Language and Speech最新文献

Previous studies have demonstrated that focus significantly alters sentential prosody in Persian. However, research on the phonetic realization of non-corrective narrow focus is scarce compared to that on broad and corrective focus. This paper presents a systematic production study investigating whether Persian speakers distinguish between three focus structures on target words that bear a pitch accent, that is, broad, narrow, and corrective focus. In a multidimensional phonetic analysis, we investigated the parameters of intensity, duration, and F0. Taking a local perspective, results show that the duration of the target word is a robust cue for focus marking in both syllables of the word, exhibiting a three-step pattern (corrective > narrow > broad). In the first syllable, intensity is a reliable cue to distinguish broad focus from the other two focus types, with higher intensities in broad focus. In the accented syllable, a different two-step pattern is observed, with narrow and corrective focus showing larger F0 spans than broad focus. Taking a global perspective that considers the parts of the utterance before and after the target word, we find a lowering of F0 and decreased intensity for narrow and corrective focus in the pre-target region. In the post-target region, we find strong evidence for differences in mean F0 and intensity with lower F0 in corrective focus than in broad and narrow focus, while the intensity is lower in narrow and corrective focus than in broad focus. Our analysis deepens our understanding of Persian prosody.

This study investigated the role of systematicity in word learning, focusing on Semitic morpho-phonology where words exhibit multiple levels of systematicity. Building upon previous research on phonological templates, we explored how systematicity based on such templates, whether they encode meanings or not, influenced word learning in preschool-age Hebrew-speaking children. We examined form-meaning systematicity, where words share phonological templates and carry similar categorical meanings of manner-of-motion (e.g., finupál and bizudáx carry the meaning of skipping), and form-only systematicity, where words are phonologically similar but do not share a meaning (e.g., finupál and bizudáx belong to different categories of manner-of-motion). We aimed to discern how these systematicity types impact the learning of the meaning of the word as a whole, that is, the encoding of visual form combined with manner-of-motion. Using novel Semitic-like stimuli, our experiments demonstrated that different types of systematicity involve different effects on word learning. Experiment 1 showed that form-meaning systematicity hindered the learning of the manner-of-motion. In contrast, Experiment 2 revealed that form systematicity facilitated learning these features. The findings suggest a complex interplay of top-down and bottom-up processes in word learning, expanding our understanding of systematicity in word learning.

Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Arabic are known for having a non-concatenative morphology: words are typically built of a combination of a consonantal root, typically tri-consonantal (e.g., k-t-b "related to writing" in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)), with a prosodic template. Research on Hebrew language development suggests early sensitivity to frequently occurring templates. For the Arabic dialects, little is known about whether implicit sensitivity to non-concatenative morphology develops at a young age through exposure to speech, and how templatic the spoken language is in comparison to MSA. We focus on Lebanese Arabic. We hypothesized that prolonged contact with French and English may have "diluted" the salience of roots and patterns in the input. We used three different corpora of adult-directed-speech (ADS), child-directed-speech (CDS), and child speech. We analyzed the root and pattern structures in the 50 most frequent Lebanese Arabic word types in each corpus. We found fewer words with templatic patterns than expected among the most frequent words in ADS (35/50), even fewer in CDS (23/50) and still fewer in the children's target words (15/50). In addition, only a minority contains three root consonants in their surface forms: 22 in ADS, 15 in CDS, and only 7 in words targeted by the children. We conclude that Semitic structure is less evident in either input to children or words targeted by children aged 1-3 than has been assumed. We discuss implications for the development of sensitivity to templatic structure among Lebanese-acquiring children.

