Verna Stockmal

Measures of Native and Non-Native Rhythm in a Quantity Language

The traditional phonetic classification of language rhythm as stress-timed or syllable-timed is attributed to Pike. Recently, two different proposals have been offered for describing the rhythmic structure of languages from acoustic-phonetic measurements. Ramus has suggested a metric based on the proportion of vocalic intervals and the variability (SD) of consonantal intervals. Grabe has proposed Pairwise Variability Indices (nPVI, rPVI) calculated from the differences in vocalic and consonantal durations between successive syllables. We have calculated both the Ramus and Grabe metrics for Latvian, traditionally considered a syllable rhythm language, and for Latvian as spoken by Russian learners. Native speakers and proficient learners were very similar whereas low-proficiency learners showed high variability on some properties. The metrics did not provide an unambiguous classification of Latvian.

Distinguishing Samples of Spoken Korean from Rhythmic and Regional Competitors.

Previous work investigating listener ability to identify spoken samples of unknown foreign languages has shown that short periods of exposure provide sufficient information for reliable identification. In this study, we examined characteristics of the acoustic signature of languages in connection with identification of the target language, Korean. In experiment one, listeners were asked to distinguish spoken samples of Korean from competitor languages sharing syllable based rhythm. In the second experiment, listeners attempted to distinguish Korean from languages spoken in the same geographical area. Although the listeners had no previous knowledge of the target or of any of the competitor languages, they learned to distinguish it from the competitors. In the third experiment, listeners were asked to judge the similarity of Korean to the same set of competitor languages on a 7-point scale. Multi-dimensional scaling analyses suggest that listeners were basing their judgments on regional speaking styles as well as speaker-specific characteristics.

Sixty years of bilingualism affects the pronunciation of Latvian vowels

For fifty years after World War II, Latvia was incorporated into the former Soviet Union. Although in theory the use of regional languages was not discouraged, in practice knowledge of Russian was obligatory. Since 1991, Latvian has again become the official language, and knowledge of Russian is widespread but optional. These political events have created a natural experiment in the effects of almost universal bilingualism on a language. To assess the impact on pronunciation, native speakers of Latvian, ranging from retirement age to teens, were recorded reading a word list and a short narrative. Vowel pronunciation differed across the generations both in quantity relationships and in formant structure. Research for this project was supported by a grant from the International Research and Exchange Board, with funds provided by the U.S. Department of State (Title VII Program) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. None of these organizations is responsible for the views expressed here.

Can children identify samples of foreign languages as same or different

Abstract Adult listeners are able to differentiate between and can often identify samples of languages they do not speak or understand. This experiment tried to determine if children are capable of recognizing differences between spoken samples of languages foreign to them. Two groups of children, one pre-school and the other first and second-graders were asked to listen to pairs of language samples and simply state if they were the same or different languages. College students were used as the control group to provide baseline data. Both the pre-school and the elementary school groups perform comparably to the adult group when the languages within the pair differ. However, when the token consisted of any one of three conditions varying speaker or phrase of the same language, the pre-school groups performance was significantly worse than either the elementary group or the adult control group which did not differ greatly from each other. The lower performance level of the pre-school group indicates that they have not developed the linguistic awareness required for analyzing how the samples differ. Presumably, a developmental change which occurs with increased exposure to language in middle childhood promotes this analytical aspect of linguistic awareness.

o-Iodosobenzoic acid: Peptide bond cleavage at tyrosine in addition to tryptophan residues

Abstract Treatment of carboxymethylated actin with o-iodosobenzoic acid ( Mahoney, W.C., and Hermodson, M.A. (1979) Biochemistry, 18 , 3810–3814) did not produce the peptide pattern expected on the basis of specific peptide bond cleavage at tryptophanyl bonds. Isolation and amino acid sequence characterization of peptides from the digest indicated that in addition to cleavage at Trp residues, cleavages occurred at Tyr-53, Tyr-198, Tyr-218, Tyr-239 and probably at Tyr-91. These results indicate that the specificity of o-iodosobenzoic acid as a reagent for peptide bond cleavage is wider than previously reported. A simple explanation for the different susceptibilities of tyrosyl-containing peptide bonds to cleavage was not apparent from inspection of the sequences adjacent to these residues.

