VOT + Suprasegmentals April 8, 2010 Announcements Next Tuesday--Silke and Jon will be presenting. Any order preferences? I may have a few things to say.

VOT + Suprasegmentals

April 8, 2010

Announcements• Next Tuesday--Silke and Jon will be presenting.

• Any order preferences?

• I may have a few things to say afterwards.

• Next Thursday: Rhonda, Steph, Sue.

• I am planning on putting together a final exam over the weekend…

• You will have a week to complete it.

• Final project reports will be due on Friday, April 30th, at 5 pm.

English Stop Contrasts• The phonetic implementation of “voicing” contrasts may

also vary by syllabic context.

1. For example, in English, In onset position:

• /p/ is voiceless aspirated

• /b/ is voiceless unaspirated

2. In medial position (between voiced segments):

• /p/ is voiceless unaspirated

• /b/ is voiced

3. After /s/, in the same syllable:

• only voiceless unaspirated stops (no contrast)

English Stop Contrasts4. In syllable-final position:

• vowels preceding /p/ are short

• vowels preceding /b/ are longer

• /p/ closure tends to be longer than /b/ closure

• Moral of the story:

• Phonological voiced vs. voiceless contrast in English is abstract

• It has different phonetic manifestations in different contexts.

• Lisker & Abramson suggested describing the contrast as “fortis” vs. “lenis”, rather than “voiced” vs. “voiceless”.

Monolingual VOT• Caramazza et al. (1973) looked at VOT in productions by (Canadian) French and English monolingual and bilingual speakers…

• VOT tends to be higher for backer places of articulation.

• Any ideas why?

Bilingual VOT• Bilinguals speaking French showed similar VOT to monolingual French speakers.

• In English, bilingual VOT was skewed somewhat more to pre-voicing…

Bilingual VOT Perception• Bilingual listener identifications of a VOT continuum were midway between the monolingual listener groups.

• Knowledge of different languages is easier to separate in production than in perception…

By the way…• There is no a priori reason why stops can’t be pre-aspirated.

• In fact, Icelandic does this all the time:

More Icelandica• Lots of languages devoice obstruents in final position…

• Icelandic devoices sonorants, too.

Another Complication

• Fricatives and affricates may also be aspirated

• In these cases, VOT must be calculated beginning from the offset of sibilance.

The Four-Way• Another problem with the VOT analysis is that it cannot straightforwardly account for the four-way voicing distinctions found in languages like Hindi.

• These languages distinguish between (breathy) voiced aspirated and voiceless aspirated stops and affricates.

[phal]

Hindi

Bengali

[dhol]

voiced + breathy aspirated

voiced + aspirated

Zhu|hoasi Stop Contrasts

• Zhu|hoasi is spoken in northern Namibia.

Suprasegmentals• Suprasegmentals are phonetic features of speech

which are “above the segment”

• …although, in a very real (phonetic) sense, they actually provide the underlying foundation for segmental articulations.

1. Quantity

2. Tone

3. Stress

4. Accent

• Suprasegmental features are always defined in a relative manner.

Length Distinctions• Suprasegmental feature #1: quantity.

• Note:

• Quantity = Linguistic

• Length = Perceptual

• Duration = Acoustic

• Quantity distinctions are relative.

• depend on speaker

• depend on speaking rate

• Normal speaking rate (in English) = 4-6 syllables / second

• Also note: phrase-final lengthening

Danish Vowels

= 150 milliseconds

= 275 milliseconds

• Differences in quantity between segments translates to relative differences in duration.

Estonian• Estonian is unique in that it contrasts between short, long, and extra-long segments.

An Interesting Fact• Some vowels are inherently longer than others.

• Data from Swedish (Elert, 1964):

long short

high [i y u] 140 msec 95

mid 155 103

low 164 111

• Why?

Tone• Tone: suprasegmental feature #2

• = the linguistic use of fundamental frequency to signal important differences in meaning.

• Note:

• Acoustic = Fundamental Frequency

• Perceptual = Pitch

• Linguistic = Tone

• English is a tone language…

• Sort of. For one pair of words only.

A Typology• F0 generally varies in three different ways in language:

1. Tone languages (Chinese, Navajo, Igbo)

• Lexically determined tone on every syllable or word

2. Accent languages (Japanese, Swedish)

• The location of an accent in a particular word is lexically marked.

3. Stress languages (English, Russian)

• It’s complicated.

• A general complication: F0 tends to drift downwards over the course of an utterance.

Mandarin Tone

ma1: mother

ma2: hemp

ma3: horse

ma4: to scold

• Mandarin (Chinese) is a classic example of a tone language.

Mandarin Sentences

ma1-ma0 ma4 ma3. “Mother scolds the horse.”

ma3 ma4 ma1-ma0. “The horse scolds mother.”

• Tones are usually defined by the pattern they make through a speaker’s frequency range.

• In Mandarin, tones span a frequency range of 1-5

• Each tone is denoted by its (numerical) path through the frequency range

Tone

1

2

3

4

Relativity, in Reality• The same tones may be denoted by completely different frequencies, depending on the speaker.

