Marie K. Huffman

Syllable weight: convergence of phonology and phonetics

In some languages, syllable weight depends exclusively on vowel length, while in others, coda consonants add weight to syllables. In this paper we assume that syllable weight is reflected in moraic structure, and that weight-bearing coda consonants are the exclusive dependents of a mora, while weightless consonants share a mora with the preceding vowel. We consider whether the durations of vowels and coda consonants reflect the distinction between a segment which occupies its own mora and a segment that shares a mora. We examine three patterns of coda weight, reflected in stress assignment: in Hindi, codas always contribute to syllable weight; in Malayalam, coda consonants are always weightless; and in Levantine Arabic, coda weight is contextually determined, with word-internal codas contributing to syllable weight following a short vowel, but weightless following a long vowel. These phonological patterns translate into different moraic representations of CVC and CVVC syllables across the different languages. We examine the durations of vowels and coda consonants in CV, CVC, CVV and CVVC syllables in Hindi, Malayalam and Levantine Arabic, and find that in all three languages, segments that we represent as mora-sharing are significantly shorter than segments that we represent as occupying an independent mora. The striking differences in durational patterns across the three languages correlate with the different moraic representations proposed on the basis of phonological patterning.

Measures of phonation type in Hmong

This study examines measures of glottal flow for vowels of Hmong, a Southeast Asian language which uses breathy and normal phonation contrastively. A software inverse filter was used to recover glottal airflow from oral airflow recordings. Properties of glottal flow measured in the time domain were glottal pulse symmetry and relative closed-phase duration. In the frequency domain, measures of spectral tilt and the amplitude difference between F0 and H2 were applied to discrete Fourier transforms (DFTs) of the glottal flow waveforms. Spectral tilt could not be reliably measured for many tokens. For the other measures, values were available for all tokens and were compared across phonation types. Flow pulse symmetry is not significantly different for breathy and normal-voice vowels. On the other hand, prominence of the fundamental relative to the second harmonic is a very significant correlate of the breathy/normal distinction, as is the relative closed-phase duration. These results are considered in light of an existing model of the voice source.

The Oxford Handbook of Laboratory Phonology

PART I: INTRODUCTION PART II: NATURE AND TYPES OF VARIATION: THEIR INTERPRETATION WITHIN A LABORATORY PHONOLOGY PERSPECTIVE PART III: MULTIDIMENSIONAL REPRESENTATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE OF SOUND STRUCTURE PART IV: INTEGRATING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES: INSIGHTS FROM PRODUCTION, PERCEPTION, AND ACQUISITION PART V: METHODOLOGIES AND RESOURCES

The role of F1 amplitude in producing nasal percepts

A decrease in F1 amplitude is one of the most consistent acoustic consequences of nasal coupling. Despite the consistency of this effect, its importance for the perception of nasality has been given little attention. Listener judgments of the nasality of naturally produced oral and contextually nasalized vowels were evaluated in light of a time‐varying analysis of relative F1 amplitude (A1‐H1). Both average A1‐H1, and change in A1‐H1 over time, appear to correlate with nasality judgments. The nasalized vowels sometimes judged as oral were those that had larger A1‐H1 values overall, more like those of oral vowels. On the other hand, the oral items sometimes judged as nasal did not have lower overall A1‐H1 values; rather, they showed a marked decrease in A1‐H1 over the course of the vowel, a pattern that was not observed for the oral items consistently judged as oral. Comparable experiments were designed using synthetic stimuli, which provide a control for pitch, vowel quality, and vowel duration difference...

Patterns of coarticulation in English

Recent work on vowel‐to‐vowel coarticulation [e.g., Krakow and Manuel (1984), Magen (1984)] has identified language specific coarticulatory patterns. These include differences in relative strength of carryover versus anticipatory coarticulation (sometimes called “directionality”) and differences in the freedom of vowels to vary. Such results suggest that coarticulatory patterns of individual language are more complicated than was thought previously. The present study examines vowel‐to‐vowel coarticulation in English with respect to several variables, primarily stress and consonant manner of articulation. Tokens recorded were of the form VCV and bVCəCVb, where the vowel was one of /i,a,u/ and the consonant was one of /l,d,r/. These nonsense words were said in a frame, with stress on the first or the last syllable. Formant frequencies were measured, using LPC analysis, at several points in these tokens. Our data suggest that stress of the affected vowel influences amount of carryover coarticulation more than stress of the affecting vowel does. Other results include indications that coarticulatory directionality can vary within a single language; here both identity of the consonant and stress play a role. [Work supported by NSF.]Recent work on vowel‐to‐vowel coarticulation [e.g., Krakow and Manuel (1984), Magen (1984)] has identified language specific coarticulatory patterns. These include differences in relative strength of carryover versus anticipatory coarticulation (sometimes called “directionality”) and differences in the freedom of vowels to vary. Such results suggest that coarticulatory patterns of individual language are more complicated than was thought previously. The present study examines vowel‐to‐vowel coarticulation in English with respect to several variables, primarily stress and consonant manner of articulation. Tokens recorded were of the form VCV and bVCəCVb, where the vowel was one of /i,a,u/ and the consonant was one of /l,d,r/. These nonsense words were said in a frame, with stress on the first or the last syllable. Formant frequencies were measured, using LPC analysis, at several points in these tokens. Our data suggest that stress of the affected vowel influences amount of carryover coarticulation more tha...

