Christina M. Esposito

The effects of linguistic experience on the perception of phonation

Abstract This study investigates the role linguistic experience has on the perception of phonation and acoustic properties that correlate with this perception. Listeners from Gujarati (contrasts breathy versus modal vowels), Spanish (no breathiness) and English (allophonic breathiness) participated in: (1) a similarity-rating task, indicating the similarity of modal and/or breathy Mazatec vowels and (2) a free-sort task, sorting breathy and modal stimuli from many languages. Results showed that Gujaratis did better at distinguishing phonation in other languages/dialects and were more consistent. English listeners did no better than Spanish listeners, despite the allophonic breathiness in English. In terms of acoustic dimensions, results showed that Gujaratis relied on H1−H2 (amplitude of the first harmonic minus amplitude of the second harmonic), English listeners relied weakly on H1−H2 and cepstral peak prominence and Spanish listeners relied on H1−A1 (amplitude of first formant peak) and H1−H2. While it is not clear why Spanish listeners used H1−A1, we can speculate as to why all three groups of listeners used H1−H2. Cross-linguistically, H1−H2, which is correlated with the open quotient ( Holmberg, Hillman, Perkell, Guiod, & Goldman, 1995 ), is the most successful measure of phonation. Perhaps the reason is a perceptual one; open quotient differences might be more salient to listeners.

Variation in Contrastive Phonation in Santa Ana Del Valle Zapotec

The present study sets out to investigate variation due to gender, F0, and/or prosodic position in Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec (Oto-Manguean), a language with phonemically breathy, modal and creaky vowels, each associated with a tone. Male and female speakers produced words in five prosodic positions: isolation (with focus, F0 higher than sentence-medial position), initial (focused, high F0), isolation (without focus, mid-range F0), medial (mid-range F0), final (lower F0). Two acoustic measures of phonation, H1-H2 and H1-A3, were made for each vowel. Results were inconclusive as to whether one gender was creakier or breathier than the other, though they did suggest that there was a difference in the production of phonation. In addition, there was also a strong effect of F0 on phonation, but not of position independently of F0. While the three-way phonation contrast was present in all five prosodic positions, it was not always well-defined. The contrast was minimized in isolation with focus (high F0) and initial position (high F0). The results obtained indicate that there is variation in phonation, even in a language with contrastive phonation.

Voice quality and tone identification in White Hmong

This study investigates the importance of source spectrum slopes in the perception of phonation by White Hmong listeners. In White Hmong, nonmodal phonation (breathy or creaky voice) accompanies certain lexical tones, but its importance in tonal contrasts is unclear. In this study, native listeners participated in two perceptual tasks, in which they were asked to identify the word they heard. In the first task, participants heard natural stimuli with manipulated F0 and duration (phonation unchanged). Results indicate that phonation is important in identifying the breathy tone, but not the creaky tone. Thus, breathiness can be viewed as contrastive in White Hmong. Next, to understand which parts of the source spectrum listeners use to perceive contrastive breathy phonation, source spectrum slopes were manipulated in the second task to create stimuli ranging from modal to breathy sounding, with F0 held constant. Results indicate that changes in H1-H2 (difference in amplitude between the first and second harmonics) and H2-H4 (difference in amplitude between the second and fourth harmonics) are independently important for distinguishing breathy from modal phonation, consistent with the view that the percept of breathiness is influenced by a steep drop in harmonic energy in the lower frequencies.

An acoustic and electroglottographic study of White Hmong tone and phonation

Abstract This study examines tone and phonation in White Hmong, a language with seven tones (traditionally described as: high, mid, low, high-falling, mid-rising, low-falling, and mid-low) and three phonations (low-falling tone is creaky, mid-low tone is breathy and the remaining tones are modal). Thirty-two speakers were recorded producing words with all seven tones; audio and electroglottographic recordings were made. Acoustic measures were: cepstral peak prominence (CPP), H1⁎, H2⁎, H1⁎−H2⁎, H1⁎−A1⁎, H1⁎−A2⁎, H1⁎−A3⁎, and H2⁎−H4⁎. Electroglottographic (EGG) measures were: closed quotient and derivative-EGG closure peak amplitude (DECPA). F0 and duration were measured. Results showed that the traditional tonal descriptions are accurate except for the high-level tone which is better described as rising and the mid-low tone, which is falling. Furthermore, the rising and low-falling tones are shorter than the other five tones. In terms of acoustic and electroglottographic measures, none of the measures tested distinguished all three phonation types at a given time point. Several measures, H1⁎, H1⁎−H2⁎, CQ, CPP, and DECPA, distinguished two phonation categories, suggesting that phonation contrasts are realized across several phonetic dimensions. Additional results showed that many of the acoustic and EGG measures were correlated with F0 and that closed quotient and DECPA were most strongly correlated with H1⁎−H2⁎.

