An x‐ray microbeam study of the effect of lexical stress position and speech rate on word‐medial stop consonants in American English

1990 ◽  
Vol 88 (S1) ◽  
pp. S56-S56
Author(s):  
Alice Turk
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Lexical Stress ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
X Ray

scholarly journals Retrieving L2 word stress from orthography: Evidence from word naming and cross-modal priming

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 409-442
Author(s):  
Amanda Post da Silveira
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Mixed List ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Word Naming ◽  
Lexical Stress ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Moderate Frequency ◽  
Lexical Perception ◽  
Target Words

In this paper we investigated how L1 word stress affects L2 word naming for cognates and non-cognates in two lexical stress languages, Brazilian Portuguese (BP, L1) and American English (AE, L2). In Experiment 1,  BP-AE bilinguals named a mixed list of disyllabic moderate frequency words in L1 (Portuguese) and L2 (English). In Experiment 2, Portuguese-English bilinguals named English (L2) disyllabic target words presented simultaneously with auditory Portuguese (L1) disyllabic primes. It is concluded that word stress has a task-dependent role to play in bilingual word naming and must be incorporated in bilingual models of lexical production and lexical perception and reading aloud models.

An Electromyographic Study of Velopharyngeal Function in Speech

1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredericka Bell-Berti
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Activity ◽  
American English ◽  
Posterior Pharyngeal Wall ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Pharyngeal Wall ◽  
Constrictor Muscle ◽  
The Third ◽  
Velopharyngeal Closure ◽  
Velopharyngeal Function

Electromyographic (EMG) recordings were obtained from the levator palatini, superior pharyngeal constrictor, middle pharyngeal constrictor, palatoglossus, and palatopharyngeus muscles of three talkers of American English. Bipolar hooked-wire electrodes were used. Each subject read nonsense words composed of three vowels (/i, a, u/), six stop consonants (/p, b, t, d, k, g/), and two nasal consonants (/m, n/) to form various stop-nasal and nasal-stop contrasts. Multiple repetitions of each utterance type were recorded and subsequently processed by computer. The levator palatini was found to be the primary muscle of velopharyngeal closure for each of the subjects. The palatopharyngeus also showed consistent oralization activity for each of the subjects, although the activity of this muscle was strongly affected by vowel environment. Two subjects showed pharyngeal constrictor muscle activity related to oral articulation, but pharyngeal constrictor activity for the third subject was related to vowel quality. Nasal articulation was accomplished by suppression of oral articulation for each subject. Vowel quality affected the strength of EMG signals for lateral and posterior pharyngeal wall muscles. In those cases where activity was different for the three vowels, activity was greatest for /a/.

scholarly journals Automatic Speech Segmentation in French / Segmentação automática da fala em francês

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1551
Author(s):  
Philippe Martin
Keyword(s):  
Speech Rate ◽  
Silent Reading ◽  
Content Word ◽  
Lexical Stress ◽  
Speech Segmentation ◽  
Read Aloud ◽  
Computer Algorithm ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Slow Speech

Abstract: Whether we read aloud or silently, we segment speech not in words, but in accent phrases, i.e. sequences containing only one stressed syllable (excluding emphatic stress). In lexically stressed languages such as Italian or English, the location of stress in a noun, an adverb, a verb or an adjective (content words) is defined in the lexicon, and accent phrases include one single content word together with its associated grammatical words. In French, a language deprived from lexical stress, accent phrases are defined by the time it takes to read or pronounce them. Therefore, actual phrasing, i.e. the segmentation into accent phrases, depends strongly on the speech rate chosen by the speaker or the reader, whether in oral or silent reading mode. With a slow speech rate, all content words form accent phrases whose final syllables are stressed, whereas a fast speech rate could merge up to 10 or 11 syllables together in a single accent phrase with more than one content word. Based on this observation, and on other properties of stressed syllables, a computer algorithm for automatic phrasing, operating in a top-down fashion, is presented and applied to two examples of read and spontaneous speech.Keywords: accent phrase; French; phrasing; stress location; boundary detection.Resumo: Quando lemos em voz alta ou silenciosamente, segmentamos a fala em palavras, mas em grupos acentuais, i.e., sequências contendo uma única sílaba acentuada (excluindo-se acento enfático). Em línguas lexicalmente acentuadas como o italiano ou o inglês, a localização do acento em um substantivo, um advérbio, um verbo ou em um adjetivo (palavras lexicais) é definida no léxico, e sintagmas acentuais incluem uma única palavra lexical, acompanhada das palavras gramaticais a ela associadas. Em francês, uma língua que não possui acento lexical, sintagmas acentuais são definidos pelo tempo que se leva para lê-los ou pronunciá-los. Assim, os constituintes concretos, i.e., a segmentação em grupos acentuais, depende fortemente da velocidade de fala escolhida pelo falante ou leitor, tanto na fala como na leitura silenciosa. Com uma velocidade de fala baixa, todas as palavras lexicais formam grupos acentuais cujas sílabas finais são acentuadas, enquanto o ritmo de fala rápido poderia juntar de 10 a 11 sílabas em um mesmo grupo acentual contendo mais de uma palavra lexical. Com base nessa observação e em outras propriedades das sílabas acentuadas, um algoritmo computacional para segmentação automática, atuando de maneira top-down é apresentado e aplicado a dois exemplos de leitura e fala espontânea.Palavras-chave: grupo acentual; francês; segmentação; posição do acento; detecção de fronteira.

scholarly journals The duration of American-English stop consonants: an overview

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Crystal ◽  
Arthur S. House
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Stop Consonants

scholarly journals Rhythm and convergence between speakers of American and Indian English

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Krivokapić
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Dynamical Model ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
Rhythmic Structure ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
Acoustic Study ◽  
Timing Pattern ◽  
Show Evidence

AbstractThe study examines rhythmic convergence between speakers of American and Indian English. Previous research has shown that American English shows tendencies towards stress-timing, and Indian English has been claimed to be syllable-timed (Crystal 1994). Starting from the view that languages differ in their rhythmic tendencies, rather than that they have categorically different rhythmic properties, we examine in an acoustic study the rhythmic tendencies of the two languages, and whether these tendencies can change in the course of an interaction. The focus is on temporal properties (specifically, the duration of stressed syllables and of feet). The results show evidence of mixed rhythmic properties for both languages, with Indian English being more syllable-timed than American English. American speakers show a trend towards changes in foot duration that can be interpreted as accommodation in speech rate or as convergence towards a more syllable-timed foot duration pattern. One Indian English speaker converges in both examined properties towards a more stress-timing pattern. The results are discussed within a dynamical model of rhythmic structure (Saltzman, Nam, Krivokapić, and Goldstein 2008). It is suggested that rhythmic convergence can arise via a tuning between speakers of the prosodic interoscillator coupling function that is proposed in that model.

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