Perception of final consonant voicing in speech produced during simultaneous communication

Dale Evan Metz; Amy Lessler; Yvonne Lawe; Nicholas Schiavetti; Robert L. Whitehead; Brenda H. Whitehead

doi:10.1121/1.417052

Lip and Jaw Kinematics in Bilabial Stop Consonant Production

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jslhr.4004.877 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 40 (4) ◽

pp. 877-893 ◽

Cited By ~ 50

Author(s):

Anders Löfqvist ◽

Vincent L. Gracco

Keyword(s):

Control Strategy ◽

High Velocity ◽

Stop Consonant ◽

Movement Variability ◽

Upper Lip ◽

Lower Lip ◽

Vowel Context ◽

Virtual Target ◽

Contextual Variability ◽

Consonant Voicing

This paper reports two experiments, each designed to clarify different aspects of bilabial stop consonant production. The first one examined events during the labial closure using kinematic recordings in combination with records of oral air pressure and force of labial contact. The results of this experiment suggested that the lips were moving at a high velocity when the oral closure occurred. They also indicated mechanical interactions between the lips during the closure, including tissue compression and the lower lip moving the upper lip upward. The second experiment studied patterns of upper and lower lip interactions, movement variability within and across speakers, and the effects on lip and jaw kinematics of stop consonant voicing and vowel context. Again, the results showed that the lips were moving at a high velocity at the onset of the oral closure. No consistent influences of stop consonant voicing were observed on lip and jaw kinematics in five subjects, nor on a derived measure of lip aperture. The overall results are compatible with the hypothesis that one target for the lips in bilabial stop production is a region of negative lip aperture. A negative lip aperture implies that to reach their virtual target, the lips would have to move beyond each other. Such a control strategy would ensure that the lips will form an air tight seal irrespective of any contextual variability in the onset positions of their closing movements.

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Differences in Children’s Sound Production When Speaking With a Cochlear Implant Turned On and Turned Off

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.3903.604 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 39 (3) ◽

pp. 604-610 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Nancy Tye-Murray ◽

Linda Spencer ◽

Elizabeth Gilbert Bedia ◽

George Woodworth

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Speech Production ◽

Cochlear Implants ◽

Sound Production ◽

Proprioceptive Feedback ◽

Speech Sample ◽

Speech Language Pathologists ◽

Monosyllabic Words ◽

Consonant Voicing ◽

Vowel Height

Twenty children who have worn a Cochlear Corporation cochlear implant for an average of 33.6 months participated in a device-on/off experiment. They spoke 14 monosyllabic words three times each after having not worn their cochlear implant speech processors for several hours. They then spoke the same speech sample again with their cochlear implants turned on. The utterances were phonetically transcribed by speech-language pathologists. On average, no difference between speaking conditions on indices of vowel height, vowel place, initial consonant place, initial consonant voicing, or final consonant voicing was found. Comparisons based on a narrow transcription of the speech samples revealed no difference between the two speaking conditions. Children who were more intelligible were no more likely to show a degradation in their speech production in the device-off condition than children who were less intelligible. In the device-on condition, children sometimes nasalized their vowels and inappropriately aspirated their consonants. Their tendency to nasalize vowels and aspirate initial consonants might reflect an attempt to increase proprioceptive feedback, which would provide them with a greater awareness of their speaking behavior.

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On the naturalness of stop consonant voicing

Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s0022226700010598 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 145-166 ◽

Cited By ~ 102

Author(s):

John R. Westbury ◽

Patricia A. Keating

Keyword(s):

Stop Consonant ◽

Formal Theory ◽

Linguistic Theory ◽

The World ◽

Articulatory Features ◽

Consonant Voicing

A long recognized problem for linguistic theory has been to explain why certain sounds, sound oppositions, and sound sequences are statistically preferred over others among languages of the world. The formal theory of markedness, developed by Trubetzkoy and Jakobson in the early 1930's, and extended by Chomsky and Halle (1968), represents an attempt to deal with this problem. It is at least implicit in that theory that sounds are rare when (and because) they are marked, and common when (and because) they are not. Whether sounds are marked or unmarked depends – in the latter version of the theory, particularly – upon the ‘intrinsic content’ of acoustic and articulatory features which define them. There was, however, no substantive attempt among early proponents of the theory to show what it was about the content of particular features and feature combinations that caused them to be marked, and others not.

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