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May 1990

Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S1-S164

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back to top Session AA. Speech Communication IV: Suprasegmentals and Coarticulation
Contributed Papers
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Articulatory timing and prosodic modeling of French (A)

Janet Fletcher and Eric Vatikiotis‐Bateson

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S65-S65 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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In an earlier paper, it was noted that shorter durations of opening lip/jaw movements in nonfinal syllables compared to final open syllables in French are largely the result of truncated or undershot movements. Final movements are longer because they are not cut short by the onset of a closing gesture belonging to a following syllable. This study looks at the unaccented/accented contrast and the closing phase of motion in the same corpus of reiterant French speech. Unlike the final/nonfinal contrast, the durational difference between accented and unaccented movements is localized in the acceleration phase, i.e., the time from movement onset to the point where maximum velocity is reached. While the magnitude of duration effects in closing movements is much smaller than in opening movements, there is some evidence that the onset of lip/jaw opening in final syllables occurs later in relation to the preceding closing gestures. Thus truncation is occurring in the closing as well as opening phase of syllable production. It also suggests a stress or accent anticipation effect possibly related to pretonic lengthening effects that have been noted in acoustic timing studies of French. [Work supported by the Ohio State University, NSF, and NIH.]
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The articulatory kinematics of accent (A)

Mary E. Beckman and Jan Edwards

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S65-S65 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Two recent kinematic studies of syllables with bilabial consonants suggest different dynamic accounts of the durational increase associated with stress: Kelso et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 77, 266–280 (1985)] interpret regression curves for peak velocity against displacement as evidence that lower‐lip gestures in stressed syllables are less stiff, whereas Nittrouer et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 1653–1661 (1988)] show that the upper‐lip closing gesture begins at a later phase relative to the jaw opening gesture. Preliminary results from a kinematic study of accented syllables suggest a resolution of the discrepancy. Jaw opening and closing gestures for pop and poppa embedded in sentences that varied the placement of the nuclear pitch accent (sentence stress) were looked at. When accented, gestures were substantially longer, but the velocity‐displacement regression curve showed no decrease in slope, contra Kelso et al. Also, a comparison of observed syllable durations to those predicted by the velocity‐displacement ratios showed that this stiffness index alone cannot account for the greater length. Rather, an accented syllable is longer probably because the closing gesture is later, in accordance with Nittrouer et al. The seemingly contradictory pattern in Kelso et al. may be an artifact of including reduced syllables with unaccented full syllables in a single “unstressed” category. [Work supported by the NSF.]
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The position of the amplitude peak as an acoustic correlate of stress in English and French (A)

Dawn M. Behne

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S65-S66 (1990); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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Early d scussions of the acoustic correlates of stress suggested that stressed syllables are produced with greater amplitude than unstressed syllables [e.g., H. Sweet, A Primer in Phonetics (Clarendon, Oxford, 1890]. More recently, increased fundamental frequency (F0) change and duration have been demonstrated to be more reliable cues of stress than increased amplitude [e.g., D. Fry, Lang. Speech 1, 126–152 (1958)]. Nevertheless, none of these acoustic parameters has been consistently connected with stress, and their relative importance as cues for stress appears to vary across languages. In the present study, English and French monolinguals produced sentences containing sententially stressed and unstressed monosyllabic words. In addition to F0 change, duration, and amplitude, the relative positions of the maximum and minimum amplitude were measured. The results indicate that: (1) increased F0 change, duration and amplitude are associated with stress in English, but not in French; and (2) an early maximum amplitude is associated with stress in both English and French. The present study suggests that early discussions of amplitude as an important acoustic correlate of stress may not have been far off, but that the position—rather than the relative level—of the maximum amplitude is the pertinent parameter.
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The articulation of consonant‐induced vowel duration changes in English (A)

Kenneth deJong

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S66-S66 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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This reports on an articulatory investigation of acoustic findings that vowels tend to be longer before voiced than voiceless consonants [House and Fairbanks, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (1953)], before fricatives than stops [Umeda, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (1975)], and before single consonants than before multiple consonants [Fowler, J. Exp. Psychol. (1983)]. Measurements were taken from tongue movement traces obtained with the Wisconsin microbeam system during vowels in accented and unaccented conditions. Assuming a gestural theory of speech production, three mechanisms for producing these duration differences are considered: The duration of the closing gesture may be stretched, the consonantal gesture may begin later in the vowel, or the production of the entire vowel may be lengthened. One subject's vowel durations were affected by the voicing and manner of the following consonant. Another's were affected only by consonant voicing when the word is accented, and only by consonant duration when the word is unaccented. Moreover, the effect of duration and voicing on the vowel duration was due, in part, to differences in how early the closing gesture for the consonant begins, while the effect of manner of articulation was due entirely to differences in the duration of the closing gesture. [Work supported, in part, by NSF.]
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Variations of duration in stressed syllables taken from French read sentences (A)

