Perception/Production Relationships in the Development of the Vowel Duration Cue to Final Consonant Voicing

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 803-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Lehman ◽  
Donald J. Sharf
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Pairwise Comparisons ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Synthesized Speech ◽  
Boundary Width ◽  
Response Consistency ◽  
Correct Discrimination ◽  
Percentage Correct ◽  
Consonant Voicing

The purposes of this study were to assess: (a) the development of identification and discrimination in children for the vowel duration cue to final consonant voicing and (b) the perception/production relationships in children for the vowel duration cue to final consonant voicing. Subjects were 30 children divided equally into three age groups, and 10 adults. Productions consisted of 15 repetitions of two target syllables (beet, bead) analyzed acoustically for vowel duration. From these were calculated category boundary, category separation, and variability in production for each subject. Perceptual data were collected using a synthesized speech continuum that varied vowel duration. Identification responses were used to calculate category boundary, category separation (slope/boundary width) and variability (response consistency) for each subject. Mean percentage correct discrimination was derived by using two-step and three-step two-pair same-different paradigms. The results were as follows: (a) category boundary and category separation in production were adult-like by 8 years of age, (b) variability in production was not adult-like by 10 years of age, (c) perception categorization (category boundary and category separation) was adult-like at 5 years of age, (d) perceptual consistency was not adult-like until 10 years of age, (e) percentage correct discrimination was not adult-like by 10 years of age, (f) correlations between comparable perception and production measures were nonsignificant, and (g) a pairwise comparisons analysis indicated that perception was consistently more advanced than production.

Relationship between the Discrimination of /w-r/ and /t-d/ Continua and the Identification of Distorted /r/

1988 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald J. Sharf ◽  
Ralph N. Ohde ◽  
Mark E. Lehman
Keyword(s):  
Category Boundary ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Individual Subject ◽  
Group Response ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Response Choices ◽  
Subject Performance

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which listeners can perceive intraphonemic differences. In Experiment 1, subjects identified synthesized acoustic tokens of child-like speech that varied in second and third formant (F 2 and F 3 ) onset frequencies as /w/, /r/, or distorted /r/ in two conditions: (a) with and without feedback of the group response choices, and (b) before and after training to identify the best examples of /w/, /r/, and distorted /r/ based on their identification in the first condition. The results were: (a) some subjects consistently identified distorted /r/ above criterion, and (b) feedback was more effective in increasing distorted /r/ identification than was training. In Experiment 2, the same subjects participated in discrimination tasks using stimuli from a synthesized child /w-r/ continuum that varied in F 2 and F 3 onsets and from a synthesized adult /t-d/ continuum that varied in preconsonantal vowel duration. The results were: (a perception was not categorical for both continua, (b) little relation was found between distorted-/r/ identification and measures of /w-r/ discrimination, and (c) a high and significant correlation was found between identification of distorted /r/ and within-/d/ discrimination. In Experiment 3, different subjects identified the child manifold stimuli and discriminated stimuli in a synthesized child /w-r/ continuum and in a synthesized adult /t-d/ continuum. The results were: (a) neither /w-r/ or /t-d/ perception was categorical although the former came closer than the latter in terms of individual subject performance, (b) there was a high and significant correlation between distorted-/r/ identification and within-/r/ discrimination of /w-r/ stimuli, and (c) there were high and significant correlations between distorted-/r/identification and mean, cross-category boundary, and within-/t/discrimination of /t-d/ stimuli.

scholarly journals Liminality as a lens on social meaning: A cross-variable analysis of gender in New Zealand English

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Evan Hazenberg
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Linguistic Distance ◽  
Gendered Identity ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Multiple Variables