Sound correspondences (SCs) have been found to be learnable phonological patterns in second dialect acquisition. Cross-linguistically, SCs consist of similar as well as distinct variants. However, in the study of SC learning, the effect of the similarity between the corresponding variants remains understudied. The salience hypothesis proposes that distinct dialect variants are more salient and learnable, while the learning bias hypothesis in phonological learning predicts that SC patterns with similar variants are preferred by learners. We conducted an artificial language learning experiment to test how sound similarity affects SC learning. Specifically, the degrees of similarity between variants were evaluated from multidimensional metrics, including phonetic and phonological measures, which are cross-validated with typological evidence. While there was no effect of variant similarity in learning simple one-to-one SCs, a preference for the most distinct dialect variant was found in the learning of SCs exhibiting more complex mapping structures (i.e., two-to-one and one-to-two). Our results confirm a preference for distinct variants in SC learning, although this effect relies on two conditions. First, the preference for distinction emerges only in the presence of complex mapping structures. Second, this preference requires an activation threshold, in that the distance of the SC must be sufficiently large to trigger the effect.

Research in the last few decades has examined the intersection between phonetics and politeness in multiple languages. While most of the studies have analyzed the role of politeness on suprasegmental features (i.e., pitch or duration), few have considered the key contextual variables of power, distance, and imposition. This study investigates the systematic effects of power, distance, and imposition on the final intonational contours of polar questions in Central Peninsular Spanish native speakers. A total of 36 native speakers from Madrid completed a contextualized reading-sentence task in which they read aloud paragraph-length contextualizing situations and the target polar questions. The situations were balanced for two levels of power (high/low), distance (high/low), and imposition (high/low). The results from the contextualized reading-sentence task showed that the low-rising final intonational contour (L*H%) was the most employed intonational contour in every context, while the remaining contours were H*H%, H*L%, L*L%. The results confirm that L*H% is the prevailing final intonational contour in Spanish polar questions while also shedding light on the variability of other intonational configurations. In addition, the study determines whether final nuclear contours are impacted by power, distance, and impositions. The findings are discussed within the framework of Politeness Theory and the work on the phonetics and pragmatics interface.

Adapting one's speaking style is particularly crucial as children start interacting with diverse conversational partners in various communication contexts. The study investigated the capacity of preschool children aged 3-5 years (n = 28) to modify their speaking styles in response to background noise, referred to as noise-adapted speech, and when talking to an interlocutor who pretended to have hearing loss, referred to as clear speech. We examined how two modified speaking styles differed across the age range. Prosody features of conversational, noise-adapted, and clear speech were analyzed, including F0 mean (Hz), F0 range (Hz), energy in 1-3 kHz range (dB), speaking rate (syllables per second), and the number of pauses. Preschoolers adjusted their prosody features in response to auditory feedback interruptions (i.e., noise-adapted speech), while developmental changes were observed across the age range for clear speech. To examine the functional effect of the modified hyper-speech produced by the preschoolers, speech intelligibility was also examined in adult listeners (n = 30). The study found that speech intelligibility was higher in noise-adapted speech than in conversational speech across the preschool age range. A noticeable increase in speech intelligibility for clear speech was observed with the increasing age of preschool talkers, aligning with the age-related enhancements in acoustic prosody for clear speech. The findings indicate that children progressively develop their ability to modify speech in challenging environments, initiating and refining adaptations to better accommodate their listeners.

Listeners adjust their perception of sound categories when confronted with variations in speech. Previous research on speech recalibration has primarily focused on segmental variation, demonstrating that recalibration tends to be specific to individual speakers and situations and often persists over time. In this study, we present findings on the perceptual learning of lexical tone in Standard Chinese, a suprasegmental feature signaled primarily through pitch variations to distinguish morpheme/word meanings. Native speakers of Standard Chinese showed a recalibration of tone category boundaries immediately following exposure to ambiguous tonal pitch contours. However, this recalibration effect significantly weakened after 12 hours. Furthermore, participants trained at night did not exhibit delayed stabilization, a phenomenon commonly observed during sleep-induced consolidation. Our results replicate previous findings and provide new evidence suggesting that while our perceptual system can flexibly adapt to real-time sensory inputs, subsequent consolidation processes, such as those occurring during sleep, may exhibit selectivity and, under certain conditions, may be ineffective.

