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Apr 1980

Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S1-S103

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back to top Session V. Speech V: Segmental Features III: Voicing and Coarticulation
Contributed Papers
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Effects of stress and utterance position on stop voicing (A)

J. E. Flege and W. S. Brown, Jr.

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S50-S50 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Duration and glottal pulsing are known to distinguish voiced from voiceless stops in certain phonetic contexts. This study examined the effect of stress and position‐within‐utterance on these temporal and laryngeal correlates of stop voicing. Eight talkers produced utterances consisting of from one to five tokens of/pápa/or/bába/. The duration of stops and vowels was measured from intraoral air pressure traces sensed via a tube inserted in the mouth. The output of a throat microphone was used to calculate the percentage of stop closure intervals showing signs of laryngeal activity. It was found that a laryngeal contrast between/p/ and /b/was maintained in all positions except utterance‐initial position. Vowels were consistently longer before /b/ than /p/. The closure of /p/was longer than that of /b/ everywhere except in utterance‐initial position. Thus, the supra‐segmental factors which affect segment duration obscure a temporal correlate of phonological voicing only in utterance‐initial position where neither vowel duration nor glottal pulsing distinguish /p/ from /b/. None of the three correlates of stop voicing, however, were importantly affected by variation of stress placement.
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The influence of preceding syllable structure on intervocalic voicing boundary (A)

Hollis L. Fitch

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S50-S50 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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The perception of an intervocalic b can be changed to p by lengthening the silenced closure interval. The slower the speaking rate, the longer the closure interval needed, roughly in proportion to the duration of the preceding syllable [Port, J. Acoust. Sec. Am. Suppl. 1 63, S20 (1978)]. To see whether the structure of that preceding syllabic also affects the voicing boundary, slowly spoken /dab/ syllables were shortened to match the durations of medium rate and fast rate /dab/ syllables by deleting pitch pulses from the steady‐state region of the vowel. A variable silent interval and a constant /bi/ were appended to each of the /dab/ syllables, making /dabi/ to /dapi/ continua. The voicing boundary was at a nearly identical ratio of closure duration to preceding syllable duration for unmodified syllables at all speaking rates, but it was at a lower ratio (proportionally less silence was needed) for the originally slow syllables in which the vowel had been shortened. In fact, it was found using synthetic speech that longer syllables with proportionally short steady‐state sections needed less silence than shorter syllables with proportionally long steady‐state sections. Thus, the perceptual voicing boundary is sensitive to the dynamic structure of the preceding syllable and not simply its duration. [Research supported by NICHD.]
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Perceptual information for voicing of postvocalic fricatives (A)

Sigfrid D. Soli, Ann D. Lassalle, and Walter Summers

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S50-S50 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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As voicing in a word‐final fricative varies, the duration and the internal temporal and spectral structure of a preceding vowel also vary. We examined the importance of vowel structure variations as a fricative voicing cue. Stimuli were prepared by computer editing of vowel nuclei from utterances [jus] and [juz] which lacked final first formant transitions and differed in both vowel duration and structure. Durations were systematically varied from 350–550 ms to produce pairs of vowel nuclei with equal durations and different structures. Duration of unvoiced friction was also varied from 100–250 ms making a total of 40 stimuli. Identification responses to these stimuli by 15 listeners revealed that friction duration was a weak voicing cue, while vowel duration functioned as a much more effective voicing cue, replicating previous findings [P. Denes, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 27, 761–764 (1955)]. However, vowel structure was also a strong voicing cue, having a greater perceptual effect than 50 ms changes in duration. Acoustic analyses of the experimental stimuli suggested that proportional durations of the formant transitions and total vowel duration together specify voicing information.
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Fundamental frequency as a cue to postvocalic consonant voicing in production: Developmental data (A)

Sue Ellen Krause

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S51-S51 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Several studies by Lehiste have indicated that fundamental frequency (F0) contour affects perception of vowel length and of postvocalic consonant voicing; however, recent evidence from speech production showed no such relationship between F0 contour and voicing of postvocalic consonants [T. M. Gruenenfelder, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 65, S8(A) (1979)]. The present study was designed to investigate F0 contours in relation to postvocalic consonant voicing in speech production from a developmental perspective. The experimental stimuli consisted of three minimal word pairs, which differed in the voicing feature of the postvocalic stop consonant. Subjects. as young as three years of age and with normal language and articulation skills and normal heating sensitivity, named the stimuli in single word productions. The F0 at the start of the vowel (F0s), F0 at the end of the vowel (F0e), and the change in F0 (ΔF0  =  F0s − F0e) were calculated for each trial of all six stimuli for each speaker. Findings will be discussed with regard to the voicing feature of the postvocalic consonant, the minimal word pairs studied, and subject age. [Work supported by NIH.]
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Vocal fry: A cue for voicing in postvocalic stops (A)

