scholarly journals Stressed Vowel Duration and Phonemic Length Contrast

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Ciszewski
Keyword(s):  
Execution Time ◽  
The Other ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
British English ◽  
Jaw Movement ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
Syllable Duration ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Phonological Length ◽  
High Degree

It has been generally accepted that greater vowel/syllable duration is a reliable correlate of stress and that absolute durational differences between vowels underlie phonemic length contrasts. In this paper we shall demonstrate that duration is not an independent stress correlate, but rather it is derivative of another stress correlate, namely pitch. Phonemic contrast, on the other hand, is qualitative rather than quantitative. These findings are based on the results of an experiment in which four speakers of SBrE read 162 mono-, di- and trisyllabic target items (made of CV sequences) both in isolation and in carrier phrases. In the stressed syllables all Southern British English vowels and diphthongs were represented and each vowel was placed in 3 consonantal contexts: (a) followed by a voiced obstruent, (b) voiceless obstruent and (c) a sonorant. Then, all vowels (both stressed and unstressed) were extracted from target items and measured with PRAAT. The results indicate that stressed vowels may be longer than unstressed ones. Their durational superiority, however, is not stress-related, but follows mainly from vowelintrinsic durational characteristics and, to some extent, from the prosodic context (i.e. the number of following unstressed vowels) in which it is placed. In CV1CV2 disyllables, when V1 is phonemically short, the following word-final unstressed vowel is almost always longer. It is only when V1 is a phonemically long vowel that V2 may be shorter. As far as diphthongal V1 is concerned, the durational V1~V2 relation is variable. Interestingly, the V1~V3 relation in trisyllables follows the same durational pattern. In both types of items the rare cases when a phonemically short V1 is indeed longer than the word-final vowel involve a stressed vowel which is open, e.g. [æ,o], and whose minimal execution time is longer due to a more extensive jaw movement. These observations imply that both in acoustic and perceptual terms the realisation of word stress is not based on the durational superiority of stressed vowels over unstressed ones. When it is, it is only an epiphenomenon of intrinsic duration of the stressed vowel and extra shortness of nonfinal unstressed vowel. As far as phonemic length contrast is concerned, we observe a high degree of durational overlap between phonemically long and short vowels in monosyllabic CVC words (which is enforced by a greater pitch excursion), whereas in polysyllables the differences seem to be perceptually non-salient (>40 ms, cf. Lehiste 1970). This suggests that the differences in vowel duration are not significant enough to underlie phonological length contrasts.

scholarly journals Phonetic Imitation of Vowel Duration in L2 Speech

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Zając
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
British English ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
L2 Pronunciation

This paper reports the results of a pilot study concerned with phonetic imitation in the speech of Polish learners of English. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether native speakers of Polish imitate the length of English vowels and to determine whether the extent of phonetic imitation may be influenced by the model talker being a native or a non-native speaker of English. The participants were asked to perform an auditory naming task in which they indentified objects and actions presented on a set of photos twice, with and without the imitation task. The imitation task was further sub-divided depending on the model talker being a native or non-native speaker of English (a native Southern British English speaker and a native Polish speaker fluent in English). As the aim was to investigate the variability in durational characteristics of English vowels, the series of front vowels /æ e ɪ iː/ were analysed in the shortening and lengthening b_t vs. b_d contexts. The results of the study show that the participants imitated the length of the investigated vowels as a result of exposure to the two model talkers. The data suggest that the degree of imitation was mediated both by linguistic and social factors and that the direction of convergence might have been affected by the participants’ attitude toward L2 pronunciation.

Evaluating two ways for marking Swedish phonological length in written text

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bosse Thorén ◽  
Hyeseung Jeong
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Read Aloud ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Written Text ◽  
System A ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Phonological Length ◽  
The Way

Abstract The study compares two different graphic marking systems designed to help L2 learners of Swedish notice and realize phonological length. In System A, 22 L2 learners read aloud three /VːC/ words with length marked under long vowels and three /VCː/words with dots under short vowels. Twenty-two other L2 learners read the same words marked by the other system (System B) that underlines long vowels and long consonants. As a control group, 20 native Swedish speakers read the same words without any marking. We measured and compared the temporal realizations of the six words by all the three groups. System B readers realized Swedish phonological length more closely to the way that native speakers did, compared to System A readers. These results suggest that prompting both long vowels and long consonants can be more effective than marking long and short vowels.

scholarly journals VOWELS DURATION IN THE EVENKI LANGUAGE

2019 ◽  
pp. 88-100
Author(s):  
Olga N. Morozova ◽  
◽  
Svetlana V. Androsova ◽  
Semyon V. Kolesnikov ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
The One ◽  
Final Syllable ◽  
Phonological Length ◽  
Fluent Speakers

The present article focuses upon phonological length realization patterns of Selemdzha Evenki vowels. The material of 90 words pronounced in isolation was obtained from 4 subjects, native fluent speakers of Evenki (1 male and 3 females, aged 54-70). They were asked to read each word 3 times to imitate 3 positions in the utterance: initial, medial, and final. As a result of the acoustic analysis, it was found that phonologically long vowels possessed more than 2 times longer duration than that of short vowels. In the group of long vowels, the direct correlation was noted between vowel openness degree and their duration: the more closed the vowel was, the larger duration it had. In the group of short vowels, no dependence of that sort was found: the longest vowels turned out to be the ones of the main triangle /i-a-u/. Vowels /ɜ:-ɜ/ were characterized by the smallest duration in both groups. Comparison of vowel duration in different positions of the Evenki word suggests that, on average, the longest vowel is the one in the final syllable (before a pause), regardless of the number of syllables in the word.