<p>The variationist sociolinguistic enterprise has been successful in developing models of structural (i.e., language-internal) drivers of variation and change, but one of the barriers preventing the development of a parallel model accounting for social drivers is the difficulty in operationalising salience. Using a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews collected in Auckland, New Zealand between 2013 and 2015, this project examines the relationship between language variation and gendered identity, and proposes an analytical approach of liminality – of examining the linguistic practices of people who have crossed a culturally-reified category boundary – as a possible solution to the problem of identifying socially salient variables.  The participants in this study are straight, queer, and transsexual native speakers of New Zealand English (NZE), representing two age groups that straddle the period of social change in the 1980s that saw a destabilisation of traditional gender roles in New Zealand. Variation in three linguistic systems is examined: adjectival modifiers (intensifiers and moderators), sibilants (/s/, /z/ and /ʃ/), and the vowels of NZE. The project uses established variationist and sociophonetic methodologies, as well as introducing a new metric for making comparisons across the vowel space as a whole. The findings show that speakers are able to encode their gendered identity across multiple variables, and that subtle linguistic signals can be used to affiliate with (or distance from) particular groups. The two most ‘distant’ groups are older straight men and younger [straight, queer, and transsexual] women, which this thesis argues is a reflection of the general societal criticism directed at young women by hegemonic masculinities. There is also evidence that the mainstreaming of queer identities in the wake of the 1986 decriminalisation of homosexuality has decreased the linguistic distance between straight and queer urban New Zealanders, demonstrating the relative rapidity with which social changes can be incorporated into the linguistic system.  This study highlights the utility of studying variation across linguistic systems rather than in variables in isolation, and proposes a typology of variation based on the boundedness and dimensionality of the linguistic systems under investigation. The framework of liminality is found to be productive with respect to the role of gender in language variation, although future research will have to test whether this framework can be generalised to other dimensions of social identity that are perceived as categorical (e.g., ethnicity and heritage culture in immigrant communities).</p>

scholarly journals Effective Velopharyngeal Ratio: A More Clinically Relevant Measure of Velopharyngeal Function

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 3586-3593
Author(s):  
Abigail E. Haenssler ◽  
Xiangming Fang ◽  
Jamie L. Perry
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Pairwise Comparisons ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Adolescents And Adults ◽  
Velopharyngeal Function ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Adjacent Group

Purpose Velopharyngeal (VP) ratios are commonly used to study normal VP anatomy and normal VP function. An effective VP (EVP) ratio may be a more appropriate indicator of normal parameters for speech. The aims of this study are to examine if the VP ratio is preserved across the age span or if it varies with changes in the VP portal and to analyze if the EVP ratio is more stable across the age span. Method Magnetic resonance imaging was used to analyze VP variables of 270 participants. For statistical analysis, the participants were divided into the following groups based on age: infants, children, adolescents, and adults. Analyses of variance and a Games–Howell post hoc test were used to compare variables between groups. Results There was a statistically significant difference ( p < .05) in all measurements between the age groups. Pairwise comparisons reported statistically significant adjacent group differences ( p < .05) for velar length, VP ratio, effective velar length, adenoid depth, and pharyngeal depth. No statistically significant differences between adjacent age groups were reported for the EVP ratio. Conclusions Results from this study report the EVP ratio was not statistically significant between adjacent age groups, whereas the VP ratio was statistically significant between adjacent age groups. This study suggests that the EVP ratio is more correlated to VP function than the VP ratio and provides a more stable and consistent ratio of VP function across the age span.

scholarly journals Fractures’ associated mortality risk in orthogeriatric inpatients: a prospective 2-year survey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Wiedl ◽  
Stefan Förch ◽  
Annabel Fenwick ◽  
Edgar Mayr
Keyword(s):  
Upper Extremity ◽  
Mortality Risk ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Fragility Fractures ◽  
Pairwise Comparisons ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Relative Mortality ◽  
Fracture Types

