bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Feature Geometry and Dependency: A Review
Authors: McCarthy John J. 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
A fundamental problem in phonological theory is the fact that processes often operate on consistent subsets of the distinctive features within a segment, like the features that characterize place of articulation. Recent research has responded to this problem by proposing a hierarchical organization of the features into functionally related classes, grouped under nodes of a tree structure. This ‘geometry’ resembles earlier theories that accomplish the same thing with multivalued features. This article reviews and expands the evidence for feature geometry. Within the segment, it is argued, the major dichotomy is between a Laryngeal node and a Place node. The manners of articulation – sonority, consonantality, nasality, and continuance – inhere in the segment itself rather than any of its subsidiary parts. Within the Place node, the division is into major articulators, each with its own subordinate features. Evidence is drawn from processes of assimilation and debuccalization and from the assimilatory and dissimilatory effects of the Obligatory Contour Principle.
Tonogenetic Mechanisms in Northern Mon-Khmer
Authors: Svantesson Jan-Olof 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
In this paper, tonogenesis in the four languages Northern Kammu, Blang, Hu and U is analyzed. For comparison, register development in Lamet is treated as well. All these languages belong to the Palaungic and Kammuic branches of the Mon-Khmer division of the Austroasiatic language family and are fairly closely related, but they have developed tone or register systems independently of each other. These developments can be explained by universal microprosodic properties of segments, which are used in different ways by the different languages. Tone (or register) development is connected with merger of voiced and voiceless initial consonants in Kammu, Blang and Lamet, with merger of long and short vowels in Hu, and with merger of long and short vowels combined with both initial and final consonant changes and vowel quality changes in U. Thus, the range of microprosodic properties used for tonogenesis is extremely wide in this language group.
The Effect of Coarticulation on the Role of Transitions in Vowel Perception
Authors: Benguerel André-Pierre , McFadden Teresa Ukrainetz 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
Sequences of the form V<sub>1</sub>bV<sub>2</sub>bV<sub>1</sub> were recorded by a male speaker. From each sequence, three types of stimuli were edited out: (1) the medial vowel, from after the burst of the preceding stop to the start of the closure of the following stop; (2) the quasi-steady state of the medial vowel, and (3) the transitions alone of the medial vowel (complement to 2). The perception of each type of stimulus was examined in separate tests and the results were compared. For two of the three contexts (V<sub>1</sub> = /i/, /u/), scores for stimuli of the third condition (transitions) were as high as for the first (control) condition, supporting the importance of transitions as cues for vowel identity. For the third context (/a/), however, performance was significantly lower, thus suggesting an influence of vowel context on the contribution of transitions to vowel identification.
Perceived Strength and Identity of Foreign Accent in Swedish
Authors: Cunningham-Andersson Una , Engstrand Olle 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
We report three listening experiments focussing on the phonetic correlates of perceived foreignness and perceived strength of foreign accent in Swedish. In the first experiment, it is shown that accentedness can be reliably measured on the basis of a relatively short speech sample and that a statistical count of deviating pronunciations correlates significantly with subjective judgements of accentedness by linguistically naive listeners. The second experiment shows a significant correlation between number of deviant features and perceived accent strength and a significant correlation between judgements of degree of deviation and foreignness. Some features are associated with impressions of stronger accents than others, and some with perception of ‘Finnish’ accent. The third experiment establishes which combinations of deviant phonetic characteristics most strongly tend to give the impression of Finnish accent.
Categories of Tonal Alignment in English
Authors: Pierrehumbert Janet B. , Steele Shirley A. 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
This paper reports the results of an inquiry into the question of category versus continuum in intonation. Variants of the English rise-fall-rise pattern were used to study whether tonal alignment is a categorical or gradient distinction. LPC resynthesis was used to construct a set of stimuli in which the alignment of the F₀ rise-fall varied in small steps. Subjects heard the stimuli in randomized order and imitated what they heard. The position of the F₀ peak relative to the onset of the stressed vowel was measured in each response. Systematic deviations between the peak placement in the stimuli and those in the responses revealed the existence of two categories. We conclude that tonal alignment functions as a binary distinction in English intonation.
Rhythmic Structure in Italian Noun Phrases: A Study on Vowel Durations
Authors: Farnetani Edda , Kori Shiro 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
This study deals with the temporal structure of 4- and 5-syllable noun phrases of one and of two constituents, produced as syntactic objects of Italian VP + NP sentences by 3 subjects. On the basis that vowel durational relations can reflect prominence relations, as previous data on Italian indicate, the study compares the durations of stressed vowels, vowels carrying secondary stress in compound words, and unstressed vowels in order to assess the effects of position within a phrase and to identify the rhythmic principles that regulate prominence relations among both stressed and unstressed vowels. The data indicate that the degree of prominence decreases from stressed vowels in phrase-final words to stressed vowels in non-final words, to rhythmically accented unstressed, to unaccented unstressed vowels. Vowels with secondary stress in compounds do not differ in duration from unstressed vowels. A remarkable finding is the very restricted range of variation of unstressed vowels. The data suggest that, although the rhythmic alternation rule in Italian disfavours adjacency and even proximity of two equally strong syllables, it does not disfavour sequences of two, three, four equally weak syllables. Sequences of unstressed vowels of nearly equal durations are also favoured by the absence of word boundary lengthening observed in the reiterant versions of our corpus. It is argued that the temporal organization of noun phrases that emerged from this investigation contributes to the perception of Italian as a syllable-timed language.
