DOCSLIB.ORG

Cross-Linguistic Variation in the Phonetic Realization of Breathy Voice

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Cross-Linguistic Variation in the Phonetic Realization of Breathy Voice CROSS-LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE PHONETIC REALIZATION OF “BREATHIER VOICE” Jia Tian1, Yipei Zhou2, Jianjing Kuang3 1 3University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A 2Peking University, China [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT breather voice in Zhenhai, Tamang, and Mon were considered to be this subtype [26, 27, 30]. Breathier voices are non-modal voices produced However, although theoretical studies (e.g., [3,22, with a relatively less constricted glottis. Although 25]) generally recognize the cross-linguistic varia- three major subtypes of breathier voice have been tion in the phonetic realization of “breathier voice”, identified, namely slack/lax voice, breathy voice and there is no consensus on how many subtypes should whispery voice, and distinct IPA symbols have been be identified, and how to define define these differ- proposed to transcribe them, actually there is no con- ent types of breathy voice acoustically. For example, sensus on how many subtypes should be identified, Ladefoged [16, 22, 24] does not distinguish between and how each subtype should be defined. Most stud- whispery voice and breathy voice; Catford [3] and ies simply use “breathy voice” as a general term Laver [25] do not distinguish between lax voice and to cover all its subtypes. In this study, we pro- whispery voice. One important reason for this chal- pose that different subtypes of breathier voice can lenge is that, as [15,22,25] point out, these subtypes be distinguished by evaluating the relative impor- essentially form a continuum, with no clear border- tance of the glottal constriction and the noise com- line between them. Moreover, there is often consid- ponent. Drawing data from Gujarati, White Hmong, erable individual variation in the realizations of any Southern Yi, and Shanghainese, we show that our given type of voice quality [15]. Therefore, in prac- proposed method successfully identified each of the tice, different types of “breathy voice” are generally three subtypes found in these four languages. We not distinguished and collapsed in the literature. will discuss the implication for future voice quality However, even though no language appears to studies. contrast different types of “breathier voice” phono- Keywords: phonation, voice quality, breathy, whis- logically, cross-linguistic variation has been widely pery, slack/lax observed. Different articulatory strategies in phona- tion production lead to different interactions with 1. INTRODUCTION other phonological structures such as tones, and also develop different paths of sound change. It is there- Generally speaking, breathy voice (more accurately, fore meaningful to better understand the variation of breathier voice) is the non-modal phonation pro- “breathier voice.” The question then is: since dif- duced with relatively less constricted glottis along ferent types of “breathier voice” vary rather contin- the voicing continuum [22, 24]. However, as noted uously, is it possible to quantify the variation with by a number of studies [16, 22–24], the phonetic re- acoustic measures? This study aims to provide some alization of the ’breathier voice’ substantially vary insight into this question. across languages. Particularly, three major subtypes Generalizing across previous studies [3, 7, 15, 22, of breathier voice have been recognized, namely 24, 25], the three subtypes can be defined as fol- slack/lax voice, breathy voice and whispery voice lows. 1) Compared with modal voice, slack/lax [3, 7, 15, 24, 25], and distinct IPA symbols have voice is produced mainly with less adductive ten- been proposed to transcribe them [1]. The breathier sion and medial compression in the vocal folds. The voice in languages has been classified into different arytenoid cartilages are not drawn apart as they are subcategories. For instance, the breathier voice in in breathy voice, so the turbulence noise from the Jingpho, Javanese, Yi, Wa, and Mpi were denoted glottis is relatively minor. 2) Breathy voice, by con- as “slack/lax voice”, while the breathier voice in trast, is produced with a considerable glottal aper- Chong, Gujarati, Hindi, Sindhi, and Jalapa Mazatec ture, and there is some audible noise. Compared were classified as “breathy voice” [16, 24]. Whis- with modal voice, the glottal pulse is more symmet- pery voice is relatively less documented, but the rical for breathy voice. 