Thomas Walsh and Frank Parker

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S51-S51 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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The hypothesis that vowel‐termination characteristics signal the voicing distinction of post‐vocalic stops in English [F. Parker, J. Phonet. 2, 211–221 (1974)] was investigated by recording CVC(C) monosyllables produced by six speakers and analyzing the utterances spectrographically. Although the vowel terminations before voiced stops were asystematic, the voiceless stops typically displayed a coarticulated glottal stop (evidenced by vocal fry). More importantly, the glottal stop appeared only with labial and alveolar voiceless stops, thus accounting for two phenomena noticed (but not explained) in the literature. (1) Vowel durations preceding voiced/voiceless nonvelar stops overlap, whereas those preceding velars do not [L. Raphael, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 51, 1296–1303 (1972)]. (Vocal fry is not available as a voicing cue in velars, thus making vowel‐length crucial.) (2) Final voiced/voiceless velar stops are confused more often than voiced/voiceless labials and alveolars [M. Wang and R. Bilger, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 54, 1248–1266 (1973)]. (The latter had vocal fry as a secondary cue, thus enhancing their perceptibility.) In short, a glottal stop coarticulated with a following nonvelar voiceless stop produces vocal fry, which not only serves as a secondary cue for voicelessness, but also helps explain the differences in vowel length and perceptibility exhibited by velar and nonvelar postvocalic stops.
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The contribution of CV transition duration to the perception of final‐consonant voicing in natural speech (A)

L. J. Raphael and M. F. Dorman

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S51-S51 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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The experiments reported here were attempts to replicate the results of previous research which had employed synthetic stimuli [Raphael et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 57, S49(A) (1975), and 58, S57(A) (1975)]. A speaker recorded a single token of the syllable [sεd]. Under computer control the syllable was edited to produce three continua: [sεd] to [sεt], created by deleting pitch pulses from the vowel; [dεd] to [dεt], created by deleting the [s] friction from the [sεd‐sεt] continuum; and [εd] to [εt], created by deleting the initial transitions from the [dεd‐dεt] continuum and reiterating pitch pulses from the vowel to compensate for the duration of the deleted transitions. For each continuum listeners were asked to identify the final consonants as voiced or voiceless. The [d]‐[t] phoneme boundaries, plotted as a function of vocalic duration, fell within 3 ms of each other, indicating (as did the earlier experiments) that initial CV transitions contribute equally with “steady‐state” formants to the perception of that vowel duration which cues final‐consonant voicing. [Work supported by NICHD.]
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V/C ratio as a postvocalic voicing cue (A)

Robert F. Port

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S51-S51 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Changes in the phonological voicing of English obstruents following stressed vowels cause inverse durational effects on the vowel and following consonant. Several experiments extended our previous results suggesting that the relative duration of the V to C is an important cue for phonological voicing of the C when dominant cues of closure voicing and aspiration are absent. Synthetic stimuli of the words dibber and dipper, created with five durations of dib (140–260 ms) and nine medial stop closure durations (20–140 ms), were identified by 16 listeners. The boundary along the stop duration continuum was different for each dib duration, but, when plotted as the ratio of the stop closure to the preceding vowel, all curves were superimposed. In a matching 8xperiment with digger‐dicker, the same effect was found except that the V/C ratio boundary was different for the velars—as was expected from production results. These findings, similar to the V:C‐VC: syllable‐type contrasts in other Germanic languages, imply that the voicing effect on preceding vowels cannot be handled insightfully with a postsegmental temporal implementation rule that modifies the vowel [D. H. Klatt, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 59, 1208–1221 (1976)] since production and perception data now agree that the phonologlcally relevant parameter is an abstract ratio between these two intervals appropriate for a particular context. [Work supported by NIH.]
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Voicing contrast in four‐category stop languages (A)

A. Lahiri

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S51-S51 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Since Lisker and Abramson's cross‐language study [Lisker and Abramson, “A cross‐language study of voicing in initial stops . . .,” Word 20, 384–422 0964)] VOT has been used to describe voicing contrasts across languages. However, VOT is insufficient to distinguish all stop categories in four‐category languages like Hindi and Marathi. Acoustic analysis of word initial stops of 3 four‐category languages, Hindi, Punjabi, and Bengali, shows that the feature interrupted voicing differentiates the so‐called “voiced aspirates” from the other three categories. These stops are characterized by a pattern of prevoicing followed by approximately 100 ms of silence and then resumed phonation. The other stop categories of these languages are characterized by lead, coincident, and lag VOT.
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Labeling of VOT continua with fixed versus varied fundamental frequency (A)