S. Santi and I. Guaitella

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S66-S66 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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This study deals with the analysis of the relationships between stress and duration in French. The duration of stressed and unstressed syllables, taken from 55 read sentences, has been measured. The results have lead to conclude that, while stress is closely correlated to a modification of duration, the nature of this modification is more complex than expected, according to classical theories. The stressed syllable can be lengthened or shortened with regard to the nearest unstressed syllable and also to the other stressed syllable of the sentence. This choice seems to be allowed and motivated according to perception laws and mechanisms of expressivity.
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Word and nonword durations in toddlers (A)

Michael P. Robb and Harold R. Bauer

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S66-S66 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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An issue rarely addressed in developmental acoustic phonetics is the simultaneous occurrence of and relationship between work and nonword forms. The vocalizations of six children were sampled 12 times over a 13‐month period. Each child's monthly vocalization sample was examined for the frequency of occurrence and duration of words and nonwords. A child was given credit for a “word” production ifs/he produced a phonetic form that was a recognizable attempt at the adult word. Complete agreement between the caregiver and investigator defined word status. The results compared the duration of word and nonword vocalizations produced by a group of normally developing toddlers. The durations were examined as the occurrence of words increased and nonwords decreased.
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Speech rate and vowel duration in American English (A)

Michelle Caisse

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S66-S66 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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In an experiment designed to elucidate the manner in which vowel duration in American English is altered by speaking rate and how rate interacts with other duration‐affecting factors, vowel durations were measured in nonsense words spoken in frame sentences. The following inherent and contextual factors were manipulated: vowel height and tenseness (/ɪ, I, e, r/); post‐vocalic consonant voicing; vowel position in utterance (words were monosyllabic or disyllabic with the target vowel in the initial syllable); and speaking rate. Preliminary results confirm earlier findings that vowel height has an additive effect on vowel duration and consonant voicing interacts with vowel class (tense versus lax) and position. The results further show that rate exhibits similar behavior to voicing. It interacts with vowel class and voicing, and with position in voiced consonants.
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Semantic and pragmatic effects in speech production (A)

Jan Charles Luce

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S66-S67 (1990); (2 pages)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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This study addresses how semantic information may prime, and thus facilitate, the articulation of a target word. In addition, it addresses how the pragmatic interaction between speaker and listeners may modify speech production. To examine these issues, subjects were presented with a visual prime and target and were asked to name the target aloud. Prime type and neighborhood characteristics of the target were manipulated. Primes were either semantically related or unrelated to the target. Targets occurred in neighborhoods that had either many or few phonetically similar neighbors and these neighbors were either high or low in frequency. Dependent variables were duration and the pitch of stressed vowels. Prefiminary results suggest that vowel duration of the target decreases when it has many neighbors that are high frequency, suggesting facilitation. Pitch is higher on targets with low‐ versus high‐frequency neighbors when preceded by an unrelated prime, suggesting speaker compensation. The results will be discussed in the frameworks of interactive activation and pragmatic compensation.
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The effect of the amplitude of the spectral envelope on P‐center location in speech and nonspeech analogs (A)

