Language and Speech最新文献

Phrasal prosody is often viewed as a level of linguistic representation at which the phonetic profile of an utterance varies independently of the lexical items it contains. For example, the same word, when produced at the edges of prosodic phrases, will take longer to produce than when it is produced within the edges of a phrase. Lengthening effects have also been found for words when placed in different syntactic or lexical contexts. Recent evidence suggests that lexico-syntactic information-for example, the global syntactic distributions of words-affects phonetic duration in production, irrespective of other factors. The present study asks whether these lexico-syntactic effects on duration interact with prosodic position within the phrase. Specifically, we ask whether (a) the lexico-syntactic information of a word determines its prosodic position, and (b) whether, beyond any categorical effects on positioning, lexico-syntactic factors affect duration within prosodic positions. We address these questions using the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English. We operationalize syntactic information as the diversity and the typicality of the syntactic distributions of nouns based on a dependency parse of the British National Corpus. We find that earlier positions in the prosodic phrase generally prefer words with higher syntactic diversity. In addition, diversity and typicality modulate duration more reliably in nonfinal positions. Together, our results point to an early influence of lexico-syntactic considerations on prosodic planning.

This study involves a perceptual categorization task for Australian English, designed to investigate regional and social variation in category boundaries between close-front vowel contrasts. Data are from four locations in southeast Australia. A total of 81 listeners from two listener groups took part: (a) so-called mainstream Australian English listeners from all four locations, and (b) L1 Aboriginal English listeners from one of the locations. Listeners heard front vowels /ɪ e æ/ arranged in 7-step continua presented at random. Varied phonetic contexts were analyzed, with a focus on coda /l/ because of a well-known prelateral merger of /e æ/ through mid-vowel lowering (e.g., celery-salary) reported to occur in some communities in this part of Australia. The results indicate that regional variation in Australian English is evident in perception. In particular, merging of /el/-/æl/ is shown to occur in the southernmost regions analyzed, but rarely in the northern regions of the geographical area under investigation. Aside from regional variation observed, age was also a factor in how participants responded to the task: older speakers had more merger than younger speakers in many locations, which is a new finding-previously, the merger was thought to be increasing in frequency over time, yet here we see this in only one location. Aboriginal English listeners also responded differently when compared with mainstream Australian English listeners. By analyzing the perception results across a variety of regional locations, with data from two different Australian social groups in the same location, this study adds a new dimension to our understanding of regional and social variations in Australian English.

Sound symbolism is a non-arbitrary mapping between phonetic properties and meanings. The existence and nature of sound symbolism have long been the subject of empirical research. It is rarely recognized, however, that participants' intrinsic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, language knowledge), in addition to the commonly studied phonetic features, may also influence size ratings. Our study aims to empirically investigate the impact of participant-specific characteristics on size ratings: It also aims to examine whether these characteristics have a direct impact when considering the impact of phonetic features or they rather modify the effects of phonetic features. The current research reports a novel analysis of a previously published dataset with new research questions and previously unused (participant-specific) data. We show that (a) the participants' characteristics did not affect overall size ratings; however, (b) in some cases, they modify (intensify or weaken but do not reverse) the effect of phonetic features on size ratings. Our results emphasize a more comprehensive treatment of sound symbolism, one that considers not only phonetic but also non-phonetic factors in sound symbolism research.

Listeners adjust their perception to match that of presented speech through shifting and relaxation of categorical boundaries. This allows for processing of speech variation, but may be detrimental to processing efficiency. Bilingual children are exposed to many types of speech in their linguistic environment, including native and non-native speech. This study examined how first language (L1) Spanish/second language (L2) English bilingual children shifted and relaxed phoneme categorization along the cue of voice onset time (VOT) during English speech processing after three types of language exposure: native English exposure, native Spanish exposure, and Spanish-accented English exposure. After exposure to Spanish-accented English speech, bilingual children shifted categorical boundaries in the direction of native English speech boundaries. After exposure to native Spanish speech, children shifted to a smaller extent in the same direction and relaxed boundaries leading to weaker differentiation between categories. These results suggest that prior exposure can affect processing of a second language in bilingual children, but different mechanisms are used when adapting to different types of speech variation.

This article investigates the role of phonological well-formedness constraints in Mandarin speakers' phonotactic grammar and how they affect online speech processing. Mandarin non-words can be categorized into systematic gaps and accidental gaps, depending on whether they violate principled phonotactic constraints based on the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP). Non-word acceptability judgment experiments have shown that systematic gaps received lower wordlikeness ratings than accidental gaps. Using a lexical decision task, this study found that systematic gaps were rejected significantly faster than accidental gaps, even after lexical statistics were taken into account. These findings thus provide converging evidence for the essential status of the OCP-based phonotactic constraints in Mandarin speakers' phonological knowledge.

