Effect of Age and Gender on Voice Onset Time: Data from Sinhalese

Objective: To documenting the voice onset time in voiced and unvoiced stop consonants in Sinhala and to investigating the effects of age and gender on voice onset time values in Sinhalese speakers. Methods: Three groups of participants were employed. Group 1 included 20 children, Group 2 included 20 adults and Group 3 consisted of 20 elderly subjects. All the subjects spoke the dialect of central province of Sri Lanka. Words consisting of three Sinhala short vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ in were recorded. Voice onset time values from two voiced and voiceless stop consonants were extracted. Results: Voiced stop consonants had significantly longer voice onset time values compared to voiceless stop consonants. Significant effect of age as well as gender on voice onset time values were also observed. Conclusion: Supplementary investigations on the normative aspects of voice onset time among the Sinhala population would provide additional insights and validated tools for indexing the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of stop consonants in Sinhalese. Keywords: Voice Onset Time, Sinhalese, Elderly, Sinhala, Acoustic analysis

Exploring phonetic cues to persuasive oral presentation: A study with British English speakers and English L2 learners

Persuasiveness in oral communication in English can be expressed with various vocal phonetic cues that may not be readily accessible to English second language (L2) learners whose native language may employ a different set of cues. With a goal to increase L2 learners’ perceived spoken confidence and persuasiveness, and obtain empirical evidence for phonetic adjustments that native English speakers make to influence listeners, the current study explored the use of consonant prolongation in stressed syllable onsets for emphasis by native British English speakers and English L2 learners. The native speakers’ durations of continuant consonants and voiceless stop consonant voice onset times (VOTs) in (1) neutrally-produced speech and (2) persuasively delivered motivational/shocking/emotional messages were compared to Latvian L2 English speakers’ productions. The results revealed that in persuasive speech, the British speakers’ consonantal durations, particularly those of continuants, got significantly longer relative to the vowels that followed them; for English L2 learners, the duration of consonants did not change as a factor of speech type. This is in line with our previous research with American English speakers and carries implications for L2 speech learning and teaching.

Does Voicing Affect Patterns of Transfer in Nonnative Cluster Learning?

Purpose Previous studies have demonstrated that speakers can learn novel speech sequences, although the content and specificity of the learned speech motor representations remain incompletely understood. We investigated these representations by examining transfer of learning in the context of nonnative consonant clusters. Specifically, we investigated whether American English speakers who learn to produce either voiced or voiceless stop–stop clusters (e.g., /gd/ or /kt/) exhibit transfer to the other voicing pattern. Method Each participant ( n = 34) was trained on disyllabic nonwords beginning with either voiced (/gd/, /db/, /gb/) or voiceless (/kt/, /kp/, /tp/) onset consonant clusters (e.g., /gdimu/, /ktaksnæm/) in a practice-based speech motor learning paradigm. All participants were tested on both voiced and voiceless clusters at baseline (prior to practice) and in two retention sessions (20 min and 2 days after practice). We compared changes in cluster accuracy and burst-to-burst duration between baseline and each retention session to evaluate learning (performance on the trained clusters) and transfer (performance on the untrained clusters). Results Participants in both training conditions improved with respect to cluster accuracy and burst-to-burst duration for the clusters they practiced on. A bidirectional transfer pattern was found, such that participants also improved the cluster accuracy and burst-to-burst duration for the clusters with the other untrained voicing pattern. Post hoc analyses also revealed that improvement in the production of untrained stop–fricative clusters that originally were added as filler items. Conclusion Our findings suggest the learned speech motor representations may encode the information about the coordination of oral articulators for stop–stop clusters independently from information about the coordination of oral and laryngeal articulators.

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

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.

The sounds of prehistoric speech

Evidence is reviewed for widespread phonological and phonetic tendencies in contemporary languages. The evidence is based largely on the frequency of sound types in word lists and in phoneme inventories across the world's languages. The data reviewed point to likely tendencies in the languages of the Upper Palaeolithic. These tendencies include the reliance on specific nasal and voiceless stop consonants, the relative dispreference for posterior voiced consonants and the use of peripheral vowels. More tenuous hypotheses related to prehistoric languages are also reviewed. These include the propositions that such languages lacked labiodental consonants and relied more heavily on vowels, when contrasted to many contemporary languages. Such hypotheses suggest speech has adapted to subtle pressures that may in some cases vary across populations. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.