Alice E. Turk

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S67-S67 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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This paper discusses a study of P‐center locations in the equal duration syllables [a], [ba], and [ma]. The syllables were chosen because, in articulatory terms, the onsets of [ba] and [mal are quite similar, and acoustically the beginnings of the syllabics vary in their amplitude envelopes. The nonspeech analogs are single‐formant stimuli that vary only in how low the first 60 ms was low‐pass filtered: [a] had no low‐pass filtering; [ma] had an intermediate amount, and [ba] had the most extreme amount. The purpose of the experiment is to determine whether the resulting spectral differences alone can affect the location of the P center. Stimuli consist of five syllables and include all nine possible pairs of the three‐syllable types. The silent interval between the second and third syllables and between the fourth and fifth syllables is varied along a continuum from 0 to 250 ms in 25‐ms steps (the interval between the first and second syllables and the third and the fourth syllables is always 150 ms). Subjects judge the relative isochrony of these strings. Results from a preliminary experiment show that the location of the P center in nonspeech analogs of [ba] and [ma] are not significantly different, while the P center of the nonspeech analog of [a] differs from that of both [ba] and [ma]. Fowler (1979) found that the P‐center location of prevoiced and nonprevoiced allophones of homorganic stops did not differ significantly. She argues from this result that the location of P centers is determined by the underlying articulation and not by the spectrum of the acoustic signal. The fact that the nonspeech analogs of [ba] and [ma] (with no underlying articulations) did not differ in P‐center location suggests instead that the spectrum of the signal alone may after all underlie P‐center location; specifically, like the analogs of [ba] and [ma], the prevoiced and nonprevoiced stops in Fowler's study may have so little energy in the closure that their spectra do not differ significantly during that interval. In light of this study's nonspeech results, a reevaluation of Howell's (1984) claims that spectral differences do determine P‐center location is in order.
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Effects of depth on divers' speech (A)

Michel Grenié

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S67-S67 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The aim of this study was to analyze some of the major acoustic‐phonetic changes that occur in French when speech is produced by divers in an air atmosphere at several depths of submersion ranging from sea level to − 50 m (0, − 5, − 10, − 20, − 30, − 40, − 50m). A significant increase in fundamental frequency was found as depth increased. Submersion level seems to have no effect on duration and amplitude. Some significant differences were found in formant amplitude and frequencies. Shifts in the relative energy of formants 2, 3, and 4 were observed on vowels at the deepest conditions. The quantification of the difference in dB between the intensity of the fundamental and the intensity of the largest harmonic in the first formant suggests that phonation varies as a function of depth. At great depths, an increase in vowel effort contributes to speech distortion. These results are mainly discussed in terms of speech production strategies in deep atmosphere.
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An acoustic study of the timing of contextual nasalization in English (A)

Marie K. Huffman

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S67-S67 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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The time course of contextual nasalization in English was investigated using acoustic data. DFT spectra were analyzed to identify spectral differences betwen contextually nasalized vowels (as in “bean”) and their oral counterparts (as in “bead”). Analysis by synthesis was performed to clarify the contributions of the first formant, the nasal formant, and the accompanying nasal zero, to the spectrum of the vowel. As in previous work, nasalization resulted in spectral changes in the first‐formant region, and formants that are shifted relative to what is observed in oral vowels. In our data, the nasal pole falls in the 600‐ to 1000‐Hz frequency range; the nasal zero is usually 200‐300 Hz above it. The nasal pole appears 40–50 ms after onset of the vowel (occasionally earlier), and moves up slowly throughout the vowel. These results agree with physiological data in the literature, suggesting that noninvasive, acoustic measures may be useful for investigating the temporal properties of linguistic nasalization.
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Onset‐rhyme temporal structure of Mandarin syllables (A)

Alan Bell and Meichun Liu

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S67-S67 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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In order to determine whether rhymes of Mandarin Chinese syllables can be said to have the status of a temporal invariant in some sense, the durations of onsets, rhymes, and nasal codas were measured. The effects of different onsets and vowel qualities, as well as the presence or absence of high‐vowel onglides or offglides or a final nasal consonant were considered. The syllables were spoken at normal and fast tempos in sentence frames by six speakers. The main result is that vowel + nasal rhymes and vowel + high offglide rhymes (e.g.,/ai/, /au/) are not appreciably longer than rhymes with simple vowels (confirming an earlier claim by Ou Yah, 1980), although a longer onset does in general make a syllable longer. Finer temporal compensations help further characterize the status of the rhyme as a quasiinvariant.
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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) film of articulatory movements (A)

Arne Kjell Foldvik, Olaf Husby, and Jørn Kværness

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 87, Issue S1, pp. S67-S67 (1990); (1 page)

Online Publication Date: 13 Aug 2005

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A short MRI film will be shown of the pronunciation of a compound Norwegian word, [̍çimutantn̩] , giving a sagittal view of the movements of the lips and tongue, as well as the soft palate during the articulation. The word has been chosen in order to show the tongue movements to and from a front‐close, a back‐close, and a back‐open vowel and also nasal plosion. MRI still pictures, based on sustained articulation of particular sounds, will also be shown and discussed. The MRI technique for filming and taking stills of articulation will be explained, previous MRI work on articulation assessed, and further improvements of the technique and its applications discussed.
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