative Language

Transactions of the Philological Society ◽

10.1111/1467-968x.12142 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 117 (1) ◽

pp. 58-78

Author(s):

Zeprina-Jaz Ainsworth

Keyword(s):

Agglutinative Language

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Adaptation of Stuttering Frequency During Repeated Readings

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jslhr.4106.1265 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 41 (6) ◽

pp. 1265-1281 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Ludo Max ◽

Anthony J. Caruso

Keyword(s):

Motor Learning ◽

Transition Rate ◽

Speech Rate ◽

The Other ◽

Repeated Readings ◽

Vowel Duration ◽

Articulation Rate ◽

Motor Tasks ◽

Learning Hypothesis ◽

Word Duration

This study is part of a series investigating the hypothesis that stuttering adaptation is a result of motor learning. Previous investigations indicate that nonspeech motor learning typically is associated with an increase in speed of performance. Previous investigations of stuttering, on the other hand, indicate that improvements in fluency during most fluency-enhancing conditions or after stuttering treatment tend to be associated with decreased speech rate, increased duration of specific acoustic segments, and decreased vowel duration variability. The present acoustic findings, obtained from 8 individuals who stutter, reveal that speech adjustments occurring during adaptation differ from those reported for other fluency-enhancing conditions or stuttering treatment. Instead, the observed changes are consistent with those occurring during skill improvements for nonspeech motor tasks and, thus, with a motor learning hypothesis of stuttering adaptation. During the last of 6 repeated readings, a statistically significant increase in articulation rate was observed, together with a decrease in word duration, vowel duration, and consonant-vowel (CV) transition extent. Other adjustments showing relatively consistent trends across individual subjects included decreased CV transition rate and duration, and increased variability of both CV transition extent and vowel duration.

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Masking auditory feedback does not eliminate repetition reduction

10.31234/osf.io/xydm4 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Cassandra Leigh Jacobs ◽

Torrey M. Loucks ◽

Duane Watson ◽

Gary S. Dell

Keyword(s):

Auditory Feedback ◽

Multiple Sources ◽

Audience Design ◽

Somatosensory Feedback ◽

Word Duration ◽

Production Mechanisms ◽

Internal Production

Repetition reduces word duration. Explanations of this process have appealed to audience design, internal production mechanisms, and combinations thereof (e.g. Kahn & Arnold, 2015). Jacobs, Yiu, Watson, and Dell (2015) proposed the auditory feedback hypothesis, which states that speakers must hear a word, produced either by themselves or another speaker, in order for duration reduction on a subsequent production. We conducted a strong test of the auditory feedback hypothesis in two experiments, in which we masked auditory feedback and whispering to prevent speakers from hearing themselves fully. Both experiments showed that despite limiting the sources of normal feedback, repetition reduction was observed to equal extents in masked and unmasked conditions, suggesting that repetition reduction may be supported by multiple sources, such as somatosensory feedback and feedforward signals, depending on their availability.

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Responses to Intensity-Shifted Auditory Feedback During Running Speech

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2015_jslhr-s-15-0164 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 58 (6) ◽

pp. 1687-1694 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Rupal Patel ◽

Kevin J. Reilly ◽

Erin Archibald ◽

Shanqing Cai ◽

Frank H. Guenther

Keyword(s):

Channel Model ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Prosodic Features ◽

Intensity Control ◽

Control Scheme ◽

Combined Control ◽

Word Duration ◽

Participant Group ◽

English Speaking ◽

Age Range

Purpose Responses to intensity perturbation during running speech were measured to understand whether prosodic features are controlled in an independent or integrated manner. Method Nineteen English-speaking healthy adults (age range = 21–41 years) produced 480 sentences in which emphatic stress was placed on either the 1st or 2nd word. One participant group received an upward intensity perturbation during stressed word production, and the other group received a downward intensity perturbation. Compensations for perturbation were evaluated by comparing differences in participants' stressed and unstressed peak fundamental frequency (F0), peak intensity, and word duration during perturbed versus baseline trials. Results Significant increases in stressed–unstressed peak intensities were observed during the ramp and perturbation phases of the experiment in the downward group only. Compensations for F0 and duration did not reach significance for either group. Conclusions Consistent with previous work, speakers appear sensitive to auditory perturbations that affect a desired linguistic goal. In contrast to previous work on F0 perturbation that supported an integrated-channel model of prosodic control, the current work only found evidence for intensity-specific compensation. This discrepancy may suggest different F0 and intensity control mechanisms, threshold-dependent prosodic modulation, or a combined control scheme.

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