Lynne E. Bernstein

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S51-S52 (1980); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Bernstein [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 65, S112 (1979)] reported that children and adults use fundamental frequency (F0) in labeling stimuli from “gate”‐“Kate” voice onset time (VOT) continua. Haggard, Ambler, and Callow [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 47, 613–617 (1970)] reported similar results for the voiced/voiceless distinction between prestressed bilabial stops. The current study tested the assumption that F0 at the onset of voicing is typically taken into account in the perceptual process. Two groups of adult subjects participated. Group I, hearing all 24 stimuli (8 VOT and 3 F0 values) randomized across blocks, replicated previous results. That is, Group I subjects differentially moved the voiceless boundary towards lower VOT values as F0 increased. Group II, presented with each VOT‐F0 combination separately, did not make use of the F0 cue. Thus, F0 appears to be an optional cue. The consistency with which Group I subjects differentially used the two cues supports some type of active “source assignment process” [A. E. Ades, J. Exptl. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perf. 3, 673–685 (1977)] which takes account of an entire stimulus set and weights cue values within subsets of the whole. [Research supported in part by an NIH Post‐Doctoral Grant No. NS07108, and NIH Grant No. NSI2045 awarded to Frederic Wightman.]
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On generalizing the rabid‐rapid distinction based on silent gap duration (A)

Leigh Lisker

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S52-S52 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Several studies have reported that the duration of a silent gap affects listeners' decision in identifying an auditory stimulus as rabid or rapid. It appears to be accepted that silent gap duration is a cue to stop voicing. Several implications of this asserted connection between silent gap duration and the phonetic feature of voicing deserve some discussion. First of all, since the voicing feature is commonly said to distinguish the two phoneme sets/bdg/ and /ptk/, we should like some assurance that silent gap duration operates independently of stop place of articulation. Data exists which indicate that the effectiveness of silent gap duration is far from uniform for /b/‐/p/, /d/‐/t/, and /g/‐/k/. Secondly, if a short silent gap elicits rabid responses, and /b/ is said to be voiced, i.e., characterized by glottal signal during closure, then we might expect listeners not to distinguish between presence and absence of such signal. In fact listeners can detect this difference, and some can indeed give it a phonetic interpretation. Thirdly, we may enquire whether the variation in silent gap duration needed to effect a shift in linguistic identification falls within the range observed in natural speech. A comparison of experimentally determined category boundaries with measurements of natural speech shows that the connection is not always close. [The support of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is gratefully acknowledged.]
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Psychophysical tuning curves for phonetically relevant acoustic information (A)

Joanne L. Miller and Cynthia M. Connine

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S52-S52 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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In a series of experiments we have begun mapping psychophysical tuning functions for acoustic information that is used in specifying segmental distinctions. Our procedure is a modified selective adaptation technique, whereby we systematically vary the value of the adaptor along the dimension of interest and measure the magnitude of shift in the phonetic boundary. To date, we have found, as might be expected from previous research, that the magnitude of the adaptation effect increases as the distance between the adaptor and the phonetic boundary increases. More importantly, we have found that the shape of the tuning curve beyond the asymptotic value systematically differs as a function of the particular acoustic dimension under test. For example, for a voice‐onset‐time (VOT) continuum specifying a syllable‐initial voicing distinction, the effect remains at maximal level across a wide range of values (at least up to + 175 ms VOT); whereas, for a continuum of second‐formant transitions specifying a syllable‐initial place distinction, the curve falls after asymptote, more closely resembling a typical psychoacoustical tuning curve. The significance of these findings for describing both the effective information for specific phonetic distinctions, and the operation of the mechanisms that process that information, will be discussed. [Supported by NIH.]
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Anticipatory coarticulation in synthetic speech (A)