3) Whispery voice differs from both breathy voice and slack/lax voice in that pitch and phonation contrasts co-occur. Breathier it is produced with more aperiodic noise by main- voice is associated with lower register tones in Wu taining a higher degree of medial compression (i.e., [2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 29, 33, 35]. The breathier voice in more constricted than breathy voice, but still less Zhenhai, a closely related Chinese Wu dialect, has constricted than modal voice). Whispery voice has been reported to be “whispery voice [30].” a more skewed glottal flow pulse compared with breathy voice. 2.2. Materials We propose that the three subtypes of “breathier voice” essentially vary in the contribution of two ar- Acoustic measurements of Gujarati, White Hmong, ticulatory aspects: how much medial compression and Southern Yi were retrieved from the “Production in the vocal folds is involved and how large the pos- and Perception of Linguistic Voice Quality” project terior glottal aperture is. The former is acoustically at UCLA1. Recordings of Shanghainese were made related to the slope of the voice spectrum, and the by the first author in Shanghai. Shanghainese is latter is acoustically related to the amount of tur- gradually losing its breathier phonation [11, 33, 35], bulence noise generated in the glottis. Therefore, so we only selected speakers born before 1980 in subtypes of “breathy voice” essentially vary in the this study, because they were previously shown relative importance of cues correlated to glottal con- to maintain the breathier phonation [33]. Since striction and noise component. the recordings of all four languages were collected Therefore, by modeling the relative importance of with the same recording setup (e.g., Shure SM10A these two aspects of voice measures, we should be dynamic microphone and Glottal Enterprises EG2 able to tease apart different types of breathier voice. electroglottograph), and all measurements were ob- This paper will test this hypothesis by looking into tained using the same tools (i.e., VoiceSauce [31] the cross-linguistic variation of four languages that and EggWorks [32]), the results of the statistical involve some kind of “breathier voice.” modeling are comparable across the four languages. 2. METHODS 2.3. Statistical modeling 2.1. Languages In this section, we test the relative importance of spectral tilt and noise measures for each of the four In this study, we compare four languages that in- languages. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), a volve some type of breathier voice: Gujarati (Indo- procedure that determines the relative importance European, Indo-Iranian; atonal), White Hmong of different cues between two or more groups [6], (Hmong-Mien, Hmongic; tonal), Southern Yi (Sino- was conducted in R using the lda() function from Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman; tonal), and Shanghainese the MASS package [28, 34]. This method was cho- (Sino-Tibetan, Sinitic; tonal). Typologically, these sen because it works better than logistic regression four languages come from different language fami- when the predictors are highly correlated with each lies and cover both tonal and non-tonal languages. other (like in our case, where all the spectral tilt Importantly, Gujarati and White Hmong are both measures are highly correlated). This method has considered to have a typical “breathy voice” that been found to be effective in evaluating the relative contrasts with modal voice [9, 10, 16, 18, 19, 24]. importance of different acoustic cues in various lin- Gujarati is atonal, while White Hmong has seven guistic contrasts (e.g., Mazatec phonation contrast phonemic tones. White Hmong distinguishes three [8, 13]; Korean tonogensis [17]; Tongan stress [14]; phonation types (modal, breathy, and creaky). Two Shanghainese phonation contrast [11], to name a of White Hmong tones are associated with non- few). Spectral tilt measures included were: H1*- modal phonation. Southern Yi has a three-tone sys- H2*, H2*-H4*, H1*-A1*, H1*-A2*, and H1*-A3*. tem (low, mid, and high) and two phonation reg- Noise measures included were: CPP and HNR in isters (tense vs. lax) [16, 18, 20, 21]. Both tense four regions of the spectrum (0-500 Hz, 0-1500 Hz, and lax phonations occur in syllables with both mid 0-2500 Hz, and 0-3500 Hz). Mean values over the and low tones. The high tone, on the other hand, entire vowel were used in the LDA analysis. only occurs in syllables with lax phonation. In the The Gujarati model included all breathy and literature, the number of languages that have been modal syllables in the dataset. A total of 3055 ob- reported to have a “whispery voice” is small. In servations (target words embedded in a short sen- this study, we examine Shanghainese, the most well- tence that the subject immediately thought of upon known Chinese Wu dialect. All Chinese Wu dialects seeing the