Abstract Purpose The most common osteoporotic fragility fractures are hip, vertebral and upper extremity fractures. An association with increased mortality is widely described with their occurrence. Fracture-specific associated death rates were determined in a 2-year follow-up for patients treated on an orthogeriatric ward. These were compared amongst each other, examined for changes with age and their impact on the relative mortality risk in relation to the corresponding population. Methods We assessed all patients that were treated in the course of a year on an orthogeriatric ward and suffered from the following injuries: hip (HF), vertebral (VF) and upper extremity fractures (UEF). In a 2-year follow-up it was possible to determine the month of death in the case of the patient’s decease. Pairwise comparisons of the three fracture type death rates were performed through Cox-Regression. We stratified the fracture-dependent absolute mortality and age-specific mortality risk (ASMR) for age groups 71–80, 81–90 and 91–95. Results Overall, we assessed 240 patients with HF, 96 with VF and 127 with UEF over the span of a year. 1- and 2-year-mortality was: HF: 29.6% a.e. 42.9%, VF: 29.2% a.e. 36.5%, UEF: 20.5% a.e 34.6%. Pairwise comparisons of these mortality values revealed no significant differences. In association with HF and VF, we observed a significant increase of 2-year mortality for the oldest compared to the youngest patients (HF: 60.4% vs. 22.5%; p = 0.028) (VF 70% vs. 14.3%; p = 0.033). The analogue comparison for UEF revealed no relevant difference in age-dependent mortality (40.9% vs. 31.1%; p = 0.784). Common for all fracture types ASMR’s were more elevated in the younger patients and decreased with higher age. Conclusion The fracture-related mortality in the 2-year follow-up was comparable. We observed a reduction of relative mortality risk in the oldest patients. While a direct influence of fracture on mortality must be supposed, we support the thesis of the fracture rather being an indicator of higher susceptibility of timely death.

Incomplete neutralization in African American English: The case of final consonant voicing

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Farrington
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Phonological Contrast ◽  
Glottal Stop ◽  
Conversational Interviews ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Consonant Voicing

AbstractIn many varieties of African American English (AAE), glottal stop replacement and deletion of word-final /t/ and /d/ results in consonant neutralization, while the underlying voicing distinction may be maintained by other cues, such as vowel duration. Here, I examine the relationship between vowel duration, final glottal stop replacement, and deletion of word-final /t, d/ to determine whether the phonological contrast of consonant voicing is maintained through duration of the preceding vowel. Data come from conversational interviews of AAE speakers in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington, DC. Results indicate that glottalization and deletion of word-final /t/ and /d/ are widespread across the speakers in the analysis. Additionally, the duration of vowels is significantly longer before underlying /d/ than /t/ for consonant neutralized contexts, thus showing that duration, normally a secondary cue to final voicing, may be becoming a primary cue in AAE.

Developmental Use of Vowel Duration as a Cue to Postvocalic Stop Consonant Voicing

1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 388-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Ellen Krause
Keyword(s):  
Significant Interaction ◽  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Developmental Study ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
Consonant Voicing

This developmental study investigated vowel duration as a cue to postvocalic consonant voicing. Ten trials of six test words, spoken by 10 3-year-olds, 10 6-year-olds, and 10 adults, all with normal language and articulation and hearing, were analyzed. A significant interaction between the speaker's age and the voicing feature of the postvocalic consonant was found on measures of total vowel duration. The duration of vowels preceding voiceless stops was similar across ages, but vowel duration preceding voiced stops decreased sharply with age. In addition, decreased variability of vowel duration was observed with increasing age. Consideration is given to processes of exaggerated vowel lengthening and vowel shortening to describe children's acquisition of this voicing cue. The same subjects and stimulus words used in the production experiment were used in a previous perception experiment. Qualitative comparisons between the production and perception data revealed parallel refinement in the use of vowel duration as a function of age.

Conflicting and Cooperating Cues

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Eilers ◽  
D. K. Oller ◽  
Richard Urbano ◽  
Debra Moroff
Keyword(s):  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Extended Duration ◽  
Infant Perception ◽  
Relative Salience ◽  
Consonant Voicing

Three experiments were conducted to ascertain the relative salience of two cues for final consonant voicing in infants and adults. Experiment 1 was designed to investigate infant perception of periodicity of burst, vowel duration, and the two cues combined in a cooperating pattern. Experiment 2 was designed to examine infant perception of these same cues but in a conflicting pattern, that is, with extended duration associated with the voiceless final plosive. Experiment 3 examined perception of the stimuli from Experiments 1 and 2 with adult subjects. Results indicate that in both adults and infants combined cues facilitate discrimination of the phonemic contrast regardless of whether the cues cooperate or conflict. The three experiments taken together do not support a phonetic interpretation of conflicting/cooperating cues for the perception of final stop consonant voicing. Potential psychoacoustic explanations are discussed.

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