Segmental Phonetics and Phonology in Caucasian languages

This chapter surveys the major topics of Caucasian segmental phonetics and phonology, focusing on topics with broader implications for general phonetic and phonological theory. The author first presents an acoustic phonetic analysis of phonemic inventories in the three Caucasian families, including both a review of recent instrumental data on the topic as well as a new analysis of new and existing experimental acoustic data. This analysis focuses on four primary topics: obstruents with different laryngeal features, typologically unusual segments, small vocalic inventories, and pharyngealization. The new acoustic data from a nonce-word experiment in Georgian and Megrelian offer evidence that aspiration in voiceless stops gradually, yet significantly shortens if another voiceless stop precedes the relevant one in a given word. The second part reviews analyses of Caucasian phonotactics, primarily of South Caucasian consonant clusters that play a crucial role in discussions on production versus perception in phonology. The chapter concludes with a collection of phonological alternations that have potential for future research on phonology.

On the interaction of phonetic parameters implementing the voiced / voiceless phonological opposition in Standard Modern Russian

The paper reports new data obtained in the experimental study of voice coarticulation of voiced and voiceless obstruents adjacent to sonorant depending on the place and manner of articulation of these consonants in Standard Modern Russian. The experimental results revealed the voice coarticulation of the obstruent in word-internal clusters of [sonorant + obstruent + sonorant] coronal consonants, possibly due to the preceding homorganic nasal consonant. In the case of sonorants [nasal + voiceless stop + vibrant] that are not identical in place and manner of articulation, the closure part of the dental stop becomes voiced throughout, with this phonation type accommodation not leading, nevertheless, to the voiced / voiceless phoneme neutralization since the contrast in question is still maintained by phonetic parameters other than voice (phonation itself). These are closure duration, burst duration, and relative overall intensity. On the contrary, in the case of dental sonorants [nasal + voiceless stop + nasal] being identical in place and manner of articulation, the contrast in burst duration is eliminated since no burst of dental stop is found in the position before homorganic nasal, with the closure part of the stop not acquiring voicing to prevent the voiced / voiceless phoneme neutralization. In conclusion, it is argued that in Standard Modern Russian, the phonetic parameter [relative overall intensity] is less significant in the hierarchical structure of distinctive phonological feature than [closure voicing] and [burst duration] ones since it cannot serve as the only parameter distinguishing the voiced and voiceless obstruents in the intersonorant position.

The Sound Pattern of Heritage Spanish: An Exploratory Study on the Effects of a Classroom Experience

While heritage Spanish phonetics and phonology and classroom experiences have received increased attention in recent years, these areas have yet to converge. Furthermore, most research in these realms is cross-sectional, ignoring individual or group changes across time. We aim to connect research strands and fill gaps associated with the aforementioned areas by conducting an individual-level empirical analysis of narrative data produced by five female heritage speakers of Spanish at the beginning and end of a semester-long heritage language instruction class. We focus on voiced and voiceless stop consonants, vowel quality, mean pitch, pitch range, and speech rate. Our acoustic and statistical outputs of beginning versus end data reveal that each informant exhibits a change in between three and five of the six dependent variables, showing that exposure to a more formal register through a classroom experience over the course of a semester constitutes enough input to influence the heritage language sound system, even if the sound system is not an object of explicit instruction. We interpret the significant changes through the lenses of the development of formal speech and discursive strategies, phonological retuning, and speech style and pragmatic effects, while also acknowledging limitations to address in future related work.

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

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.

EFFECT OF AGE AND GENDER ON ARTICULATION OF VOICED AND VOICELESS STOP CONSONANTS IN CZECH

<p class="BodyTextNext"><em>Evaluation of precision of consonant articulation is commonly used metric in assessment of pathological speech. </em><em>However, up to date most of the research on consonant characteristics was performed on English while there are obvious language-specific differences. The aim of the current study was therefore to investigate the patterns of consonant articulation in Czech across 6 stop consonants with respect to age and gender. The database used consisted of 30 female and 30 male healthy participants. Four acoustic variables including voice onset time (VOT), VOT ratio and two spectral moments were analyzed. The Czech plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ were found to be characterized by short voicing lag (average VOT ranged from 14 to 32 ms) while voiced plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/ by long voicing lead (average VOT ranged from -79 to -91 ms). </em><em>Furthermore, we observed significantly longer duration of both VOT </em><em>(p &lt; 0.05) </em><em>and VOT ratio </em><em>(p &lt; 0.01) </em><em>of voiceless plosives in female compared to male gender. Finally, we revealed a significant negative correlation between age and duration of voiceless </em><em>(</em><em>r = -0.36, p </em><em>&lt; 0.05) </em><em>as well as voiced VOT </em><em>(</em><em>r = -0.45, p =</em><em> 0.01) </em><em>in female but not in male participants.</em></p>