Linguistic Phonetics in the UCLA Phonetics Lab Pat

Linguistic Phonetics in the UCLA Phonetics Lab Pat Keating Sound to Sense / June 11, 2004

I. Language description • • Archives of recordings Korean Intonation Phonation

Intonation • To. BI: Tones and Break Indices • Intonation in 14 languages: Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing (Sun-Ah Jun, ed. ) • Phonology and phonetics of intonation/ To. BI models of Korean (Seoul, Chonnam, Kyungsang), French, Greek, Argentinian Spanish, Farsi 3

Phonation Contrastive phonation types (voice qualities) in languages: Modal, breathy, creaky e. g. Zapotec languages of Oaxaca, Mexico 4

modal a Zapotec language (San Lucas Quiavini) ‘gets bitter’ ‘rdaa’ breathy ‘gets ripe’ ‘rah’ creaky ‘lets go of’ ‘rdààà’ 5 (M. Epstein)

Esposito (2003): Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec H 1 -F 3 Modal: ‘can’ lat 6 Breathy: ‘place’ la t Creaky: ‘field’ la ts

Effect of f 0 on phonation: Contrast is minimal with high f 0 7 (C. Esposito)

II. Prosody • (Intonation description) • Prosody and voice quality • Phrasing and articulation

Prosody • the organization of speech into a hierarchy of units or domains = grouping function • some units are more prominent than others = prominence-marking function 9

Prosody and voice quality Epstein (2002, 2003): Voice quality variation in English as a function of position and accent 2 kinds of voice quality variation: • Modal vs. non-modal (breathy, creaky) • Variation within modal (laxer, tenser) 10

English phrase-final non-modal phonation Low boundary tones (but not low f 0 in general) have more nonmodal phonation 11 (M. Epstein)

English prominence and non-modal phonation Unaccented words have more non-modal phonation 12 (M. Epstein)

Phrasing and articulation • Prosody (grouping, prominence) affects segmental articulatory properties • How each segment’s phonological properties are realized phonetically depends in part on the segment’s position in prosodic structure 13

Prosodic strengthening • Some prosodic positions are stronger than others, and segments there are stronger – Articulatory strengthening: more extreme articulations – Stronger positions: derived from a prosodic hierarchy – Domain initial is a strong position 14

(partial) prosodic hierarchy across languages 15

Electropalatography studies • Compare peak linguopalatal contact of segments across prosodic positions, e. g. different initial positions • Several languages – English (Fougeron & Keating 1997) – Korean (Cho & Keating 2001; Kim 2001) – French (Fougeron 1998, 2001) – Taiwanese (Keating, Cho, Fougeron, Hsu 2003) 16

Pseudo-palate for EPG (Kay Elemetrics) front 17

Sample frame showing contact: Korean word-initial /n/ front 42% contacted Circles are electrodes; filled ones are contacted 18

Sample contacts: French /n/ …Tata / Nadia… 19 …Tata Nadia… (C. Fougeron)

4 Korean consonants in 4 initial positions /t*/ /th/ /t/ /n/ 20

Korean fricatives in 3 positions (Kim 2001, 2003) IPi APi Wi mid region contact 21 IPi APi Wi channel region contact

Bigger picture: Prosody and production planning • Each phonetic segment - with its features - is a terminal node in a prosodic tree • So each segment has a position in the tree relative to the domains and prominences • Pronunciation of each feature depends in part on this prosodic position 22

Features in a prosodic tree IP wp ip ip accent egi Wd Wd Wd that new ei stress σ σ ð pro pa gan da… [+continuant] 23 p p [-continuant] [-voice]

III. Coarticulation • Initial strengthening • Lexicon

Coarticulation and initial strengthening Cho (2002, 2004): • Coarticulation: interaction effects between neighboring segments, generally due to articulatory overlap • How does prosodic strengthening affect overlap and thus coarticulation? Does a “strong” segment “resist” coarticulation? 25

Vowel-to-vowel coarticulation across different boundaries V 1 # b V [a] [i] IP ip [a] 2 [i] Wd And each vowel pitch-accented or not 26 (T. Cho)

EMA: Carstens Articulograph Receivers on articulators X-axis Y-axis L 1 L 2 27 Jaw T 1 T 2 T 3 (T. Cho)

Less effect of V 1 /i/ on V 2 /a/ across a larger boundary Y (%) Tongue Height 50 Wd [i#a] 40 ip /a/ pulled towards /i/ I P 30 20 [a#a] 10 40 50 60 70 80 X (%) Tongue Backness (T. Cho) 28

Coarticulation and the lexicon Brown [Scarborough] (2001, 2004): Are words from dense lexical neighborhoods, with many lexical competitors, produced with more or less coarticulation than other words? 29

Lexical competitors High Relative Frequency High-R • easy to access 30 Low Relative Frequency Low-R • hard to access (R. Scarborough)

Production of nasal coarticulation • Compared “hard” and “easy” CVN and NVC words on nasal coarticulation during the vowel • using the Chen (1996) measure A 1 -P 0 31 Sample CVN words “easy” “hard” sponge bun drum fend blonde gum

CVN result less nasal more nasal “hard” words “easy” words Answer: more coarticulation for “hard” words 32 (R. Scarborough)

IV. Production and Perception • Optical prosody • Heritage language ability

Optical prosody: phrasal stress-accent • Extents, durations, and velocities of movements of lips, chin, head, and eyebrows are all potentially visible to perceivers • Production-perception comparison: Which of the optical correlates of stress account for visual intelligibility? 34

Production of phrasal stress “So “So 35 TOMMY gave Timmy a song from Debby. ” Tommy gave TIMMY a song from Debby. ” Tommy gave Timmy a song from DEBBY. ” Tommy gave Timmy a song from Debby. ”

Facepoint markers locations and 11 measurements • Left eyebrow displacement eyebrow marker • Head displacement • Interlip maximum distance • Interlip opening displacement • Interlip closing displacement • Lower lip opening peak velocity • Lower lip closing peak velocity • Chin opening displacement • Chin opening peak velocity lip markers head marker • Chin closing displacement • Chin closing peak velocity chin marker 36

Correlates of phrasal stress • from all 11 measures, e. g. • Chin and eyebrow measures are most consistent across speakers 37 Chin Closing Peak Velocity accented unaccented

Perception of phrasal stress • 72 sentences from this corpus, video presentation (no sound) • 16 hearing perceivers (not screened for lipreading ability) • Task: See written sentence, click on the name perceived as stressed, or on “No. Stress” 38

Visual perception above chance By talker By perceiver Line shows significantly above chance performance 39

Production-perception comparison: Correlational analysis • Chin opening measures (opening displacement, peak opening velocity) account for most variance in perception • Not chin closing, lips, or head or eyebrow movements, even though these cues are available 40

Heritage Language ability Jun & Au with students, e. g. Oh et al. (2003) compared 4 groups of adults: • Lifelong native Korean speakers • Childhood-only speakers (stopped by 7) • Childhood-and-later overhearers • Control group (novices) 41

Adult production of Korean VOT • Childhood-only speakers as good as native speakers • Childhood hearers show no advantage (nor on overall accent rating, not shown) 42 (Oh et al. )

Adult perception of Korean VOT • Childhood-only speakers as good as native speakers • Childhood hearers also as good as native speakers 43 (Oh et al. )

Conclusion: UCLA Phonetics Lab • Language description • Prosody • Coarticulation • Production and perception • And much more!