Sentence durations and accentedness judgments

Talkers in a second language can frequently be identified as speaking with a foreign accent. It is not clear to what degree a foreign accent represents specific deviations from a target language versus more general characteristics. We examined the identifications of native and non‐native talkers by listeners with various amount of knowledge of the target language. Native and non‐native speakers of Latvian provided materials. All the non‐native talkers spoke Russian as their first language and were long‐term residents of Latvia. A listening test, containing sentences excerpted from a short recorded passage, was presented to three groups of listeners: native speakers of Latvian, Russians for whom Latvian was a second language, and Americans with no knowledge of either of the two languages. The listeners were asked to judge whether each utterance was produced by a native or non‐native talker. The Latvians identified the non‐native talkers very accurately, 88%. The Russians were somewhat less accurate, 83%. T...

Studies on actin fragments obtained by digestion with thrombin, BNPS-skatole and nitrothiocyanobenzoic acid

Abstract We have isolated fragments of actin prepared by thrombic digestion (residues 40–374 [I], and 114–374 [II]), BNPS-skatole cleavage (residues 87–339 [III]) and nitrothiocyanobenzoic acid treatment (residues 10–216 [IV]) using preparative electrophoretic and chromatographic techniques. Analysis of the filament-forming and tropomyosin-binding properties of demonstrably homogeneous fragments revealed that only fragments I and II oculd form F-actin-like filaments after attempted renaturation, and that only fragment I could bind to tropomyosin. These results in addition to our previous studies on actin fragments and chemically-modified intact actin suggest that residues 1–86 and 340–374 are not required for F-actin filament formation, whereas residues 70–86 and/or 340–374 are essential for tropomyosin-binding activity.

The rhythmic characterization of two varieties of Portuguese

As spoken in Europe, Portuguese is said to be stress‐timed, while Brazilian Portuguese appears to display characteristics of both stress and syllable timing [P. A. Barbosa, D.E.L.T.A. 16, 369–402 (2000)]. We employed the Ramus et al. metric, based on acoustic‐phonetic measurements [Ramus et al., Cognition 73, 265–292 (1999)], to investigate the possibility of distinguishing between the two varieties of the language. Five native speakers of European Portuguese and five native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese recorded the same short prose passage taken from a magazine. The talkers were asked to read at a normal, comfortable rate. The reading time of the passage averaged 60 s, with considerable differences among the talkers. From the vocalic and consonantal intervals, the Ramus metrics, percent vocalic interval and standard deviation of consonantal and vocalic interval, were calculated. The five talkers of the two language varieties differed on the values of these parameters. The values of %V and SD‐V showed...

Evaluating native and non-native Latvian

Abstract Since the end of WWII, Latvians have lived with asymmetrical bilingualism. To what extend has this situation affected the language? Young native speakers of Latvian were presented with short samples of Latvian as produced by native speakers and by ethnic Russians. The Latvian listeners were extremely good at identifying speech samples produced by Latvians vs. Russians. They judged the pronunciation of Latvians from all age groups as acceptable but were not generous in evaluating accented Latvian.

Identifying novel samples of spoken Korean

Listeners can identify familiar foreign languages without understanding them on the basis of their sound or acoustic signature. Listeners need only brief exposure to a novel language to learn to identify it from its sound pattern [Bond et al., Lang. Sci. 20, 353–367 (1998)]. The current experiments replicated the previous study using a different target language. In the first experiment, listeners distinguished Korean from languages which employ syllable rhythm. In the second experiment, listeners separated Korean from other East Asian languages. In both experiments, listeners made judgments either without exposure (control) or after exposure to 10 min of spoken Korean. Listener responses were converted to A, a nonparametric measure of discriminability. In experiment 1, listeners in the control condition responded at chance, mean A=0.47. After exposure, listeners identified Korean above chance levels, mean A=0.71. Listeners tended to confuse Korean with Asian languages rather than with African or European ...