Journal of Phonetics最新文献

Dipping and Falling as competing strategies for maintaining the distinctiveness of the low tone in the four-tone system of Kaifeng Mandarin

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101391

Lei Wang , Marco van de Ven , Carlos Gussenhoven

{"title":"Dipping and Falling as competing strategies for maintaining the distinctiveness of the low tone in the four-tone system of Kaifeng Mandarin","authors":"Lei Wang , Marco van de Ven , Carlos Gussenhoven","doi":"10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101391","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101391","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Kaifeng Mandarin has four tones (LH, HL, H, L), among which the citation pronunciation of L is an f0 fall (the ‘Falling variant’) for some speakers and a falling-rising f0 contour (the ‘Dipping variant’) for others. Seeking to comprehend the rationale behind this idiosyncratic variation, we decided to investigate the distinctiveness of each variant of L with each of the three other tones, LH, HL and H. Accordingly, we constructed six ten-step f0 continua, using two naturally spoken syllables [ma] spoken by a male and a female speaker as source files. In a two-alternative forced choice task, the Falling and Dipping variants turned out to be equally distinctive. Specifically, the results revealed distinct categorizations between the Dipping variant and HL as well as between the Falling variant and LH. However, when the Dipping variant needed to be distinguished from LH and the Falling variant from HL, recognition accuracy dropped significantly, favoring the complex tone. The two L-variants were equally discriminable from H. This overall functional similarity of the two variants goes some way towards understanding their coexistence within the same speech community. Because communicative intentions played no role in the experiment, it remains to be seen if the distribution across speakers will remain stable in production experiments that vary communicative duress, as created by the need to discriminate between the L-tone and each of the two complex tones.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51397,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Phonetics","volume":"109 ","pages":"Article 101391"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143137776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Towards a dynamical account of inter-segmental coordination

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101392

Shihao Du, Stephan R. Kuberski, Adamantios I. Gafos

引用次数: 0

Articulatory consequences of lexical stress on post-tonic velar plosives in Italian

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101371

Bowei Shao , Anne Hermes , Philipp Buech , Maria Giavazzi

{"title":"Articulatory consequences of lexical stress on post-tonic velar plosives in Italian","authors":"Bowei Shao , Anne Hermes , Philipp Buech , Maria Giavazzi","doi":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101371","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101371","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Lexically prominent positions are phonologically privileged: they are often phonetically strengthened and they are <em>loci</em> of contrast preservation. Cross-linguistically, stress-conditioned alternations target stress-adjacent consonants independently of syllabic boundaries. We argue that the phonetic bases of these processes can be found in the articulatory modulations induced by stress. They are anchored in the stressed vowel but have spill-over effects on adjacent consonants. In this study, we investigate the articulation of velar consonants in a palatalizing context. By comparing two conditions, with or without stress modulations, we aim to investigate potential articulatory underpinnings of a stress-conditioned phonological process, i.e., velar palatalization in Italian plural nouns and adjectives, which is largely blocked in post-tonic position. Using articulatory data (EMA), we show that lexical stress induces temporal and spatial modulations on post-tonic velar consonants. Temporal modulations surface with a delayed target achievement of the consonants’ constriction gestures. Spatial modulations surface with a further back place of articulation in post-tonic velars. Both effects are due to the strengthening of the stressed vowel. We discuss the implications of our findings within the <span><math><mrow><mi>μ</mi></mrow></math></span>-gesture proposal of Articulatory Phonology for the distribution of palatalization in Italian.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51397,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Phonetics","volume":"108 ","pages":"Article 101371"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143144891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Reconceptualizing VOT: Further contributions to marking 50 years of research on voice onset time