Contrastive breathiness across consonants and vowels: A comparative study of Gujarati and White Hmong

Gujarati and White Hmong are among a small handful of languages known to maintain a phonemic contrast between breathy and modal voice across both obstruents and vowels. Given that breathiness on stop consonants is realized as a breathy-voiced aspirated release into the following vowel, how is consonant breathiness distinguished from vocalic breathiness, if at all? We examine acoustic and electroglottographic data of potentially ambiguous CV sequences collected from speakers of Gujarati and White Hmong, to determine what properties reliably distinguish breathiness associated with stop consonants from breathiness associated with vowels comparing both within and across these two unrelated languages. Results from the two languages are strikingly similar: only the early timing and increased magnitude of the various acoustic reflexes of breathiness phonetically distinguish phonemic consonantal breathiness from phonemic vocalic breathiness.

An acoustic and electroglottographic study of White Hmong phonation.

This study examines the phonation of White Hmong, a language with seven tones (traditionally described as high, mid, low, high‐falling, mid‐rising, low‐falling, and mid‐low), five of which are associated with modal phonation, and two of which are associated with non‐modal phonation; the low‐falling tone is creaky and mid‐low tone is breathy. Thirty‐three speakers were recorded producing words with all seven tones; 12 also made electroglottographic (EGG) recordings. Acoustic measures were cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and harmonic amplitudes H1* and H2*, H1*‐H2*, H1*‐A1*, H1*‐A2*, H1*‐A3*, and H2*‐H4*. EGG measures were closed quotient (CQ) and peak‐closing velocity (PCV). Measures were made automatically using VOICESAUCE and PCQUIRERX. Results showed that none of the measures tested distinguished all three phonation types. However, several measures distinguished two categories: H1 distinguished creaky versus non‐creaky, H1‐H2 distinguished breathy from creaky, and the EGG measures CQ and PCV both disting...

Contrastive breathiness on consonants and vowels.

While numerous languages exhibit contrastive breathy phonation either on consonants (e.g., Indic languages) or on vowels (e.g., Zapotec languages); very few languages preserve this contrast across both consonants and vowels. Two such languages are Gujarati and White Hmong. Given that breathiness on consonants is typically realized as a breathy‐voiced release into the following vowel, how are the two types of breathiness distinguished in CV sequences, if at all? We examine acoustic and electroglottographic data collected from speakers of Gujarati and White Hmong to determine what properties reliably distinguish breathy and modal voice in potentially ambiguous CV sequences, and to explore the phonetic and phonological properties shared between these two genetically unrelated languages. Preliminary results from both languages are strikingly similar; modal vowels adjacent to breathy consonant releases strongly resemble phonemically breathy vowels, and only the exact timing and magnitude of the acoustic reflex...

The effects of prosody on pitch and voice quality of White Hmong tones

White Hmong contrasts two high-falling tones (one breathy, the other modal) and two low tones (one modal level-tone, the other creaky low-falling). Perceptual studies [Garellek et al. (2013)] have shown that listeners rely on breathy voice to distinguish between the high-falling tones, but ignore creaky voice when distinguishing between the low tones. We test whether such differences stem from prosodic variation, by examining tokens from stories read by native speakers. Vowels were annotated for phrasal position and neighbouring tones. We obtained f0 and voice quality measures. Results support and help elucidate previous perceptual research: (1) the breathy high-falling tone is breathy in all prosodic positions, (2) the breathy high-falling tone has a prosodically-variable f0, (3) the creaky low-falling tone has a prosodically-stable f0. The creaky low-falling tone is creakier than the modal low tone in all positions. Therefore, listeners may ignore f0 in the identification of the breathy high-falling ton...

Relative role of pitch vs. phonation cues in White Hmong tone identification

This study investigates the relative importance of phonation and pitch cues in (White) Hmong tone identification. Hmong has seven productive tones, two of which involve non-modal phonation. The breathy tone is usually produced with a mid- or high-falling pitch contour similar to the high-falling modal tone. Similarly, aside from some pitch differences between the low modal tone and the low-falling creaky or checked tone, production studies have shown that the phonation differences between the two tones are large. Fifteen native listeners participated in two perception tasks, in which they were asked to indentify the word they heard. In the first task, participants heard natural stimuli with manipulated F0 and duration (phonation unchanged). Results indicate that the phonation of the stimulus is important in identifying the breathy tone, but not the creaky one. Duration and F0 were more closely tied to creaky tonal identification than phonation. In the second task, source spectrum components were manipulated to create stimuli ranging from modal to breathy sounding, with the F0 held constant. The results of this task indicate that changes in H1-H2 and H2-H4 are independently important for distinguishing breathy from modal phonation when F0 is held constant. [Work supported by NSF and NIH]

Phonation in nine languages

This study compares the phonations of 9 languages. Some of the languages use phonation types contrastively, independently of any pitch contrasts (Gujarati: modal, breathy; White Hmong and Black Miao: modal, breathy; Jalapa Mazatec: modal, breathy, creaky; Southern Yi, Bo, and Hani: tense, lax), while some use phonation as correlates of pitch contrasts (White Hmong: creaky low tone; Black Miao: creaky low tone and pressed high tone; Mandarin: creaky low and falling tones; Santiago Matatlan Zapotec and San Juan Guelavia Zapotec: creaky large-falling tone and breathy small-falling tone). Acoustic measures of phonation are compared for all 9 languages, and electroglottographic measures are compared for all but Mazatec. Multi-dimensional scaling of the production measures is then used to derive a lower-dimension phonation space, and the use of that production space by the different languages is compared. [Work supported by NSF]