Session Production IX:

Production IX: Quantity and Speech Rate

Type: oral
Chair: Marianne Pouplier
Date: Friday - August 10, 2007
Time: 09:00
Room: 3 (Yellow)

 

Production IX-1 Non-neutralizing quantity in word-initial consonants: articulatory evidence
Astrid Kraehenmann, University of Konstanz
Aditi Lahiri, University of Konstanz
Paper File
  Stops in Swiss German contrast in quantity in all word positions. As in most languages with consonant quantity contrast, geminate stops are produced with significantly longer CD than singletons in intersonorant context. This holds word- and phrase-medially. Aspiration and voicing play no role in this contrast. Consequently, phrase-initially no CD cue distinguishes long from short stops. But do speakers utilize articulatory means to maintain the contrast in the absence of acoustic cues? In this study we investigated initial alveolar stops, focusing on their articulatory and acoustic properties in varying contexts using EPG. Our results are twofold. First, CD and duration measures of articulator contact mirror each other within a phrase: after vowel- and obstruent-final words geminates are longer than singletons. Second, phrase-initially, the contact data establish a clear quantity distinction. This means that even without acoustic CD cues, geminates are articulated with longer closure than singletons.
Production IX-2 ACOUSTIC AND KINEMATIC CORRELATES OF PHONOLOGICAL LENGTH CONTRAST IN ITALIAN CONSONANTS
Barbara Gili Fivela, Università di Lecce
Claudio Zmarich, ISTC-CNR Padova-Italy
Pascal Perrier, ICP-INPG Grenoble-France
Christophe Savariaux, ICP-Université Stendhal, Grenoble-France
Graziano Tisato, ISTC-CNR Padova-Italy
Paper File
  In Italian, the length contrast is exploited in the consonant system. Previous articulatory studies focused on the temporal organization of gestures in Italian geminates and on the kinematics of the singleton/geminate distinction. Goal of this paper is to discuss data on lip and tongue gestures in order both to directly test some hypotheses on the the gestural organization of geminate consonants [cfr. Smith, 7] and to collect observations on the possible position of gestural targets in geminate and singleton consonants [cfr. Löfqvist’s, 4]. Results show that Italian geminates appear to be best accounted for by a hybrid model with respect to Öhman’s Vowel-to-Vowel model and Browman and Goldstein’s Vowel-to Consonant one. On the other hand, the data we considered point to the existence of a higher virtual target for geminates than for singletons.
Production IX-3 The effect of speaking rate on voice-onset-time is talker-specific
Rachel, M. Theodore, Northeastern University
Joanne L. Miller, Northeastern University
David DeSteno, Northeastern University
Paper File
  Talkers differ in phonetic properties of speech. One such property is voice-onset-time (VOT), an important marker of the voicing contrast in English stop consonants. Research has shown that VOT is affected by speaking rate: for any given talker, VOT increases as rate slows. The current work examines whether this contextual influence varies across talkers. Many tokens of /ti/ (Experiment 1) or /pi/ and /ki/ (Experiment 2) were elicited from talkers across a range of rates. VOT and syllable duration were measured for each token. The results showed that although VOT increased as rate slowed for all talkers, the extent of this increase varied significantly across talkers. For a given talker, however, the extent of the increase was stable across a change in place of articulation. These findings suggest that talker differences in phonetic properties of speech reflect talker-specific contextual influences.

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