Tone alternation in Dàgáárè verbs: Perfectives and Imperfectives

While previous studies on Dàgáárè tone have looked at the nouns, this paper particularly examines tone in verbs, perfective vs imperfective forms. The verbal system has different patterns based on the form of the verb. There are three tone classes for Dàgáárè verbs and for each of the classes, the surface tone pattern it exhibits in the perfective is systematically different from the tone patterns in the imperfective. For the perfectives we have L, H and HL while the imperfectives have LH, HL and H!H, at least in the dialect under study. I treat tone as a combination of the features [±upper] and [±raised] which are connected to what is described as a Tone node (T-node). These Tone nodes in turn connect to the syllable. Under this system, I assume L is represented with the features [-upper] and [-raised] and H with the features [+upper] [+raised]. Underlying tonal melodies of the root morphemes are identical to the surface tones of the perfective forms whether these contain an overt suffix or not. For the imperfectives, the suffix comes with an unspecified underlying T-node. The grammar then chooses the features [±upper] and [±raised] to insert under the already existing T-node.

You Are What You Sing: Folksong Tone Pattern Feature Correlation to Geographical Distance with Gabor Filter and OLS Linear Regression

Cultural diffusion occurs. This is evidenced by the existence of cultural heritage artifacts. There are many types of artifacts, tangible or intangible. Folksongs are one of the intangible cultural artifacts. Songs have tone, tone patterns are a unique feature of a song. Regional province songs are the identity of each region, because songs are images of the culture of an area. This study uses folk songs from each province in Indonesia which are extracted features by applying Gabor filters and then differences in output and geographical distance are put into linear regression. The results show that the tone pattern feature have a correlation relationship with the distance between regions throughout Indonesia. When observing the scope per large island, there is also correlation between the number of tone patterns with the distance of province. However, this has less confidence result for Sumatra island.

An exploratory descriptive study of accent shift in Northern East Cree

Northern East Cree has several /+h/ morphemes, which, when suffixed onto a word, add meanings such as inanimate plurality or animate obviation. Literature on these morphemes has yet to describe the impressionistic accent shift that accompanies /+h/ suffixation onto a word. In this article findings are presented from an exploratory descriptive study in which citation forms with and without the /+h/ morphemes are compared, examining how accent shift is acoustically realized, as well as the relevance of pitch slope and modal voicing. The results do not align with previous analyses of the /+h/ morphemes’ properties. Rather, it is possible that words without /+h/ have a falling tone pattern, whereas words with /+h/ have a level tone pattern, suggesting that pitch slope, in combination with modal voice, may be the best diagnostic of the presence of /+h/ morphemes.

‘Normal’ hearing thresholds and fundamental auditory grouping processes predict difficulties with speech-in-noise perception

Understanding speech when background noise is present is a critical everyday task that varies widely among people. A key challenge is to understand why some people struggle with speech-in-noise perception, despite having clinically normal hearing. Here, we developed new figure-ground tests that require participants to extract a coherent tone pattern from a stochastic background of tones. These tests dissociated variability in speech-in-noise perception related to mechanisms for detecting static (same-frequency) patterns and those for tracking patterns that change frequency over time. In addition, elevated hearing thresholds that are widely considered to be ‘normal’ explained significant variance in speech-in-noise perception, independent of figure-ground perception. Overall, our results demonstrate that successful speech-in-noise perception is related to audiometric thresholds, fundamental grouping of static acoustic patterns, and tracking of acoustic sources that change in frequency. Crucially, speech-in-noise deficits are better assessed by measuring central (grouping) processes alongside audiometric thresholds.

‘Normal’ hearing thresholds and fundamental auditory grouping processes predict difficulties with speech-in-noise perception

Understanding speech when background noise is present is a critical everyday task that varies widely among people. A key challenge is to understand why some people struggle with speech-in-noise perception, despite having clinically normal hearing. Here, we developed new figure-ground tests that require participants to extract a coherent tone pattern from a stochastic background of tones. These tests dissociated variability in speech-in-noise perception related to mechanisms for detecting static (same-frequency) patterns and those for tracking patterns that change frequency over time. In addition, elevated hearing thresholds that are widely considered to be ‘normal’ explained significant variance in speech-in-noise perception, independent of figure-ground perception. Overall, our results demonstrate that successful speech-in-noise perception is related to audiometric thresholds, fundamental grouping of static acoustic patterns, and tracking of acoustic sources that change in frequency. Crucially, measuring both peripheral (audiometric thresholds) and central (grouping) processes is required to adequately assess speech-in-noise deficits.

Metrical Tone Shift and Spread in Harmonic Serialism

This paper proposes a framework for the analysis of bounded tone patterns, where tone shifts or spreads across a small distance. The framework starts from the idea that foot structure drives such tone processes, with foot edges acting as targets for tone association. To account for trisyllabic patterns, a theory of layered foot representation is adopted (Kager 2012, Martinez-Paricio 2013). In addition, to account for the opacity of foot-driven tone shift, the analysis is cast in Harmonic Serialism (Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy 2000). Lastly, the paper presents a set of licensing and structural markedness constraints to derive the desired patterns. The approach is successfully applied to the default tone pattern of tbe Saghala noun phrase (Patin 2009), which shows a combination of shifting and spreading over a trisyllabic domain.