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101387

Jahnavi Narkar

{"title":"Reconceptualizing VOT: Further contributions to marking 50 years of research on voice onset time","authors":"Jahnavi Narkar","doi":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101387","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101387","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Most work using voice onset time (VOT) to characterize voicing contrasts has focused on languages with two or three-way distinctions (<span><span>Lisker and Abramson, 1964</span></span>, <span><span>Cho et al., 2019b</span></span>). While this work acknowledges that VOT is not adequate to describe more complex voicing contrasts, there are few proposals addressing how such complex laryngeal contrasts can be characterized. In this post-facto addition to the special collection <em>Marking 50 Years of Research on Voice Onset Time and the Voicing Contrast in the World’s Languages</em> (<span><span>Cho, Docherty, & Whalen, 2019a</span></span>), I argue that VOT should be reconceptualized as a two-dimensional plane rather than a one-dimensional continuum. This simple reformulation of VOT, under which negative and positive VOT make up the complete VOT space, yields a more complete description of the voicing contrasts that exist in the world’s languages. Crucial evidence comes from Bengali which, like many other Indic languages, has a four-way contrast, utilizing both voicing and aspiration. If VOT is conceptualized as two-dimensional, the Bengali-type pattern is naturally predicted to exist. I argue that two-dimensional VOT best characterizes the acoustic properties of voicing contrasts and that the modest modification to our understanding of the VOT space proposed here can better explain the typology of stop laryngeal contrasts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51397,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Phonetics","volume":"108 ","pages":"Article 101387"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143144893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The effects of production training on speech perception in L2 learners of German

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101370

James M. Stratton

引用次数: 0

Investigating interlanguages beyond categorical analyses: Prosodic marking of information status in Italian learners of German

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101377

Simona Sbranna, Aviad Albert, Martine Grice

{"title":"Investigating interlanguages beyond categorical analyses: Prosodic marking of information status in Italian learners of German","authors":"Simona Sbranna, Aviad Albert, Martine Grice","doi":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101377","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101377","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous studies report that Italian learners of German transfer their L1 prosody to their L2 when marking information status prosodically within noun phrases (NPs). However, these studies were based on a categorical analysis of accentuation based on the presence or absence of pitch accents, which might not provide the full picture of interlanguages, in which category boundaries are flexible and dynamically evolving. We elicited two-word NPs in two different information status conditions – given-new (GN) and new-given (NG) – in L1 German, L1 Italian, and L2 German. We performed a periodic-energy-informed analysis to explore speakers’ continuous modulation of F0 and prosodic strength and additionally discuss the results for the interlanguage in categorical terms. Learners prosodically mark information status by modulating the F0 contour on the first word similarly to their L1. However, learners reduce the prosodic strength of the second word in the noun phrase across the board, i.e. irrespective of information status. This pattern resembles German deaccentuation, and indicates that the learners are using a salient pattern but are not associating it with the appropriate pragmatic function. The current study revealed patterns for L1 Italian learners of L2 German which did not emerge in previous categorical analyses of the intonation of Italian learners of German.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51397,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Phonetics","volume":"108 ","pages":"Article 101377"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143144886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Effects of individual aptitude on ultrasound biofeedback in non-native vowel production

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101390

Ching-Hung Lai , Chenhao Chiu

{"title":"Effects of individual aptitude on ultrasound biofeedback in non-native vowel production","authors":"Ching-Hung Lai , Chenhao Chiu","doi":"10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101390","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101390","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The purpose of this study is to investigate how individual’s linguistic and spatial knowledge affects the training effects of ultrasound biofeedback. We also examined the influence of vowel differences on the training effect as well as the interaction between individual’s aptitude and training targets. Twenty-eight Taiwan Mandarin native speakers participated in the non-native vowel production experiment. Participants were first assessed by their phonetic awareness, phonological awareness, somatosensory acuity, production variability, and spatial reasoning. Participants were trained to produce non-native Cantonese /ɐ/ and Japanese /ɯ/, provided with ultrasound biofeedback. Cantonese /ɐ/ and Japanese /ɯ/ differ with their closest Mandarin counterparts in vowel height and frontness, respectively. The training effect for each vowel was determined by comparing the tongue postures (in ultrasound) between pre-training baseline and post-training performances. The results and findings are threefold: First, ultrasound biofeedback training in learning non-native sounds can be effective after 20 min of training. Second, more robust training effects were reported for the dimension of vowel height than vowel frontness. Last, individual aptitude indeed predicts the effectiveness of the ultrasound biofeedback training. The interaction between individual’s abilities and training targets can be modulated by common predictors, as well as by predictors that correspond to specific dimensions or are specific to those dimensions. This study highlights the relationship between ultrasound training effects and individual aptitude and at the same time provides insight with regards to the selection of training targets, the methods for magnifying training effect, and the screening test of training effect. These findings crucially lend support to both the theoretical framework of speech production and clinical as well as pedagogical application of ultrasound biofeedback.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51397,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Phonetics","volume":"108 ","pages":"Article 101390"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143144888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Thai speakers time lexical tones to supralaryngeal articulatory events