Encoding and establishing a new second-language (L2) phonological category is notoriously difficult. This is particularly true for phonological contrasts that do not exist in the learners' native language (L1). Phonological categories that also exist in the L1 do not seem to pose any problems. However, foreign-language learners are not only presented with oral input. Instructed L2 learning often involves heavy reliance on written forms of the target language. The present study investigates the contribution of orthography to the quality of phonolexical encoding by examining the acoustics of French schwa by Austrian German learners-a perceptually and articulatorily easy L2 phone with incongruent grapheme-phoneme correspondences between the L1 and L2. We compared production patterns in an auditory word-repetition task (without orthographic input) with those in a word-reading task. We analyzed the formant values (F1, F2, F3) of the schwa realizations of two groups of Austrian high-school students who had been learning French for 1 and 6 years. The results show that production patterns are more likely to be affected by L1 grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences when orthographic input is present. However, orthography does not appear to play the dominant role, as L2 development patterns are strongly determined by both the speaker and especially the lexical item, suggesting a highly complex interaction of multiple internal and external factors in the establishment of L2 phonological categories beyond orthography and phonology.

Young children often produce non-target-like word forms in which non-adjacent consonants share a major place of articulation (e.g., [gɔgi] "doggy"). Termed child consonant harmony (CCH), this phenomenon has garnered considerable attention in the literature, primarily due to the apparent absence of analogous patterns in mature phonological systems. This study takes a close look at a potential account of CCH that is compatible with findings from adult word learning, serial recall, and phonological typology. According to this account, CCH is a response to memory pressure involved in remembering and retrieving multiple consonantal contrasts within a word. If this is the main motivation behind CCH, we would expect the resulting child forms to be biased toward full assimilation (i.e., consonant repetition) as it allows maximal reduction of phonolexical memory load. To test this prediction, children's productions of target words containing consonants that differ in both major place and manner were analyzed using two data sources: a single session sample from 40 children aged 1-2 years learning English, French, Finnish, Japanese, or Mandarin; and longitudinal samples from seven English-learning children between 1 and 3 years of age. Prevalence of consonant repetitions was robustly evidenced in early child forms, especially in those produced for target words with the structure CVCV(C). The results suggest that early word production is shaped by constraints on phonolexical memory.

The standard Beijing variety of Mandarin has a clear alveolar-retroflex contrast for phonemes featuring voiceless sibilant frication (i.e., /s/, /ʂ/, /ʈs/, /ʈʂ/, /ʈsʰ/, /ʈʂʰ/). However, some studies show that varieties in the 'outer circle', such in Taiwan, have a reduced contrast for these speech sounds via a process known as 'deretroflexion'. The variety of Mandarin spoken in Singapore is also considered as 'outer circle', as it exhibits influences from Min Nan varieties. We investigated how bilinguals of Singapore Mandarin and English perceive and produce speech tokens in minimal pairs differing only in the alveolar/retroflex place of articulation. In all, 50 participants took part in two tasks. In Task 1, participants performed a lexical identification task for minimal pairs differing only the alveolar/retroflex place of articulation, as spoken by native speakers of two varieties: Beijing Mandarin and Singapore Mandarin. No difference in comprehension of the words was observed between the two varieties indicating that both varieties contain sufficient acoustic information for discrimination. In Task 2, participants read aloud from the list of minimal pairs while their voices were recorded. Acoustic analysis revealed that the phonemes do indeed differ acoustically in terms of center of gravity of the frication and in an alternative measure: long-term averaged spectra. The magnitude of this difference appears to be smaller than previously reported differences for the Beijing variety. These findings show that although some deretroflexion is evident in the speech of bilinguals of the Singaporean variety of Mandarin, it does not translate to ambiguity in the speech signal.