• Tone is an abstract linguistic unit.

female speaker

male speaker

ma, tone 1 (55)

Even More Tones

level tones

contour tones

Modal vs. Tense Voice• The language of Mpi contrasts modal voice vowels with tense voice vowels.

• Mpi is spoken in northern Thailand.

Even More Relativity• The fundamental frequency of [i] is often slightly higher than that of [a], for the same tones

“Intrinsic” Pitch• It’s been observed that F0 is usually higher for high vowels than for low vowels

•Data from Lehiste & Peterson (1961), for American English

[i] 183 Hz

[e] 169

[æ] 162

[a] 163

[o] 170

[u] 182

• Why?

• The “Tongue Pull” Hypothesis (Honda, 2004):

• Raising the tongue for front vowels also raises the larynx

• The cricoid cartilage rises up and around the spine…

• Thus stretching the vocal folds

• and increasing longitudinal tension.

Accent Languages• In accent languages, there is only one pitch accent associated with each word.

• The pitch accent is realized on only one syllable in the word.

• The other syllables in the word can have no accent.

• Accent is lexically determined, so there can be minimal pairs.

• Japanese is a pitch accent language…

• for some, but not all, words

• for some, but not all, dialects

Japanese• Japanese words have one High accent

• it attaches to one mora in the word

• The first mora, if not accented, has a Low F0.

• Morae following the accent have Low F0.

asa ‘morning’ H-L asa ‘hemp’ L-H

It’s actually slightly more complicated than this; for more info, see: http://sp.cis.iwate-u.ac.jp/sp/lesson/j/doc/accent.html

• “chopsticks” H-L-L

• “bridge” L-H-L

• “edge” L-H-H

Back to Stress• Stress is a suprasegmental property that applies to whole syllables.

• Stressed syllables are higher in pitch (usually)

• Stressed syllables are longer (usually)

• Stressed syllables are louder (usually)

• Stressed syllables reflect more phonetic effort.

• Ex. 1: Voiceless stops are more aspirated at the onset of stressed syllables in English

• Ex. 2: Vowels are often reduced to in unstressed syllables in English.

• The combination of these factors give stressed syllables more prominence than unstressed syllables.

Intensity• Intensity is usually measured in decibels (dB).

• Decibels = a(nother) relative measure based on a sound’s power.

• Power is just the square of a waveform’s amplitude.

• P = A2

• The intensity of a sound is its power relative to the power of some reference sound.

• For decibels, the reference sound = the quietest sound human ears can hear.

Some Numbers• The intensity of a sound x can be measured in bels, where a bel is defined as:

= log10 (x2 / r2)

• r2 is the power of the reference sound

• x2 is the power of sound x.

• A decibel is a tenth of a bel.

• Some typical decibel values:

30 dB Quiet library, soft whispers

60 dB Normal conversation

90 dB Subway, motorcycle, lawn mower

130 dB Pain threshold

Another Interesting Fact• Some vowels are louder than others

• dB of different vowels relative to (Fonagy, 1966):

: 0.0

[e] : -3.6

[o] : -7.2

[i] : -9.7

[u] : -12.3

• Why?

An Intrinsic Summary High Vowels Low Vowels

Intensity Less More

Duration Shorter Longer

F0 Higher Lower

• A word of caution:

• All of these factors (intensity, duration, F0) factor into perceived prominence and stress.

Stress: Intensity

(N)

(V)

Perception of stress is highly correlated with the area under the intensity curve

Sonority

low vowels

high vowels

glides

liquids

nasals

voiced fricatives

voiceless fricatives

voiced stops

voiceless stops

high sonority

low sonority

• “The sonority of a sound is its loudness relative to that of other sounds with the same length, stress and pitch.”

Swedish• Swedish overlays pitch accents on top of stress distinctions.

• (The two are independent)

Source: http://www.bossethoren.se/prosodi_eng.html

• The first syllable is stressed in both pairs.

The Next Level• English distinguishes between primary and secondary stress.

• In some accounts, primary stress = stress with an accent.

• Example: “exploitation”

vowel X X X X

full vowel X X X

stress X X

tonic accent X

Intonation• Languages superimpose pitch contours on top of word-based stress or tone distinctions.

• This is called intonation.

• It turns out that English:

• has word-based stress

• and phrase-based pitch accents (intonation)

• The pitch accents are pragmatically specified, rather than lexically specified

• They change according to discourse context.

• In English, pitch accents align with stressed syllables.

Pitch Accent Types• In English, pitch accents can be either high or low

• H* or L*

• Examples: High (H*) Low (L*)

Yes. Yes?

H* L*

Magnification. Magnification?

• As with tones in tone languages, “high” and “low” pitch accents are defined relative to a speaker’s pitch range.

• My pitch range: H* = 155 Hz L* = 100 Hz

• Mary Beckman: H* = 260 Hz L* = 130 Hz

Whole Utterances• The same pitch pattern can apply to an entire sentence:

H*

H*: Manny came with Anna.

L*

L*: Manny came with Anna?

H*

H*: Marianna made the marmalade.

L*

L*: Marianna made the marmalade?