James G. Martin and H. Timothy Bunnell

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S52-S52 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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In experiments reported at the last meeting of the Society, we cross‐spliced 60 sentence pairs (e.g., I say taezi, I say taeza) at the beginning of the last syllable, then compared recognition time (RT) to the final target vowel /i or a/ in cross versus intact (as spoken) sentences. The resulting slower RT to crossed targets suggested effects of vowel‐to‐vowel anticipatory coarticulation; that is, misleading information in prior context predicts the other (wrong) vowel in crossed sentences. Acoustical analysis supports this interpretation: F2 in the prior context vowel tends to be higher preceding /i/ than preceding /a/. In the present experiments, /kaezi/ and /kaeza/ were synthesized in three conditions: F2 of /ae/ was (a) “normal,” (b) raised, or (c) lowered. We predicted (compared to normal) slower RT to /i/ when F2 lowered (interference), faster RT to /i/ when F2 rose (facilitation), but vice versa for /a/. In Experiment I, using parameters derived from cepstrum and LPC analysis of real speech, the predicted interference, but not facilitation, was found. In Experiment II, using parameters from synthesis‐by‐rule, both predicted interference and facilitation were found. [Work supported by NINCDS.]
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Relation of peak intraoral air pressure to tone (A)

Eric Zee

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S52-S52 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Much attention has been paid to the differences in peak intraoral air pressure between voiced and voiceless stop consonants. The present study, however, explores the differences in peak intraoral air pressure in voiceless unaspirated bilabial stop consonant [p] in a CV syllable where V is produced with different tones. Native speakers of three Chinese dialects which have different tonal systems participated in the investigation. The results show that there is a positive correlation between the peak intraoral air pressure in [p] and the onset F0 value of the tone that occurs on the following vocalic element. The results are discussed in terms of possible physiological explanations, such as the use of a higher subglottal pressure to produce a higher F0. [Research supported by NSF.]
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Laryngeal adjustments in Japanese voiceless sound production (A)

H. Yoshioka, A. Lö, and H. Hirose

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S52-S53 (1980); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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As part of a series of investigations on the production of sequences of unvoiced sounds in different languages, the current experiment was conducted using the combined techniques of photoelectric glottography, fiberoptics, and electromyography. Particular attention was paid to devoiced vowel production in various voiceless consonantal environments including geminates. The movement data show that the glottal opening gesture during a voiceless sequence containing a devoiced vowel is characterized by a monomodal pattern, unless the vowel occurs between voiceless fricatives. The results also suggest that the velocity and size of the glottal opening gesture vary according to the nature of the adjacent voiceless obstruents. The speed of the opening phase is slow when a stop precedes the vowel, and fast when a fricative precedes it. The peak glottal opening during the devoiced vowel is larger when a fricative either precedes or follows it, and smaller when the vowel is surrounded on both sides by single or geminated stops. [Work supported by NINCDS and BRSG.]
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Scaling of glottal opening (A)

A. Löfqvist, T. Baer, and H. Yoshioka

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S53-S53 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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Laryngeal control mainly occurs along two dimensions. One involves the longitudinal tension of the vocal cords and is used for F0 control. Speakers can normally exert very fine‐graded control in this dimension, and it is used extensively for linguistic purposes. The other dimension is that of abduction‐adduction, involved in the control of phonation type, voicing, and aspiration. From published records, it appears that more than two or three distinct degrees of glottal opening are rarely used during speech production in different languages. The present experiment was designed to clarify the control of glottal abduction‐adduction and examines how many degrees of glottal opening speakers can produce consistently under various static and dynamic nonspeech and speech conditions. Glottal opening was monitored simultaneously by a fiberscope and a transillumination system. Preliminary results indicate that without training and visual feedback subjects can only produce gross abduction and adduction gestures and are unable to make finely controlled variations of glottal opening. [Work supported by NINCDS and BRSG.]
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The time course of vowel context effects (A)

Howard C. Nusbaum and James Sawusch

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 67, Issue S1, pp. S53-S53 (1980); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 11 Aug 2005

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At previous meetings of the Society we presented evidence for the existence of two different perceptual mechanisms mediating anchor‐induced contrast effects found with vowels. Extra presentations of an [i] endpoint to subjects identifying an [i]‐[I] series caused changes in sensitivity. Anchoring with [I] produced criterion shifts which were dependent on the availability of auditory memory. Since [i] and [I] differ in tenseness, intrinsic duration in natural speech, and acoustic status (point versus nonpoint), the differences in perceptual effects of these vowels cannot be ascribed to any one factor. To explore the role of these variables in vowel context effects, a number of different vowel series from different parts of the vowel space have been examined using a successive contrast paradigm. In this procedure, a context vowel is presented first, followed at varying temporal intervals by a test vowel. Results obtained using this procedure provide new evidence concerning the perceptual mechanisms underlying vowel anchor effects. Further, the pattern of these results obtained with different vowel series have important implications for theories of vowel perception. [Work supported by NSF and NIMH.]
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