Phonetic Transcription Rules for Text-to-Speech Synthesis of Italian
Authors: Salza Pier Luigi 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
The paper aims at illustrating the phonetic transcription rules implemented in a text-to-speech synthesis system of Italian. The development system employed for rule writing is presented first. The system makes it possible to process linguistic information at various levels, using a conventional context-dependent format. The rule set, made up of graphemic, phonetic and word boundary rules, is then described. Transcription rules furnish a reasonable solution to [s, z], [ts, dz], [‘e, ‘ε], [‘o, ‘o], [i, j, i] and [u, w, i] phone distributions, as used in Northern Italian pronunciation. Statistical evaluation of the transcriber performance was carried out on a significant corpus of words with encouraging results: 93.1 % correct transcriptions.
The Activity of the Cricothyroid Muscle and the Intrinsic Fundamental Frequency in Danish Vowels
Authors: Dyhr Niels 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
The relationship between the electromyographic (EMG) activity from the pars obliqua of the cricothyroid (CT) muscle (recorded with bipolar hooked-wire electrodes) and the intrinsic fundamental frequency (IF₀) in high and low vowels in Danish was investigated. The test material, which consisted of 306 randomized natural words of the type CV(:)l3, imbedded in carrier sentences, was recorded by 4 native speakers of Danish. The following vowel pairs were compared: [‘i-’a, ‘i :-’æ:, ‘u :-’æ:] and [‘i :-’a]. The results, which are based on visual inspection of average EMG and fundamental frequency (F₀) curves, show a positive correlation between the CT activity and IF₀, more specifically that the CT activity rise related to the high vowels starts earlier and in most cases more steeply than the CT activity related to the low vowels. However, a drop in F₀ at the beginning of the low vowels cannot be accounted for by CT activity. This F₀ drop is believed to be the result of either tongue retraction during the articulation or influence from the preceding consonant. The following conclusion is drawn: The CT muscle is a major factor in controlling IF₀ in stressed high and low vowels in Danish.
Prosodic Parameters in a Variety of Regional Danish Standard Languages, with a View towards Swedish and German
Authors: Grønnum Nina 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
Acoustic analysis of six different regional variants of Standard Danish, two forms of Swedish and two of German divides the ten into two major categories: those that signal sentence intonation function by local cues and those that do it by global means. The purely global types are also those that have no default sentence accents, and which signal focus by reduction of the surroundings rather than by boosting of the focussed element (a focal accent proper). A specific final completion cue is restricted to the local intonation types and is there an entity separate from that which cues prosodic terminal or nonterminal status. The implication for models of intonation is discussed.
Analysis of Periodic and Aperiodic Components during Fluent and Dysfluent Phases of Child and Adult Stutterers’ Speech
Authors: Howell Peter , Young Keith 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
The syllable repetitions of 6 child and 6 adult stutterers were investigated to establish whether dysfluent speech had a higher noise-to-signal ratio than fluent speech and whether this differed between children and adults. As predicted, the stuttered speech had a higher noise level for both age groups. During dysfluencies, the level of the noise components in the children’s speech was higher than in the adults.
An Articulatory Study of Consonant-Induced Vowel Duration Changes in English
Authors: de Jong Kenneth 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
The effects of voicing, manner, and number of consonants on the duration of previous vowels in English can be created in three ways: by planned expansion or contraction of the entire vowel, by changing the relative timing of consonant and vowel gestures, or by modifying the duration of the closing movement for the consonants. An X-ray micro-beam data base of 2 speakers of American English reciting monosyllabic words, which differed in their final consonants and in their position in the accentual structure of the utterance, was studied to evaluate these three accounts. In this data base, vowel duration differences due to the voicing of the following consonants were amplified by the presence of accent. Also, many of the duration differences associated with the following consonants are localized in the later portion of the opening movement, suggesting that subjects often create vowel duration changes by initiating the consonant closing gesture at an earlier or later time relative to the opening gesture.