target words) from 10 speakers were in- have a upper vs. lower register contrast in which cluded. The White Hmong model included all sylla- Gujarati: breathy vs modal White Hmong: breathy vs modal 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.2 Absolute correlation Absolute correlation 0.0 0.0 A1* A2* A3* A1* A2* A3* H2* H4* H2* H4* CPP CPP − − − − − − − − − − 500Hz 500Hz 1500Hz 2500Hz 3500Hz 1500Hz 2500Hz 3500Hz − − H1* H1* H1* H1* H1* H1* H1* H2* H1* H2* − − − − − − HNR 0 HNR 0 HNR 0 HNR 0 HNR 0 HNR 0 HNR 0 HNR 0 Southern Yi: tense vs lax Shanghainese: whispery vs modal 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 tle contribution to thenoise phonation measures (i.e., contrast CPP in andin South- HNRs) Fig.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Phonation Types of Korean Fricatives and Affricates
    ISSN 2005-8063 2017. 12. 31. 말소리와 음성과학 Vol.9 No.4 pp. 51-57 http://dx.doi.org/10.13064/KSSS.2017.9.4.051 Phonation types of Korean fricatives and affricates Goun Lee* Abstract The current study compared the acoustic features of the two phonation types for Korean fricatives (plain: /s/, fortis : /s’/) and the three types for affricates (aspirated : /tsʰ/, lenis : /ts/, and fortis : /ts’/) in order to determine the phonetic status of the plain fricative /s/. Considering the different manners of articulation between fricatives and affricates, we examined four acoustic parameters (rise time, intensity, fundamental frequency, and Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP) values) of the 20 Korean native speakers’ productions. The results showed that unlike Korean affricates, F0 cannot distinguish two fricatives, and voice quality (CPP values) only distinguishes phonation types of Korean fricatives and affricates by grouping non-fortis sibilants together. Therefore, based on the similarity found in /tsʰ/ and /ts/ and the idiosyncratic pattern found in /s/, this research concludes that non-fortis fricative /s/ cannot be categorized as belonging to either phonation type. Keywords: Korean fricatives, Korean affricates, phonation type, acoustic characteristics, breathy voice 1. Introduction aspirated-like characteristic by remaining voiceless in intervocalic position. Whereas the lenis stops become voiced in intervocalic Korean has very well established three-way contrasts (e.g., position (e.g., /pata/ → / [pada] ‘sea’), the aspirated stops do not aspirated, lenis, and fortis) both in stops and affricates in three undergo intervocalic voicing (e.g., /patʰaŋ/ → [patʰaŋ] places of articulation (bilabial, alveolar, velar). However, this ‘foundation’). Since the plain fricative /s/, like the aspirated stops, distinction does not occur in fricatives, leaving only a two-way does not undergo intervocalic voicing, categorizing the plain contrast between fortis fricative /s’/ and non-fortis (hereafter, plain) fricative as aspirated is also possible.
    [Show full text]
  • Laryngeal Features in German* Michael Jessen Bundeskriminalamt, Wiesbaden Catherine Ringen University of Iowa
    Phonology 19 (2002) 189–218. f 2002 Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0952675702004311 Printed in the United Kingdom Laryngeal features in German* Michael Jessen Bundeskriminalamt, Wiesbaden Catherine Ringen University of Iowa It is well known that initially and when preceded by a word that ends with a voiceless sound, German so-called ‘voiced’ stops are usually voiceless, that intervocalically both voiced and voiceless stops occur and that syllable-final (obstruent) stops are voiceless. Such a distribution is consistent with an analysis in which the contrast is one of [voice] and syllable-final stops are devoiced. It is also consistent with the view that in German the contrast is between stops that are [spread glottis] and those that are not. On such a view, the intervocalic voiced stops arise because of passive voicing of the non-[spread glottis] stops. The purpose of this paper is to present experimental results that support the view that German has underlying [spread glottis] stops, not [voice] stops. 1 Introduction In spite of the fact that voiced (obstruent) stops in German (and many other Germanic languages) are markedly different from voiced stops in languages like Spanish, Russian and Hungarian, all of these languages are usually claimed to have stops that contrast in voicing. For example, Wurzel (1970), Rubach (1990), Hall (1993) and Wiese (1996) assume that German has underlying voiced stops in their different accounts of Ger- man syllable-final devoicing in various rule-based frameworks. Similarly, Lombardi (1999) assumes that German has underlying voiced obstruents in her optimality-theoretic (OT) account of syllable-final laryngeal neutralisation and assimilation in obstruent clusters.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonological Use of the Larynx: a Tutorial Jacqueline Vaissière
    Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial Jacqueline Vaissière To cite this version: Jacqueline Vaissière. Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial. Larynx 97, 1994, Marseille, France. pp.115-126. halshs-00703584 HAL Id: halshs-00703584 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00703584 Submitted on 3 Jun 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Vaissière, J., (1997), "Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial", Larynx 97, Marseille, 115-126. PHONOLOGICAL USE OF THE LARYNX J. Vaissière UPRESA-CNRS 1027, Institut de Phonétique, Paris, France larynx used as a carrier of paralinguistic information . RÉSUMÉ THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF THE LARYNX Cette communication concerne le rôle du IS PROTECTIVE larynx dans l'acte de communication. Toutes As stated by Sapir, 1923, les langues du monde utilisent des physiologically, "speech is an overlaid configurations caractéristiques du larynx, aux function, or to be more precise, a group of niveaux segmental, lexical, et supralexical. Nous présentons d'abord l'utilisation des différents types de phonation pour distinguer entre les consonnes et les voyelles dans les overlaid functions. It gets what service it can langues du monde, et également du larynx out of organs and functions, nervous and comme lieu d'articulation des glottales, et la muscular, that come into being and are production des éjectives et des implosives.
    [Show full text]
  • Part 1: Introduction to The
    PREVIEW OF THE IPA HANDBOOK Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet PARTI Introduction to the IPA 1. What is the International Phonetic Alphabet? The aim of the International Phonetic Association is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. For both these it is necessary to have a consistent way of representing the sounds of language in written form. From its foundation in 1886 the Association has been concerned to develop a system of notation which would be convenient to use, but comprehensive enough to cope with the wide variety of sounds found in the languages of the world; and to encourage the use of thjs notation as widely as possible among those concerned with language. The system is generally known as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Both the Association and its Alphabet are widely referred to by the abbreviation IPA, but here 'IPA' will be used only for the Alphabet. The IPA is based on the Roman alphabet, which has the advantage of being widely familiar, but also includes letters and additional symbols from a variety of other sources. These additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in languages is much greater than the number of letters in the Roman alphabet. The use of sequences of phonetic symbols to represent speech is known as transcription. The IPA can be used for many different purposes. For instance, it can be used as a way to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary of Key Terms
    Glossary of Key Terms accent: a pronunciation variety used by a specific group of people. allophone: different phonetic realizations of a phoneme. allophonic variation: variations in how a phoneme is pronounced which do not create a meaning difference in words. alveolar: a sound produced near or on the alveolar ridge. alveolar ridge: the small bony ridge behind the upper front teeth. approximants: obstruct the air flow so little that they could almost be classed as vowels if they were in a different context (e.g. /w/ or /j/). articulatory organs – (or articulators): are the different parts of the vocal tract that can change the shape of the air flow. articulatory settings or ‘voice quality’: refers to the characteristic or long-term positioning of articulators by individual or groups of speakers of a particular language. aspirated: phonemes involve an auditory plosion (‘puff of air’) where the air can be heard passing through the glottis after the release phase. assimilation: a process where one sound is influenced by the characteristics of an adjacent sound. back vowels: vowels where the back part of the tongue is raised (like ‘two’ and ‘tar’) bilabial: a sound that involves contact between the two lips. breathy voice: voice quality where whisper is combined with voicing. cardinal vowels: a set of phonetic vowels used as reference points which do not relate to any specific language. central vowels: vowels where the central part of the tongue is raised (like ‘fur’ and ‘sun’) centring diphthongs: glide towards /ə/. citation form: the way we say a word on its own. close vowel: where the tongue is raised as close as possible to the roof of the mouth.