Measures of spectral tilt

Crude measures of spectral tilt (F0‐H2 difference, and F0‐F1 difference) have been demonstrated to be useful for distinguishing phonation types. However with such methods, it is difficult to control for differences due to variations in vowel quality and F0. In order to place such measures on a firmer foundation, the differences in vowel quality can be compensated for by inverse filtering. This technique has been used for analyzing vowels in languages having contrasting phonation types. FM recordings of airflow data in Burmese and Hmong, and ordinary AM audio recordings of !Xoo and Jalapa Mazatec were analyzed. AM recordings can be used, as phase distortion may be neglected while working in the frequency domain. FFT spectra were made of the inverse‐filtered waveforms. We considered several questions such as computational methods for deriving the amplitudes of harmonics, the expected dependency of amplitude on frequency, and the appropriate range of frequencies to examine. The results show that measures of ...

Timing of contextual nasalization in two languages

Coarticulatory patterns in nasality in two West African languages—Akan and Efik—will be described. These languages make different phonological use of the feature (nasal). Nasality is determined from nasal and oral airflow as recorded with a Rothenburg split mask. The focus is on the timing of contextual nasalization; in particular, the coarticulatory effects of nasal consonants on adjacent vowels that are not contrastively (+ nasal). These effects are said to vary depending on the phonological use of nasality in a language. In Akan, there is an oral/nasal contrast on vowels, even in the environment of nasal consonants; thus contextual nasalization may be limited, so as to preserve the phonemic contrast. In Efik, there is no such contrast on vowels, so contextual nasalization of vowels may be more extensive, beginning earlier, and ending later, as has been reported elsewhere for English. Data for several speakers of each language will be discussed. [Work supported by NSF.]

Segmental and prosodic effects on coda glottalization

Glottalization is a common property of coda t’s in American English. Previous work [J. Pierrehumbert, Proc. CLS 2, 232–256 (1994)] found coda glottalization to be affected by following segmental context. This paper examines segmental and prosodic contextual factors as they condition the occurrence of glottalization on ‘‘voiceless’’ stops [p] and [t] in English. Following Pierrehumbert’s methodology, audio recordings were made of discourse fragments containing open‐ended lists, which minimize phonation changes associated with low pitch. To test the effect of segmental context, various sounds were placed in the onset of the second member of compounds such as ‘‘kite maker’’ and ‘‘suit fitter.’’ To test the effect of prosodic context, these list items were compared with single word list items, as in ‘‘color, height, make,...’’ with a phrase boundary after the coda consonant. For coda [t], glottalization is more common before sonorants, and is affected little by a following phrase boundary. In contrast, coda [p] is less frequently glottalized, and is more sensitive to context. Glottalization is more frequent before sonorants, without an intervening phrase boundary. Thus, the strength of segmental and phrasal context effects in determining the occurrence of glottalization depends on the target segment. [Work supported by NSF.]

Measures of phonation contrasts in Hmong

Previous studies of contrastive phonation types have found that measures of the prominence of the first harmonic relative to the first formant or lower harmonics are fairly reliable correlates of phonation contrasts involving normal, breathy, and creaky voice qualitites. Because variations in phonation type are attributed to the glottal source, it is of interest to determine the extent to which such spectral differences hold of the glottal flow waveform, one indicator of laryngeal behavior. Inverse filtered flow data were analyzed for normal voiced, breathy voiced, and so‐called creaky voiced vowels of Hmong, a tone language of Southeast Asia. Spectral analysis indicated that the difference in relative amplitude of the fundamental frequency and the first harmonic (F0‐H2) of the glottal spectrum is a very successful indicator of the normal versus breathy voice quality contrast. The supposedly creaky vowels did not differ by any spectral measure. [Work supportd by NINCDS.]

English focus prosody processing and production by Mandarin speakers

Our study compared the processing and production of English focus prosody by native speakers of English and Mandarin. Twenty-one Mandarin speakers living in the US and 21 English speakers participated in two tasks. In the processing task, participants responded to instructions that contained natural or unnatural contrastive prosody (Click on the purple sweater; Now click on the SCARLET sweater/Now click on the PURPLE jacket.) In the production task, participants guided an experimenter to place colored objects on a white board, with some contexts designed to elicit contrastive focus (Put the yellow arrow over the ORANGE arrow/yellow DIAMOND, please). All adjectives and nouns were bisyllabic trochees. The two groups differed in their realization of focus, with English speakers tending to align the pitch peak with the stressed syllable and Mandarin speakers with the right edge of the focused word. However, comparison of reaction times for the processing task indicated that both groups responded more quickly ...