Phonetic Transcription What is phonetic transcription? • Sequence of symbols representing the successive consonants and vowels in a stretch of speech. • What are consonants and vowels? • Sets of gestures that can potentially distinguish words from one another in a language • So a phonetic transcription is a representation of the sequence of gestures that compose an utterance. Transcription Types • Broad Phonemic • Each phoneme is a symbol for a contrastive gesture or a set (combination) of gestures • The order of phonemes symbolizes contrastive aspects of gestural sequencing. • Two utterances that differ in at least one phoneme symbol or one ordering are contrastive: if they differ only in that one symbol, then they are a minimal pair. E.g., /pæt/ /bæt/. • Represented in slashes, e.g. /pæt/ • Narrow Phonetic • Annotates non-contrastive details of gestural sequence • Two transcriptions that differ in at least one symbol represent utterances that may or may not contrast • Represented in square brackets, e.g., [pʰæt] Consonant phonemes: minimal sets IPA symbols Consonant phonemes: gesture composition lips tip body velum glottis p bilabial stop opening b bilabial stop m bilabial stop opening t alveolar stop opening d alveolar stop n alveolar stop opening k velar stop opening g velar stop ŋ velar stop opening f labiodental fric opening v labiodental fric θ dental fricative opening ð dental fricative s alveolar fricative opening z alveolar fricative ʃ palatoalveolar opening fricative ʒ palatoalveolar fricative lips tip body velum glottis l alveolar stop uvular approximant ɹ bilabial palatoalveolar pharyngeal approximant approximant approximant w bilabial uvular approximant approximant j palatal approximant h opening tʃ alveolar opening stop+fricative dʒ alveolar stop+fricative Consonant Chart Vowels • A single symbol is used for distinctive combinations of tongue and lip gestures for vowels. • e.g., /but/ • Diphthongs have two symbols: one for each tongue gesture or tongue-lip combination. • e.g. /baɪt/ • Diphthongs can be treated as single phoneme (like affricates /tʃ/, /dʒ/ among the consonants). Vowel phonemes: minimal sets British American ɑɹ ʌ ə ɚ ɪɹ ɛɹ aɪɹ oɹ bored Vowel Chart ə Narrow Phonetic Transcription • Annotates non-contrastive details of gestural sequence • What kind of details? • Free variation • The variants are not distinctive; they cannot differentiate words • e.g., presence vs. absence of a release gesture at the end of a word: • [mætʰ] (TT release gesture) vs. [mæt˺] (no TT release gesture) • Allophonic Variation • Allophones of the same phoneme are determined by context. • The allophones are in complementary distribution: they appear in distinct sets of contexts, so the cannot create a minimal pair. • [bæ̃n] (nasalized vowel) vs. [bæd] (oral vowel) Source of Allophony in Time • Gestural overlap • Gestures have intrinsic duration in time during which the constriction motor task is carried out. • The time course of gestures constituting a sequence of segments may overlap. • Allophonic variation can result from the overlap of a gesture task with different neighboring gestures and the resulting articulatory and acoustic consequences. • Gesture reduction • In certain contexts, the amount of time a motor task is allowed to be active may be too short for it to reach its goal: target state is not achieved. Organization of gestures in time • The consonant and vowel gestures that form a word are each active “mad”“ban” for a fixed interval in time which may vary for different gestures. VEL wide TT clo • The multiple gestures associated TB wide pharyngeal with a given consonant are not LIPS clo necessarily synchronous with each other. time • Speech is not a sequence of synchronous gesture bundles. • How do we discover the timing patterns (temporal structure) of gestures? Finding Gestures in Time • To find when gesture is active in time, examine the movements of the constricting device that forms the constriction for that gesture. • When it begins to move towards the gesture’s constriction target, this is the moment of gestural activation. • When it begins to move away the gesture’s constriction target, this is the moment of gestural deactivation. Gesture Activation Times AUDIO ULyU Lip LLyL Lip LALA “two back” T1yTT T1DISTTTCD T4yTB T4DISTTBCD 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 Gestures for initial C and V begin at roughly the same time Coordination of gestures in Time • Gestures do not float freely but are coordinated to one another in specific ways. • Organization of gestures into segments is not a good predictor of coordination type. • Gestures belonging to a sequence of segments may be coordinated synchronously (e.g. initial consonant an vowel). • Gestures belonging to a single segment may be coordinated sequentially (e.g., velic and oral Author'sAuthor's personal personal copy copy gestures of a final nasal). ARTICLEARTICLE IN IN PRESS PRESS 104104 D.D. Byrd Byrd et et al. al. / Journal/ Journal of of Phonetics Phonetics 37 37 (2009) (2009) 97–110 97–110 “bow know” “bone oh” Coda Onset Velic T Tip 16 Byrd et al, (2009) Fig.Fig. 2. 