    [Show full text]
  • The Acoustic Consequences of Phonation and Tone Interactions in Jalapa Mazatec
    The acoustic consequences of phonation and tone interactions in Jalapa Mazatec Marc Garellek & Patricia Keating Phonetics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, UCLA [email protected] San Felipe Jalapa de Dıaz⁄ (Jalapa) Mazatec is unusual in possessing a three-way phonation contrast and three-way level tone contrast independent of phonation. This study investigates the acoustics of how phonation and tone interact in this language, and how such interactions are maintained across variables like speaker sex, vowel timecourse, and presence of aspiration in the onset. Using a large number of words from the recordings of Mazatec made by Paul Kirk and Peter Ladefoged in the 1980s and 1990s, the results of our acoustic and statistical analysis support the claim that spectral measures like H1-H2 and mid- range spectral measures like H1-A2 best distinguish each phonation type, though other measures like Cepstral Peak Prominence are important as well. This is true regardless of tone and speaker sex. The phonation type contrasts are strongest in the first third of the vowel and then weaken towards the end. Although the tone categories remain distinct from one another in terms of F0 throughout the vowel, for laryngealized phonation the tone contrast in F0 is partially lost in the initial third. Consistent with phonological work on languages that cross-classify tone and phonation type (i.e. ‘laryngeally complex’ languages, Silverman 1997), this study shows that the complex orthogonal three-way phonation and tone contrasts do remain acoustically distinct according to the measures studied, despite partial neutralizations in any given measure. 1 Introduction Mazatec is an Otomanguean language of the Popolocan branch.
    [Show full text]
  • Pulmonic Airstream Mechanism: the Movement of Lung Air by the Respiratory Muscles
    LING 520 Introduction to Phonetics I Fall 2008 WeekWeek 33 Sounds in other languages Sep. 22, 2008 2 Languages in the world • There are about 7,000 languages in the world today. • Over half of them (52 percent) are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people; over a quarter of them (28 percent) are spoken by fewer than 1,000 people; at least 10 percent of them are spoken by fewer than 100 people. • The pessimists reckon that in 100 years' time 90% of the world's languages will be gone, and that a couple of centuries from now the world may be left with only 200 tongues. • Not everybody is pessimistic: Xhosa people have “colonised” English. English is spoken with a Xhosa accent and attitude. We have a slave called ‘English' and it serves us well. (John Kani) [From BBC website] LING 520 Introduction to Phonetics I, Fall 2008 3 Languages in the world • Nearly half the people in the world (48 percent) speak one of the 10 most widely spoken languages: Language Number of speakers 1. Chinese, Mandarin 885,000,000 2. English 322,000,000 3. Spanish 266,000,000 4. Bengali 189,000,000 5. Hindi 182,000,000 6. Portuguese 170,000,000 6. Russian 170,000,000 8. Arabic (all forms) 161,000,000 9. Japanese 125,000,000 10. German 98,000,000 LING 520 Introduction to Phonetics I, Fall 2008 4 Consonants around the world • In terms of the cross-product of relevant IPA dimensions and values, there are about 600 consonants in different languages.
    [Show full text]
  • Southern Africa As a Phonological Area
    Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology/Linguistics "Speaking (of) Khoisan" A symposium reviewing African prehistory 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area Christfried Naumann & Hans-Jörg Bibiko [email protected] Quelle: Clements & Rialland ( 2008 : 37 ) Contents 1. Introduction 3-15 2. Procedure 16-19 3. Results: Kalahari Basin 20-28 4. Results: Southeastern Bantu 29-42 5. Results: Southern Africa 43-54 (6. Local and dependent features - excluded) 55-61 7. MDS and k-means 62-68 8. Summary 69 (9. Contact scenarios) 70-74 Acknowledgements 75 References 76-77 2 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Phonological similarities • large consonantal inventory (45 c.) • clicks • aspirated and ejective stops • dorsal affricate 3 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Phonological similarities • large consonantal inventory (50 c.) • clicks • aspirated, slack voiced, ejective and imploisve stops •(dorsal affricate) lateral obstruents • 4 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Phonological similarities • large consonantal inventory (68 c.) • (clicks) • aspirated, breathy and implosive stops • lateral obstruents 5 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Example: Distribution of ejectives/glottalized consonants Clements & Rialland (2008: 62) Maddieson (2013) 6 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa
    [Show full text]
  • Information to Users
    INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information C om pany 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9401204 Phonetics and phonology of Nantong Chinese Ac, Benjamin Xiaoping, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1993 Copyri^t ©1993 by Ao, Benjamin Xiaoping.