The Representation of Stop Consonants in Three-Dimensional Acoustic Space
Authors: Sussman Harvey M. 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
An acoustic study of English initial voiced stops showed that the three place categories are well distinguished on the basis of three properties: second-formant onset frequency (F<sub>2</sub> onset), second-formant frequency of the vowel nucleus (F<sub>2</sub>), and third-formant onset frequency (F<sub>3</sub> onset). Ten male and 10 female subjects produced multiple tokens of /bVt/, /dVt/, and /gVt/ with ten different medial vowels. Three-dimensional scatterplots were generated using the above acoustic properties as coordinates. Three nonoverlapping clusters corresponding to the three place categories were evident across all subjects. Discriminant analyses based on F<sub>2</sub> onset, F<sub>2</sub> vowel, and F<sub>3</sub> onset as predictor variables showed a mean correct categorization rate of 84.5% when tested within gender groups. The graphic and statistical results are interpreted as indicating that phonetic categories may be defined and represented in purely acoustic terms if variably valued multiple acoustic properties are relationally examined.
Integrating Articulations in the Perception of Vowel Height
Authors: Kingston John 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
In vowels contrasting for height, a large number of articulations covary with tongue height, which is supposed to be the principal bearer of the contrast. However, attempts to link these covarying articulations to tongue movement physiologically have been largely unsuccessful, and the particular pattern of covariation appears to make more sense as a concerted effort to influence the perceived height of F<sub>1</sub>. The experiments reported here used the Garner interference paradigm, modified to assess the perceptual primacy of stimulus dimensions, to show that the acoustic effects of two of these covarying articulations, velum height (nasalization) and rate of vocal fold vibration (pitch) are integrated perceptually with the acoustic effects of varying tongue height. This perceptual integration suggests that the different articulations are not independently perceived, contrary to the predictions of direct realist theories of speech perception, that articulatory events covary so as to enhance each other’s perceptual effects, and that the surface phonological or initial phonetic representation of vowels might be quite richly specified (contrary to claims of phonetic underspecification).
The Phonetics/Phonology Issue in the Study of Articulatory Reduction
Authors: Kohler K.J. 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
After a brief review of important landmarks in the development of the phonetics/phonology dichotomy, the need for the integration of the two approaches is stressed. It is argued that, on the one hand, instrumental speech signal processing has to be subordinated to the language point of view, but that, on the other hand, the linguistic categories, such as phoneme and distinctive feature, should be critically assessed in respect of their adequacy as language categories, relevant for speakers and hearers. The phoneme is associated with word phonology, and problems are pointed out that arise when it is applied to the phonetics above the word. With reference to articulatory reduction processes in German, especially in function words, the interplay between the principles of economy of effort, on the part of the speaker, and of the need for distinctiveness for the listener are discussed. Empirical data are presented showing that reductions can be arranged along a continuous scale in spite of phonemic switches, if the physiological and articulatory dynamics are taken into account, providing deeper insight into human speech and language than the phonemic perspective. The concept of a ‘reduction coefficient’ is introduced and the call for a new ‘paradigm’ in the science of the spoken medium put forward.
Nasal Epenthesis in Hindi
Authors: Ohala Manjari , Ohala John J. 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
Modern Hindi words such as [dãt] ‘tooth’ and [t ∫ãnd] ‘moon’ had similar phonetic structure in Middle Indo-Aryan, with conventional transliterations of danta and čanda, respectively. The development of the long nasal vowel is usually correlated with loss of the nasal consonant. If so, why does one form still contain a nasal consonant? We argue that a sequence of nasalized vowel + voiced stop (but not voiceless stop) can, for phonetic reasons, engender an epenthetic nasal, and we demonstrate that the same process can be found (nondistinctively) in present-day Hindi and French in the junction between a word-final nasal vowel and a following word-initital voiced stop. A nondistinctive epenthetic nasal can become a ‘full’ or ‘lexical’ nasal when listeners reinterpret this transitional event as purposeful or intended.
Stops in the World’s Languages
Authors: Henton Caroline , Ladefoged Peter , Maddieson Ian 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
This account of the great variety of stops in the world’s languages shows that, apart from their place of articulation, these sounds can be described principally in terms of the activities that occur at three phases: onset, closure, and release. Other potentially contrastive features discussed include length, and the use of the glottalic airstream mechanism (other airstream mechanisms are not considered here). Phonologically only two phases – closure and release – are exploited; independent distinctions of features such as phonation type or articulatory manner cannot be found in the onset phase. We examine the combinatorial possibilities of the features that are used and discuss implications for phonological feature systems.
Intonation: A Distinctive Parameter in Grammatical Constructions
Authors: Välimaa-Blum Riitta 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
If intonation and syntactic form are independent of each other, as it is generally assumed, then we would expect that a particular sentence pattern would be assigned any number of distinct tunes on separate readings. An experiment with subjects reading aloud contextualized sentences in Finnish revealed, however, strong default relations between syntax and intonation. Another common assumption is that F₀ height is a metalinguistic variable that does not express linguistic contrasts but only various degrees of emphasis. The results here indicate that neutral declarative contours are statistically significantly different from qualitatively identical tunes with a final focus and these statistical differences coincide with semantic differences in the sentences. The conclusion is that grammatical constructions, as fundamental linguistic categories, may count intonation as one of their formal parameters.
