Speech perception/production

Abstract Vowels are traditionally described according to three articulatory dimensions: height, frontness and rounding. Despite the linguistic importance of vowel height in many languages, there is still disagreement about its physiological implementation and its acoustic consequences. One area of controversy is whether the jaw or the tongue dorsum is the main contributor to this linguistic distinction. In American English, height is highly contrastive, distinguishing five front and five back vowels in most dialects.

Although there is consistent evidence that higher levels of processing, such as learning the form-meaning associations specifi c to the second language (L2), are a source of diffi culty in acquiring L2 speech, no study has addressed how these levels interact in shaping L2 perception and production of intonation. We examine the hypothesis of whether access to contextual meaning increases the chances of fi rst language (L1) infl uence on L2 intonation. To test this hypothesis, we compared the perception and production of sentential English focus by 27 advanced English language learners (n = 13 L1 Mandarin speakers; n = 14 L1 Spanish speakers) and 13 controls, through a series of tasks that promoted different levels of access to meaning. Results showed that L1 transfer was especially clear in Spanish speakers. Not only did they consistently differ from controls in their perception

It has been long noticed that it is difficult to maintain both trilling and palatalization (Brok 1910, Shevelov 1979, Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, Kavitskaya 1997, among others). Various suggestions as to why this should be the case have been made in the literature. The general idea present in most accounts is that trilling and palatalization involve different constraints that make conflicting demands and are thus incompatible. For instance, Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996 claim that the raising of the blade and front of the tongue ...

Stress provides an acoustic cue to a syllable, word or a part of a sentence to convey different intents without changing the meaning. The acoustic correlates of stress comprises of increased fundamental frequency, intensity, duration and vowel quality. These acoustic measures vary according to the structure of the language. There are no reports on the acoustic correlates of stress in Nepali. Hence, the present study aims to investigate the acoustic correlates of stress in Nepali language. A total of 20 native speakers of Nepali language in the age range of 18 to 30 years participated in the study. Ten bi-syllabic words consisting of an adjective and a noun were chosen. The participants were asked to read the two word phrases with and without stress on the adjectives that were marked in italics. The variations in stressed and unstressed conditions were analyzed for the marked adjectives. The peak fundamental frequencies (Fo), peak intensity (dB), duration (msec) were extracted from the adjectives of the 10 phrases using PRAAT (Version 5.3.17) software. S-ratio was also computed for the acoustic measures of stress for both the stressed and unstressed conditions. Descriptive analysis revealed increase in the Means of peak fundamental frequency (Fo), peak intensity (Io) and duration (Do) and t-test revealed significant increase in Fo and Io in both conditions. However, Do revealed no statistical significance in stressed and unstressed conditions.

It has been long noticed that it is difficult to maintain both trilling and palatalization (Brok 1910, Shevelov 1979, Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, Kavitskaya 1997, among others). Various suggestions as to why this should be the case have been made in the literature. The general idea present in most accounts is that trilling and palatalization involve different constraints that make conflicting demands and are thus incompatible.

Two experiments quantitatively investigated the interaction of prosody and syntax in marking focus in English. A production study with 28 participants (analyzing 919 utterances) found that the acoustic marking of subject focus vs broad focus, induced through a preceding context question, was generally the same in clefts as in sentences with unmarked syntax. Thus, results suggested that prosody is independent from syntax rather than showing a trade-off (weaker prosodic marking for clefts). Focus was marked with f0 range, f0 maxima, f0 minima, duration, and intensity. Maxima of focused subjects were not significantly higher, but they were earlier than in broad focus. In a perception experiment, 230 participants rated the suitability of 24 auditorily presented stimuli as answers to preceding context questions inducing subject focus or broad focus. Clefts and sentences prosodically marking the subject as focused were rated higher in subject focus than in broad focus contexts. Syntax and prosody did not interact, again suggesting the absence of a trade-off. Thus, both studies suggest an additive use of syntax and prosody: Prosodic focus marking was equally extensive and effective in the presence of syntactic focus marking as without.

In this study, the categorical perception of the /æ/-/ɛ/ continuum between British and North American English speakers was measured by participants performing a perception task. Because of the presence /æ/-tensing in many dialects of North American English, it was found that the North American speakers’ boundary occurred later than British speakers due to their wider acoustic acceptance of /æ/. This is the first study to test the categorical perception of the /æ/-/ɛ/ continuum between British and North American speakers and the results are significant. The results also challenge the proposal that vowels are perceived continuously.