    [Show full text]
  • Pearce, Jo (2020) Exploring the Contribution of Voice Quality to the Perception of Gender in Scottish English
    Pearce, Jo (2020) Exploring the contribution of voice quality to the perception of gender in Scottish English. MPhil(R) thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/81409/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Exploring the contribution of voice quality to the perception of gender in Scottish English Jo Pearce Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy School of Critical Studies College of Arts University of Glasgow June 2020 Exploring the contribution of voice quality to the perception of gender in Scottish English Jo Pearce Abstract This study investigates how voice quality, here phonation, affects listener perception of speaker gender, and how voice quality interacts with pitch, a major cue to speaker gender, when cueing gender perceptions. Gender differences in voice quality have been identified in both Scottish (Beck and Schaeffler 2015; Stuart-Smith 1999) and American English (Abdelli-Beruh et al. 2014; D. Klatt and L. Klatt 1990; Podesva 2013; Syrdal 1996; Wolk et al. 2012; Yuasa 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Capturing Breathy Voice: Durational Measures of Oral Stops in Marathi
    Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 33 (2012), 27-46 Capturing Breathy Voice: Durational Measures of Oral Stops in Marathi Kelly Harper Berkson University of Kansas 1 Introduction The present study investigates a series of techniques used to capture the durational differences of oral stops in Marathi, an Indic language that exhibits a four-way phonemic distinction among oral stops. Like many of its Indic relatives, Marathi utilizes both voicing and aspiration to achieve oral stop contrasts, yielding aspirated and plain versions of both voiced and voiceless stops. While voice onset time (VOT) is an acoustic feature which can be reliably used to distinguish between plain voiced, plain voiceless, and aspirated voiceless stops, it does not help to differentiate between plain voiced and aspirated voiced—or breathy-voiced—stops. While durational differences may not be sufficient in and of themselves, they do contribute acoustic cues that aid in establishing the four-way contrast. With this in mind, the present production study investigates the utility of two alternative acoustic measures of duration that have been proposed: Noise Offset Time (NOT), proposed by Davis (1994), is measured from the release burst to the beginning of the second formant in the following vowel. The After Closure Time (ACT), proposed by Mikuteit and Reetz (2007), is measured from the release burst to the beginning of periodicity in the waveform. Six native speakers of Marathi were recorded producing a randomized word-list that contained Marathi oral stops in word-initial position before [a]. The digitized recordings were fed into PRAAT, and waveforms and spectrograms were used to measure the ACT and the NOT of each stop.
    [Show full text]
  • Acoustic Discriminability of the Complex Phonation System in !Xó˜O
    Acoustic discriminability of the complex phonation system in !Xo´o˜ Marc Garellek Department of Linguistics University of California, San Diego (September 2018 version, to appear in Phonetica) 9500 Gilman Drive #0108, La Jolla, CA 92093-0108 USA Phone: +1 858 534 2412 Fax: +1 858 534 4789 Email: [email protected] Keywords: voice quality, phonation types, harsh voice Page 1 of 42 Abstract Phonation types, or contrastive voice qualities, are minimally produced using complex movements of the vocal folds, but may additionally involve constriction in the supraglottal and pharyngeal cav- ities. These complex articulations in turn produce a multidimensional acoustic output that can be modeled in various ways. In this study, I investigate whether the psychoacoustic model of voice by Kreiman et al. (2014) succeeds at distinguishing six phonation types of !Xo´o.˜ Linear discriminant analysis is performed using parameters from the model averaged over the entire vowel as well as for the first and final halves of the vowel. The results indicate very high classification accuracy for all phonation types. Measures averaged over the vowel’s entire duration are closely correlated with the discriminant functions, suggesting that they are sufficient for distinguishing even dynamic phonation types. Measures from all classes of parameters are correlated with the linear discrimi- nant functions; in particular, the ‘strident’ vowels, which are harsh in quality, are characterized by their noise, changes in spectral tilt, decrease in voicing amplitude and frequency, and raising of the first formant. Despite the large number of contrasts and the time-varying characteristics of many of the phonation types, the phonation contrasts in !Xo´o˜ remain well differentiated acoustically.
    [Show full text]