Music-Language Correlations and the “Scotch Snap”

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Temperley ◽  
David Temperley
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rhythmic Pattern ◽  
British English ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
Speech Corpora ◽  
Italian Songs ◽  
Musical Rhythms

in this study we examine a rhythmic pattern known as the Scotch Snap (SS): a sixteenth-note on the beat followed by a dotted eighth-note. A musical corpus analysis shows that the SS is common in both Scottish and English songs, but virtually nonexistent in German and Italian songs. We explore possible linguistic correlates for this phenomenon. Our reasoning is that languages in which stressed syllables are often short might tend to favor the SS pattern. The traditional distinction between long and short vowels correlates partly with the SS pattern across languages, but not completely. (German allows short stressed vowels, but the SS pattern is not common in German music.) We then examine the duration of stressed syllables in four modern speech corpora: one British English, one German, and two Italian. British English shows a much higher proportion of very short stressed syllables (less than 100 ms) than the other two languages. Four vowels account for a large proportion of very short stressed syllables in British English, and also constitute a large proportion of SS tokens in our English musical corpus. This is the first study known to us that establishes a correlation between speech rhythms in languages and musical rhythms in the songs of those languages.

C-Terminal amino acid sequence of chicken pepsinogen and its homology with sequences of other acid proteases

1980 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 1144-1154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Baudyš ◽  
Helena Keilová ◽  
Vladimír Kostka
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acid ◽  
Amino Acid Sequence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Terminal Sequence ◽  
Terminal Part ◽  
Terminal Amino Acid ◽  
Tryptic Peptides ◽  
Terminal Amino ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Terminal Amino Acid Sequence

To determine the primary structure of the C-terminal part of the molecule of chicken pepsinogen the tryptic, chymotryptic and thermolytic digest of the protein were investigated and peptides derived from this region were sought. These peptides permitted the following 21-residue C-terminal sequence to be determined: ...Ile-Arg-Glu-Tyr-Tyr-Val-Ile-Phe-Asp-Arg-Ala-Asn-Asn-Lys-Val-Gly-Leu-Ser-Pro-Leu-Ser.COOH. A comparison of this structure with the C-terminal sequential regions of the other acid proteases shows a high degree of homology between chicken pepsinogen and these proteases (e.g., the degree of homology with respect to hog pepsinogen and calf prochymosin is about 66%). Additional tryptic peptides, derived from the N-terminal part of the zymogen molecule whose amino acid sequence has been reported before, were also obtained in this study. This sequence was extended by two residues using an overlapping peptide. An ancillary result of this study was the isolation of tryptic peptides derived from other regions of the zymogen molecule.

Vowel development in young Mandarin-English bilingual children

Phonetica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yang
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Formant Frequency ◽  
High Group ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Vowel Systems ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract This study examined the development of vowel categories in young Mandarin -English bilingual children. The participants included 35 children aged between 3 and 4 years old (15 Mandarin-English bilinguals, six English monolinguals, and 14 Mandarin monolinguals). The bilingual children were divided into two groups: one group had a shorter duration (<1 year) of intensive immersion in English (Bi-low group) and one group had a longer duration (>1 year) of intensive immersion in English (Bi-high group). The participants were recorded producing one list of Mandarin words containing the vowels /a, i, u, y, ɤ/ and/or one list of English words containing the vowels /i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ, u, ʊ, o, ɑ, ʌ/. Formant frequency values were extracted at five equidistant time locations (the 20–35–50–65–80% point) over the course of vowel duration. Cross-language and within-language comparisons were conducted on the midpoint formant values and formant trajectories. The results showed that children in the Bi-low group produced their English vowels into clusters and showed positional deviations from the monolingual targets. However, they maintained the phonetic features of their native vowel sounds well and mainly used an assimilatory process to organize the vowel systems. Children in the Bi-high group separated their English vowels well. They used both assimilatory and dissimilatory processes to construct and refine the two vowel systems. These bilingual children approximated monolingual English children to a better extent than the children in the Bi-low group. However, when compared to the monolingual peers, they demonstrated observable deviations in both L1 and L2.

scholarly journals Involvement of loop 5 lysine residues and the N-terminal β-hairpin of the ribotoxin hirsutellin A on its insecticidal activity

