Linguistic Phonetics: A Look into the Future

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1964

Cinéradiographic data have been obtained that illustrate certain dynamic aspects of vowel articulation. The material analyzed consists of CV, VC, and CVC sequences, some of which were uttered at varying speeds. Special attention has been paid to the rate and timing of movements and to the extent to which individual articulatory components reach their hypothetical target positions within an utterance under various conditions. Instances of articulatory undershoot relative to an ideal target configuration can be observed and appear to be more pronounced as the rate of utterance is increased. The results are interpreted in relation to acoustic data on Swedish vowels previously reported [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 35, 1773 (1963)]. [Research supported in part by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Research Institute of the National Swedish Defence, Swedish Technical Research Council, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Swedish Foundation for Scientific Research and Industrial ...

2005

This dissertation investigates articulatory characteristics of English IV in child speech. The study is primarily based on experimental data collected using ultrasound imaging techniques from eight English children ages 3;11 to 5;9. Replicating previous articulatory studies of syllable-based allophones of IV in adult speech production, the articulatory components of III in child speech production are analyzed for the static information and relative timing between tongue movements. Secondarily, the acoustic analysis of this data and its perception judgments by adults are presented.' One of the major findings of this study is that children at these ages produce IV using different spatial and temporal coordination than adult speech production, although some children produce IV more similar to adult IV in terms of articulatory organization. Further, the findings are addressed in relation to speech motor development, and hypotheses are tested to see which motor developmental process(es) (differentiation, integration, refinement) can describe the acquisition of IV. The ultrasound results of the tongue movements in children's IV indicate that all general motor developmental processes are active in these children, and the spatial and temporal coordination of the articulatory gestures of IV is rather simplified or modified, and needs to be further refined. I argue that the tendency toward late acquisition of IV is due directly to the articulatory complexity of its spatial and temporal characteristics. This work contributes much-needeid empirical data of the articulatory characteristics of IV to both language acquisition and speech sciences^ and constitutes a novel application of ultrasound imaging to child speech research.. ii • Organization of this dissertation is as follows. Subsequent to the overall introduction of the study in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 presents the empirical background and hypotheses for the study. It reviews speech and developmental studies in production and perception conducted by other researchers, and proposes empirical questions. Chapter 3 provides the methodology for the study. It introduces ultrasound techniques and experiment design and procedure. Chapter 4 presents the results of the spatial characteristics of the children's III in terms of number of gestures, tongue shape, constriction location, and allophonic variation with respect to different syllable positions. Chapter 5 discusses the results of the temporal characteristics of the children's IV gestures. Inter-gestural timing of allophones of IV is examined to determine whether timing distinguishes positional allophones in these children's speech. Chapter 6 provides post-experiment perception judgments made by adults, and acoustic analysis of samples of tokens used in the current study. Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the results and discusses the implications of the dissertation.

In this paper, the acoustic correlates of the labial and alveolar place of articulation for both plosive and fricative consonants are investigated, and the results are analyzed in terms of vowel context, voicing and manner of articulation. Several measurements, including formant and noise measurements, are reported for CVs spoken by two male and two female talkers. It was found that the spectral amplitude of frication noise relative to F1 at vowel onset results in 84% or better correct classification for the fricatives in 3 vowel contexts. For plosives, a measure which quantifies the amplitude of noise at high frequencies relative to F1 at vowel onset (Av-Ahi [8]) resulted in 81 % or better correct classification in the three vowel contexts. Formant frequency cues, on the other hand, were not reliable measures for all vowel contexts. 1. INTRODUCTION Various studies have attempted to find invariant acoustic cues for the place of articulation feature for plosives and fricatives. For p...

Phonetica, 2011

Language, 2014

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1994

Applied Linguistics for Teachers of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners, 2019

The main focus of this chapter is to present the articulatory description of English consonants and provide practical guidance on how to teach the consonant phonemes to ELLs. The chapter starts with the introduction of phonetics as a subfield of linguistics. The concepts such as phonemes, contrastive versus non-contrastive sounds, the branches of phonetics that study different aspects of human speech sounds, and two different types of phonemes-consonants and vowels-are introduced in this section. Next, the reader is familiarized with the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is a system of phonetic transcription. The chapter further presents the description of the vocal tract and explores the classification of English consonants according to their place and manner of articulation, and voicing. Some implications from the introduced phonetics theory for teaching phonics, phonemic awareness, and spelling to young ELLs, and pronunciation to adult English learners, as well as a set of recommendations for effective phonetics instruction for ELLs are discussed to conclude the chapter. WHAT IS PHONETICS? Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies individual speech sounds in a human language. These speech sounds are also known as phonemes. The word phoneme is derived from the Greek word φώνημα (phōnēma), meaning sound produced. It is not coincidental that the words phonetics and phoneme share the same rootphone-which means voice or sound, as phonetics is the study of minimal units of sound-phonemes.

1999

Annual Report of the Institute of Phonetics University of Copenhagen

Languages contrasting [y] and [i] prefer prepalatal constrictions. The larynx is low for [y] and high for [i], the lips are less rounded for [y] than for [u] and the tongue blade tends to be raised for [y]. The consequences of these manoeuvres were studied in a series of model experiments. Their advantages are twofold: they provide the best plain-flat [i]-[y] spectral contrast and they ensure stable resonance conditions in the vocal tract.