2. Samples Samples showing showing the the marked marked time time points points for for gesture gesture onset onset (vertical (vertical line line 1) 1) and and peak peak (vertical (vertical line line 2) 2) and and the the target target plateau plateau interval interval (rectangl (rectangle).e). VelumVelum aperture aperture is is in in the the top top panel panel of of each each figure figure and and tongue tongue tip tip aperture aperture in in the the bottom bottom panel panel for for each each individual individual example. example. Fig.Fig. 3. 3. A A sample sample schematizing schematizing the the dependent dependent variables variables of of velum velum aperture aperture displacementdisplacement (VELDISP (VELDISP) and) and velum–tongue velum–tongue tip tip lag lag (LAG (LAG).). A A negative negativeLAGLAGis is Fig.Fig. 4. 4. Pooled Pooled results results showing showing mean meanLAGLAGforfor onsets, onsets, juncture juncture geminates, geminates, shownshown in in this this example. example. andand codas. codas. Gestural Scores • Temporal organization of gestures • Time along horizontal dimension • Boxes represent intervals of time during which gestures are active in the vocal tract. • Gestures of oral constrictors, velum, glottis are displayed on different rows, e.g., “bad”: • Labels on the boxes indicate the constriction degree (and location) of the gesture. • Redundant (non-contrastive) gestures are left out to simplify display: • Consonant release gestures • Glottal narrowing (for voicing) • Velum closing (for non-nasal phonemes) Contrast among gestural scores • Differences in gestural scores that can count as different words: • presence or absence of particular gestures • gestures' values of CD and CL • qualitative organization of gestures in time Presence or absence of gestures: compositionality “bad” “pad” “ban” “pan” “tan” “Ann” Contrast: gestures' values of CD and CL “sad” “shad” Contrast: organization in time “bad” “dab” Allophonic Variation and Overlap • Allophonic variation that is due to how gestural activations overlap is implicit in gestural score. • Aspiration of word-initial stops • Nasalization of vowels before final nasal consonants Aspiration of initial voiceless stops palatal wide palatal wide opening Allophony: voiceless stops and clusters • Voiceless stops are aspirated when they are single word-initial consonants. • Approximants are at least partially voiceless following initial voiceless stops. • Voiceless stops are unaspirated following /s/ at the beginning of a word. Principle1: Glottal Gestures in onset English allows only one glottal opening gesture in onset Aspiration in /#p…/, but not /#sp…/ /p eɪ d/ /s p eɪ d/ [ p ʰ eɪ d] [s p eɪ d] Principle1: Glottal Gestures in onset English allowsAllophonic only one glottal Voicing opening Variation gesture in in English onset "paid" "spade" "prayed" "sprayed" Back to Allophonic Variation French • Voiceless stops are always unaspirated • peine “pain” • pleine “full” • spa “spa” • splendide “splendid” • Glottal opening gesture is shorter in French: equal in length to closure. “two” “tous” English: Nasalization of vowels before nasals palatal wide palatal wide opening opening speakers of Standard French. The English speakers were a 41 year old Australian male from Sydney (En1, one of the authors) and a 31 year old American male from Buffalo, NY (En2, also one of the authors). Stimuli are listed in Table 1.1 2.1. Image Acquisition Data were acquired using a rtMRI protocol developed specifi- cally for the study of speech production [19]. Subjects’ upper Figure 1: French nasal vowel production: pan [p˜a] ‘pane’. airways were imaged midsagittally with spatial resolution 68 Frame 288: initiallabialstop;f291:tongue body retracton and x68pixels,fieldofview200x200mm,andatemporalre- initiation of velum lowering; f293: tongue body at target vowel construction rate of 33.18 f.p.s. Speech was recorded inside posture, velum fully open the scanner at 20 kHz, simultaneously with the MRI acquisi- tion, and later noise-reduced [21]. The companion video and audio recordings allow for dynamic visualization of the entire midsagittal plane of the vocal tract, including the velum and nasopharynx. 2.2. Articulatory Analysis Gestural Score MRI data were loaded into a custom graphical user interface de- “bun” signed for the synchronization, inspection and analysis• of com-Velum lowering gesture panion audio and video recordings [22]. Articulatory