2016 ◽  
Vol 397 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Olombrada ◽  
Lucía García-Ortega ◽  
Javier Lacadena ◽  
Mercedes Oñaderra ◽  
José G. Gavilanes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Active Sites ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spatial Proximity ◽  
Ribonucleolytic Activity ◽  
The Family ◽  
Lysine Residues ◽  
Hirsutella Thompsonii ◽  
Close Spatial Proximity ◽  
High Degree

Abstract Ribotoxins are cytotoxic members of the family of fungal extracellular ribonucleases best represented by RNase T1. They share a high degree of sequence identity and a common structural fold, including the geometric arrangement of their active sites. However, ribotoxins are larger, with a well-defined N-terminal β-hairpin, and display longer and positively charged unstructured loops. These structural differences account for their cytotoxic properties. Unexpectedly, the discovery of hirsutellin A (HtA), a ribotoxin produced by the invertebrate pathogen Hirsutella thompsonii, showed how it was possible to accommodate these features into a shorter amino acid sequence. Examination of HtA N-terminal β-hairpin reveals differences in terms of length, charge, and spatial distribution. Consequently, four different HtA mutants were prepared and characterized. One of them was the result of deleting this hairpin [Δ(8-15)] while the other three affected single Lys residues in its close spatial proximity (K115E, K118E, and K123E). The results obtained support the general conclusion that HtA active site would show a high degree of plasticity, being able to accommodate electrostatic and structural changes not suitable for the other previously known larger ribotoxins, as the variants described here only presented small differences in terms of ribonucleolytic activity and cytotoxicity against cultured insect cells.

Methylene. III. Gas phase reactions with 1-chloropropane

1969 ◽  
Vol 312 (1509) ◽  
pp. 141-161 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Rate Constants ◽  
Hydrogen Abstraction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gas Phase Reactions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Chlorine Substituent ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Singlet Methylene

The work described in this and the following paper is a continuation of that in parts I and II, devoted to elucidation of the mechanism of the reactions of methylene with chloroalkanes, with particular reference to the reactivities of singlet and triplet methylene in abstraction and insertion processes. The products of the reaction between methylene, prepared by the photolysis of ketene, and 1-chloropropane have been identified and estimated and their dependence on reactant pressures, photolysing wavelength and presence of foreign gases (oxygen and carbon mon­oxide) has been investigated. Both insertion and abstraction mechanisms contribute significantly to the over-all reaction, insertion being relatively much more important than with chloroethane. This type of process appears to be confined to singlet methylene. If, as seems likely, there is no insertion into C—Cl bonds under our conditions (see part IV), insertion into C2—H and C3—H bonds occurs in statistical ratio, approximately. On the other hand, the chlorine substituent reduces the probability of insertion into C—H bonds in its vicinity. As in the chloroethane system, both species of methylene show a high degree of selectivity in their abstraction reactions. We find that k S Cl / k S H >7.7, k T Cl / k T H < 0.14, where the k ’s are rate constants for abstraction, and the super- and subscripts indicate the species of methylene and the type of atom abstracted, respectively. Triplet methylene is discriminating in hydrogen abstraction from 1-C 3 H 7 Cl, the overall rates for atoms attached to C1, C2, C3 being in the ratios 2.63:1:0.

Vowel Confusions of Hearing-Impaired Listeners under Reverberant and Nonreverberant Conditions

1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna K. Nabelek ◽  
Tomasz R. Letowski
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Sensorineural Hearing ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Error Patterns ◽  
Formant Frequencies ◽  
Test Conditions ◽  
English Vowels

The effects of reverberation on the perception of vowels and diphthongs were evaluated using 10 subjects with moderate sensorineural hearing losses. Stimuli were 15 English vowels and diphthongs, spoken between/b/and/t/and recorded in a carrier sentence. The test was recorded without and with reverberation (T = 1.2 s). Although vowel confusions occurred in both test conditions, the number of vowels and diphthongs affected and the total number of errors made were significantly greater under the reverberant condition. The results indicated that the perception of vowels by hearing-impaired listeners can be influenced substantially by reverberation. Errors for vowels in reverberation seemed to be related to the overestimation of vowel duration and to a tendency to perceive the pitch of the formant frequencies as being higher than in vowels without reverberation. Error patterns were somewhat individualized among subjects.

The In Vitro Sensitivities of 70 Strains of Shigella

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 705-707
Author(s):  
WILLIAM D. DONALD
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Gastrointestinal Tract ◽  
Tetracycline Resistance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Drug Of Choice ◽  
High Degree ◽  
As Toxicity ◽  
Selection Of

In vitro sensitivities of 70 shigella strains isolated over a recent 18-month period are reported. The high degree of sulfadiazine resistance casts some doubt on the selection of this agent as the drug of choice in the treatment of shigellosis, at least in this community. Some of the other agents, although inhibiting the growth of the organisms in vitro, have disadvantages such as toxicity or failure of absorption from the gastrointestinal tract. Tetracycline resistance was found in only 7% of the organisms tested, but from this and other reports we may anticipate the occurrence of more organisms resistant to this agent. The results of the sensitivities to ampicillin are encouraging and further studies including clinical trials of this agent are in order.

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