Sameer ud Dowla Khan

Effects of native language on perception of voice quality

Little is known about how listeners judge phonemic versus allophonic (or freely varying) versus post-lexical variations in voice quality, or about which acoustic attributes serve as perceptual cues in specific contexts. To address this issue, native speakers of Gujarati, Thai, and English discriminated among pairs of voices that differed only in the relative amplitudes of the first versus second harmonics (H1-H2). Results indicate that speakers of Gujarati (which contrasts H1-H2 phonemically) were more sensitive to changes than are speakers of Thai or English. Further, sensitivity was not affected by the overall source spectral slope for Gujarati speakers, unlike Thai and English speakers, who were most sensitive when the spectrum fell away steeply. In combination with previous findings from Mandarin speakers, these results suggest a continuum of sensitivity to H1-H2. In Gujarati, the independence of sensitivity and spectral context is consistent with use of H1-H2 as a cue to the languages phonemic phonation contrast. Speakers of Mandarin, in which creaky phonation occurs in conjunction with the low dipping Tone 3, apparently also learn to hear these contrasts, but sensitivity is conditioned by spectral context. Finally, for Thai and English speakers, who vary phonation only post-lexically, sensitivity is both lower and contextually-determined, reflecting the smaller role of H1-H2 in these languages.

Bengali (Bangladeshi Standard)

Bengali ( /baŋla/) is an Indo-European language (Indic branch) spoken by over 175 million people in Bangladesh and eastern India (Dasgupta 2003: 352; Lewis 2009). The speech illustrated below is representative of the standard variety widely spoken in Dhaka and other urban areas of Bangladesh.

The phonetics of contrastive phonation in Gujarati

Abstract The current study examines (near-)minimal pairs of breathy and modal phonation produced by ten native speakers of Gujarati in connected speech, across different vowel qualities and separated by nine equal timepoints of vowel duration. The results identify five spectral measures (i.e. H1–H2, H2–H4, H1–A1, H1–A2, H1–A3), four noise measures (i.e. cepstral peak prominence and three measures of harmonics-to-noise ratio), and one electroglottographic measure (i.e. CQ) as reliable indicators of breathy phonation, revealing a considerably larger inventory of cues to breathy phonation than what had previously been reported for the language. Furthermore, while the spectral measures are consistently distinct for breathy and modal vowels when averaging across timepoints, the efficacy of the four noise measures in distinguishing phonation categories is localized to the midpoint of the vowels duration. This indicates that the magnitude of breathiness, especially in terms of aperiodicity, changes as a function of time. The current study supports that breathy voice in Gujarati is a dynamic, multidimensional feature, surfacing through multiple acoustic cues that are potentially relevant to the listener.

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 breathy phonation in Gujarati.

While it has long been established that breathy and modal vowels in Gujarati can be reliably distinguished based on the H1‐H2 measure [Fischer‐Jorgensen (1967); Bickley (1982)], and that Gujarati listeners attend solely to H1‐H2 when distinguishing phonation types in Gujarati and in other languages [Bickley (1982); Esposito (2006)], new research [Khan and Thatte (2009)] suggests that in more casual speech styles, H1‐H2 may play a smaller role in distinguishing breathy‐modal minimal pairs. In such speech styles, additional acoustic measures (e.g., H1‐A3, CPP, and rms energy) are more effective in distinguishing breathy and modal vowels for some speakers. To more closely examine the phonetics of breathy vowels in casual speech, the current study examines both acoustic and electroglottographic data collected from naturalistic productions of breathy‐modal minimal pairs. Preliminary data suggest that while all speakers distinguish modal and breathy vowels, the strategies used by each speaker to produce the con...

Upper Saxon (Chemnitz dialect)

Upper Saxon ( Obersachsisch /ɵː po ˁˈ s ɛ ks ʃ/) refers to a group of dialects spoken by over two million people in the Free State of Saxony in eastern Germany. It is considered one of the eastern branches of Central German (Wiesinger 1983, Lewis 2009), with major phonological, morphological, and lexical differences from Standard German and other regional dialects.

Breathy phonation in Gujarati: An acoustic and electroglottographic study.

Recent electroglottographic research on Gujarati [Khan (2009)] reveals that speakers consistently distinguish breathy and modal vowels (e.g., /bar/ “twelve” vs /bAr/ “outside;” capitalization represents breathiness) by both closed quotient and closing velocity. Despite this interspeaker uniformity measured at the voice source, the acoustic correlates of the contrast measured in the speech output vary considerably across speakers. While some speakers mark breathiness with a larger H1‐H2 difference, others use lower periodicity (CPP) or greater changes in intensity (rms energy). It is unclear how breathy vowels are contrasted with modal vowels following breathy consonants (e.g., /bAr/ “outside” vs /Bar/ “burden”) or to what extent the preceding consonant manner can affect the spectral acoustics of the vowel (e.g., /pAr/ “mountain” vs /vAn/ “vehicle”). To better capture the variation in both vowel and consonant phonations, the current study examines acoustic and electroglottographic data collected from natur...

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...

Acoustic correlates of creaky voice in English

We compared auditory impressions of creaky voice in English to acoustic measures identified as correlates of contrastive voice qualities in other languages (e.g., Khmer, Chong, Zapotec, Gujarati, Hmong, Trique, and Yi). Sixteen trained linguistics undergraduates listened to the IP-final word “bows” produced five times each by five American English speakers reading the Rainbow Passage, and gave a rating from 0 (no creak) to 5 (very creaky). Results show that stronger auditory impressions of creak are significantly correlated with lower f0, lower cepstral peak prominence (CPP), lower harmonics-to-noise ratios (HNR), and higher subharmonics-to-harmonics ratio (SHR). This suggests that listeners perceive greater creakiness as the voice becomes lower pitched, less periodic, and more audibly interspersed with subharmonic frequencies (i.e., diplophonia). Notably, none of the spectral amplitude measures proposed as acoustic correlates of glottal configurations for creaky voice in other languages (e.g., lower H1-H...

The acoustics of perceived creaky voice in American English

We compared auditory impressions of creaky voice in English to acoustic measures identified as correlates of contrastive voice qualities in other languages (e.g., Khmer, Chong, Zapotec, Gujarati, Hmong, Trique, and Yi). Sixteen trained linguistics undergraduates listened to the IP-final word ‘bows’ produced five times each by five American English speakers reading the Rainbow Passage, and gave a rating from 0 (no creak) to 5 (very creaky). Results show that stronger auditory impressions of creak are significantly correlated with lower f0, lower cepstral peak prominence (CPP), lower harmonics-to-noise ratios (HNR), and higher subharmonics-to-harmonics ratio (SHR). This suggests that listeners perceive greater creakiness as the voice becomes lower pitched, less periodic, and more audibly interspersed with subharmonic frequencies (i.e., diplophonia). Notably, none of the spectral amplitude measures proposed as acoustic correlates of glottal configurations for creaky voice in other languages (e.g., lower H1-H...