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101389

Francesco Burroni , Sam Tilsen

{"title":"Thai speakers time lexical tones to supralaryngeal articulatory events","authors":"Francesco Burroni , Sam Tilsen","doi":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101389","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101389","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>What do speakers do when they produce tones? Do they aim for the synchronization of f0 targets with segmental acoustic events, or do they execute a routine in which f0 changes and oral articulations are precisely coordinated? This paper explores these questions in Thai using acoustic and electromagnetic articulography data from eight speakers. Drawing on analyses of variability, stability, and informativity, our findings indicate that the timing of the onsets of tonal and oral articulatory gestures is generally more stable than the timing of tonal and oral targets, both in articulatory and acoustic measurements. When comparing the two modalities directly, we found that the lag between tonal onset and vocalic gesture onset exhibits the lowest variability and the highest mutual information among a large set of timing measures. Additionally, only articulatory lags remain stable under rate and context perturbations. To explain these findings, we propose that Thai tones are timed onset-to-onset with vocalic gestures and develop a model that formally implements this proposal. This model also accounts for otherwise puzzling acoustic patterns, such as a negative lag between tonal onset and acoustic syllable boundaries at slower speech rates. Further temporal patterns, such as surface non-zero time-locking rather than perfect synchrony of events, are also clarified. In sum, this work advances our understanding of tonal timing in Thai and outlines its implications for more general theories of phonology and speech production.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51397,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Phonetics","volume":"108 ","pages":"Article 101389"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143144892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Contrast enhancement and the distribution of vowel duration in Japanese

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101386

Shin-ichiro Sano, Céleste Guillemot

引用次数: 0

The contribution of the visual modality to vowel perception in native and non-native speakers

IF 1.9 1区文学

Journal of Phonetics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101375

Sinéad M. Rankin, Maria-Josep Solé

{"title":"The contribution of the visual modality to vowel perception in native and non-native speakers","authors":"Sinéad M. Rankin, Maria-Josep Solé","doi":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101375","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101375","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how visual cues impact the intelligibility of foreign-accented speech for native listeners. English CVC words with vowels involving salient (e.g., lip-spreading for /iː/) and non-salient visual cues (neutral lips for /ɪ/) produced by two French speakers and a native English control, were presented to native English listeners who identified the word heard. Tokens were presented in both auditory-only and audiovisual (AV) mode in cafeteria noise at −15 dB SNR. The visual cues analysed were lip spreading, lip rounding, jaw opening and tongue frontness in vowels, as well as lip-rounding in schwa. Visually salient cues improved vowel intelligibility, compared to non-visual cues, but the audiovisual benefit varied across vowel features and speaker groups. The presence of lip-spreading for /iː/ (vs /ɪ/) and jaw-opening for /æ/ (vs /ɪ/) enhanced intelligibility (i.e., larger AV benefit) for both speaker groups. However, compared to the English speaker, lip-rounding in /ɔː/ and /ə/ produced by French speakers(likely accompanied by lip protrusion) had a smaller, or negative AV benefit. These results suggest that the influence of L1 gestures on L2 production may reduce or negatively affect intelligibility. Furthermore, French productions of /ɑː/ exhibited unusually high AV benefits, suggesting an extreme jaw-opening for this vowel in an attempt to distinguish between L2 contrasts (/æ ʌ ɑː/) not present in the L1.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51397,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Phonetics","volume":"108 ","pages":"Article 101375"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143144890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0