Intonation of Clause-Internal Filled Pauses
Authors: Shriberg Elizabeth E. , Lickley Robin J. 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
Clause-internal filled pauses and preceding peak fundamental frequency (F₀) values were analyzed to determine whether the intonation of filled pauses is relative to, or independent of, prior prosodic context. Higher peaks were found to be systematically associated with higher filled-pause values, supporting the ‘relative’ hypothesis. A linear model, in which filled-pause F₀ was expressed as an invariant (over speakers) proportion of the distance between preceding peak F₀ and a speaker-dependent baseline F₀, produced results nearly identical to those of a two-parameter model in which the coefficients of peak and baseline were allowed to vary freely. The model was less appropriate for filled pauses after sentence-initial peaks, but unaffected by temporal variables.
The Use of Prosody in Disambiguation in Mandarin
Authors: Shen Xiaonan Susan 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
This article examined the clarification of surface structure ambiguity via prosody in Mandarin. An acoustical analysis and a perceptual study were carried out for this purpose: the acoustical analysis was aimed at identifying the prosodic cues for disambiguation, and the perceptual study explored how syntactical structure was recovered via prosody. The acoustical analysis of syntactically ambiguous pairs resulting from different bracketings revealed that prosodic disambiguation consisted of pause insertion, F₀ lowering, intensity reduction, and preboundary lengthening. Moreover, laryngealization frequently was observed at syntactic breaks. The perceptual study of ambiguous pairs of edited speech tokens indicated that (1) pause was a more powerful cue than preboundary lengthening in syntactical recovery, and (2) only a large amount of preboundary lengthening led to successful parsing of ambiguous sentences.
From EMG to Formant Patterns of Vowels: The Implication of Vowel Spaces
Authors: Maeda Shinji , Honda Kiyoshi 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
With a few exceptions, EMG data are interpreted with reference to the intended output, such as the phonetic description of utterances spoken by speakers. For a more rigorous interpretation, the data should also be analysed in terms of the displacement of the articulators and the acoustic patterns. In this paper, we describe our attempts to calculate the formant patterns from EMG activity patterns via an articulatory model. The value of the model parameters, such as the tongue body position or tongue body shape, is derived from the EMG activities of the specific pairs of antagonistic tongue muscles. The model-calculated F<sub>1</sub>-F<sub>2</sub> patterns for 11 American English vowels correspond rather well with those measured from the acoustic signals. What strikes us is the simplicity of the mappings from the muscle activities to vocal-tract configurations and to the formant patterns. We speculate that the brain optimally exploits the morphology of the vocal tract and the kinematic functions of the tongue muscles so that the mappings from the muscle activities (production) to the acoustic patterns (perception) are simple and robust.
Tongue Body Kinematics in Velar Stop Production: Influences of Consonant Voicing and Vowel Context
Authors: Löfqvist Anders , Gracco Vincent L. 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
This study examines vertical and horizontal tongue body movements in VCV sequences, where the consonant is a voiced or voiceless velar stop. The movement data were recorded using a magnetic transduction technique in two subjects. Consistent with studies of lip and jaw kinematics, the duration of the tongue body raising movement towards closure for the consonant was longer for the voiced stop. In contrast to lip and jaw movements, peak velocity and amplitude of the raising movements were consistently higher for the voiced stop. The larger displacement of the closing movement for the voiced stop was due to a lower starting position of the movement during the preceding vowel. Examination of the tongue body lowering movement for the vowel preceding the velar stop showed it to be longer when the following stop was voiced. Also this lowering movement had a higher peak velocity and amplitude in the voiced environment. These results thus suggest that both the lowering and raising movements in the VC sequence are affected by the voicing status of the consonant. In addition, the second vowel in the VCV sequence showed reliable influences on tongue body movements for the first vowel and the consonant.
Evidence for the Adaptive Nature of Speech on the Phrase Level and Below
Authors: Nooteboom Sieb G. , Eefting Wieke 
Published: November 2009

Abstract
This paper reports some production and perception experiments challenging the idea that the rate of articulation of interpause intervals of speech is solely conditioned by internal phonological factors. The results reported demonstrate that, at least for one professional newsreader, rate of articulation in interpause intervals is conditioned by context and that deviations from the intended rate are easily noticeable and affect perceived naturalness negatively. It is also demonstrated that a context-conditioned rate of articulation does not affect interpause intervals uniformly but is unevenly distributed. These results are interpreted in terms of speaker adaptation to the listener’s running access to signal-independent information.