This study investigates listeners' ability to track individual speakers' habitual speech rate in a dialogue and adjust their perception of durational contrasts. Previous studies that found such adjustments are inconclusive as adjustments can be attributed to exemplars of target structures in the dialogue rather than perceptual calibration of habitual speech rates. In this study, English listeners were presented with a dialogue between a fast and slow speaker, containing no stressed syllable-initial voiceless stops. Listeners then categorized /pi/-/bi/ syllables differing along a voice onset time continuum. Results did not show conclusive evidence that listeners' response differed systematically depending on speakers' habitual speech rate.

Complex verbs with the same preverb/prefix/particle that is both linguistically productive and analyzable can be compositional as well as non-compositional in meaning. For example, the English on has compositional spatial uses (put a hat on) but also a non-spatial "continuative" use, where its semantic contribution is consistent with multiple verbs (we played / worked / talked on despite the interruption). Comparable examples can be given with German preverbs or Russian prefixes, which are the main data analyzed in the present paper. The preverbs/prefixes/particles that encode non-compositional, construction-specific senses have been extensively studied; however, it is still far from clear how their semantic idiosyncrasies arise. Even when one can identify the contribution of the base, it is counterintuitive to assign the remaining sememes to the preverb/prefix/particle part. Therefore, on one hand, there seems to be an element without meaning, and on the other, there is a word sense that apparently comes from nowhere. In this article, I suggest analyzing compositional and non-compositional complex verbs as instantiations of two different types of constructions: one with an open slot for the preverb/prefix/particle and a fixed base verb and another with a fixed preverb/prefix/particle and an open slot for the base verb. Both experimental and corpus evidence supporting this decision is provided for Russian data. I argue that each construction implies its own meaning-processing model and that the actual choice between the two can be predicted by taking into account the discrepancy in probabilities of transition from preverb/prefix/particle to base and from base to preverb/prefix/particle.

Daily conversation is usually face-to-face and characterized by rapid and fluent exchange of turns between interlocutors. With the need to communicate across long distances, advances in communication media, online audio communication, and online video communication have become convenient alternatives for an increasing number of people. However, the fluency of turn-taking may be influenced when people communicate using these different modes. In this study, we conducted a corpus analysis of face-to-face, online audio, and online video conversations collected from the internet. The fluency of turn-taking in face-to-face conversations differed from that of online audio and video conversations. Namely, the timing of turn-taking was shorter and with more overlaps in face-to-face conversations compared with online audio and video conversations. This can be explained by the limited ability of online communication modes to transmit non-verbal cues and network latency. In addition, our study could not completely exclude the effect of formality of conversation. The present findings have implications for the rules of turn-taking in human online conversations, in that the traditional rule of no-gap-no-overlap may not be fully applicable to online conversations.

Auditory feedback plays an important role in the long-term updating and maintenance of speech motor control; thus, the current study explored the unresolved question of how sensorimotor adaptation is predicted by language-specific and domain-general factors in first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) production. Eighteen English-L1 speakers and 22 English-L2 speakers performed the same sensorimotor adaptation experiments and tasks, which measured language-specific and domain-general abilities. The experiment manipulated the language groups (English-L1 and English-L2) and experimental conditions (baseline, early adaptation, late adaptation, and end). Linear mixed-effects model analyses indicated that auditory acuity was significantly associated with sensorimotor adaptation in L1 and L2 speakers. Analysis of vocal responses showed that L1 speakers exhibited significant sensorimotor adaptation under the early adaptation, late adaptation, and end conditions, whereas L2 speakers exhibited significant sensorimotor adaptation only under the late adaptation condition. Furthermore, the domain-general factors of working memory and executive control were not associated with adaptation/aftereffects in either L1 or L2 production, except for the role of working memory in aftereffects in L2 production. Overall, the study empirically supported the hypothesis that sensorimotor adaptation is predicted by language-specific factors such as auditory acuity and language experience, whereas general cognitive abilities do not play a major role in this process.

This study investigates the synchronization of manual gestures with prosody and information structure using Turkish natural speech data. Prosody has long been linked to gesture as a key driver of gesture-speech synchronization. Gesture has a hierarchical phrasal structure similar to prosody. At the lowest level, gesture has been shown to be synchronized with prosody (e.g., apexes and pitch accents). However, less is known about higher levels. Even less is known about timing relationships with information structure, though this is signaled by prosody and linked to gesture. The present study analyzed phrase synchronization in 3 hr of narrations in Turkish annotated for gesture, prosody, and information structure-topics and foci. The analysis of 515 gesture phrases showed that there was no one-to-one synchronization with intermediate phrases, but their onsets and offsets were synchronized. Moreover, information structural units, topics, and foci were closely synchronized with gesture phrase medial stroke + post-hold combinations (i.e., apical areas). In addition, iconic and metaphoric gestures were more likely to be paired with foci, and deictics with topics. Overall, the results confirm synchronization of gesture and prosody at the phrasal level and provide evidence that gesture shows a direct sensitivity to information structure. These show that speech and gesture production are more connected than assumed in existing production models.