Linguistic Phonetics in the

UCLA Phonetics Lab

Pat Keating

Sound to Sense / June 11, 2004

I. Language description

• Archives of recordings• Korean• Intonation• Phonation

3

Intonation

• ToBI: 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/ ToBI models of Korean (Seoul, Chonnam, Kyungsang), French, Greek, Argentinian Spanish, Farsi

4

Phonation

Contrastive phonation types (voice qualities) in languages:Modal, breathy, creaky

e.g. Zapotec languages of Oaxaca, Mexico

a Zapotec language(San Lucas Quiavini)

‘gets bitter’

‘gets ripe’

‘lets go of’

modal

breathy

creaky

‘rdaa’

‘rah’

‘rdààà’

(M. Epstein)

Modal: ‘can’ lat Breathy: ‘place’ la̤t Creaky: ‘field’ la̰ts

Esposito (2003): Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec

H1-F3

Effect of f0 on phonation: Contrast is minimal with high f0

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

higher f0(isolation)

higher f0(initial)

mid f0(medial)

lower f0(final)

dB

Modal Breathy Creaky

(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

10

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)

English phrase-final non-modal phonation

Low boundary tones (but not low f0 in general) have more non-modal phonation

% non- modal phonation for H vs. L

boundary tones

0

20

40

60

S1 S2 S3

speaker

% L

H

(M. Epstein)

English prominence and non-modal phonation

Unaccented words have more non-modal phonation

% non- modal phonation for unaccented vs. accented words

0

10

20

30

S1 S2 S3

speakers

%unaccacc

(M. Epstein)

13

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

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

(partial) prosodic hierarchy across languages

Utterance U

Intonational Phrase IP IP

Smaller Phrase XP

Word W W W W W

Syllable s ss s. . . . . .

higher

lower

XP XP

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)

Pseudo-palate for EPG(Kay Elemetrics)

front

Sample frame showing contact:

Korean word-initial /n/

Circles are electrodes; filled ones are contacted

front

42% contacted

Sample contacts: French /n/

…Tata / Nadia… …Tata Nadia…

(C. Fougeron)

4 Korean consonantsin 4 initial positions

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

Ui IPi APi Wi

Lin

guop

alat

al C

onta

ct (

%)

/t*/

/th/

/t/

/n/

Korean fricatives in 3 positions (Kim 2001,2003)

mid region contact

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Cell

Mean f

or

channel

IPi APi APm

channel region contact

IPi APi Wi IPi APi Wi

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

Features in a prosodic treeIPwp

ip ip egi Wd Wd Wd that new ei σ σ σ σ

ð pro pa gan da… [+continuant]

p p [-continuant] [-voice]

accent

stress

III. Coarticulation

•Initial strengthening•Lexicon

25

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?

#V1 V2b[a][i]

[a][i]

IP ip Wd

Vowel-to-vowel coarticulationacross different boundaries

And each vowel pitch-accented or not

(T. Cho)

L1

L2 JawT3T2T1

X-axis

Y-axis

EMA: Carstens Articulograph Receivers on articulators

(T. Cho)

Wdip

IP

40 50 60 70 80

10

20

30

40

50Y

(%

) T

ongu

e H

eigh

t

X (%) Tongue Backness

[i#a]

[a#a]

Less effect of V1 /i/ on V2 /a/ across a larger boundary

/a/ pulled towards /i/

(T. Cho)

29

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?

Lexical competitors

High Relative Frequency

High-R

Low Relative Frequency

Low-R

•easy to access

High Relative Frequency

Low Relative Frequency

•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 A1-P0

“easy” “hard”

sponge bun

drum fend

blonde gum

Sample CVN words

CVN result

more nasal

less nasal

“hard” words

“easy” words

Answer: more coarticulation for “hard” words (R.

Scarborough)

IV. Production and Perception

•Optical prosody•Heritage language ability

34

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?

Production of phrasal stress

“So TOMMY gave Timmy a song from Debby.”“So Tommy gave TIMMY a song from Debby.”

“So Tommy gave Timmy a song from DEBBY.”“So Tommy gave Timmy a song from Debby.”

eyebrow marker head marker

chin marker

Facepoint markers locations and 11 measurements

lip markers

• Left eyebrow displacement • 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• Chin closing displacement• Chin closing peak velocity

Correlates of phrasal stress

• from all 11 measures, e.g.

• Chin and eyebrow measures are most consistent across speakers

00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9

1

1st name 2nd name 3rd name

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 “NoStress”

Visual perception above chance

46

48

50

52

54

56

58

Sp-LOW

SP-MID

Sp- HI

By talker

By perceiver

Line shows significantly above chance performance

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

41

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)

Adult production of Korean VOT

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

nati

ve

ch s

peak

ch h

ear

novi

ce

ms

VO

T aspirlenisfortis

• Childhood-only speakers as good as native speakers

• Childhood hearers show no advantage (nor on overall accent rating, not shown)

(Oh et al.)

Adult perception of Korean VOT

% correct perception

0

20

40

60

80

100

nati

ve

chsp

eak

ch hear

novi

ce

• Childhood-only speakers as good as native speakers

• Childhood hearers also as good as native speakers

(Oh et al.)

Conclusion:UCLA Phonetics Lab

•Language description•Prosody•Coarticulation•Production and perception•And much more!