Articulatory Phonetics

Attention! The related software (PANM script) can be downloaded from here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4QKykn2bzqQa0JQRTZtU08yZWs?resourcekey=0-kYz6XS59uRJCKj4YuhaqhQ
Background: This study aimed to introduce a low-cost system measuring nasalance, which can often be performed with high-cost systems, and to present the normative nasalance values for adults using this system.
Materials and Methods: This study included 96 standard native Turkish-speaking literate volunteers who had no hearing and speech problems or nasal obstruction. Nasalance values were measured using the system developed by the principal author, which is called the Praat-Assisted Nasalance Meter, using speech materials and related methods.
Results: The participants were 18-65 (average, 33.7) years old. They were divided into three groups according to their age: 18-25, 26-40, and 41-65. A significant difference was found in the nasalance values between the genders. For nearly all speech materials, higher nasalance values were measured in women than in men.
Conclusion: There is no generally accepted rule to ascertain if a speaker’s resonance is abnormal according to nasalance values. Therefore, the proposed threshold values should not be considered absolute values but should be decided with perceptual evaluation.

Amaç: Bu çalışmanın amacı, genellikle yüksek maliyetli sistemlerle gerçekleştirilebilen nazalans parametresi ölçümü için kullanılabilecek kendi geliştirdiğimiz düşük maliyetli bir sistemi tanıtmak ve bu sistem kullanılarak erişkinler için belirlenen normatif nazalans değerlerini sunmaktır.
Gereç ve Yöntemler: Standart Türkiye Türkçesi konuşan ve okuma yazma bilen 96 gönüllü çalışmaya dahil edildi. Deneklerin işitme ve konuşma problemi, burun tıkanıklığı yapan herhangi bir hastalığının olmamasına dikkat edildi. Birinci yazar tarafından geliştirilen ve Praat Yardımlı Nazalans Ölçer (PYNÖ) adı verilen sistem yardımıyla aşağıda belirtilen konuşma malzemesi ve yöntem kullanılarak nazalans ölçümü yapıldı.
Bulgular: Çalışmaya katılan 96 konuşmacının yaşları 18 ile 65 arasında değişiyordu (ortalama 33,7 yıl). Katılımcılar yaşlarına göre 18-25, 26-40 ve 41-65 şeklinde üç gruba ayrılarak incelendi. Elde edilen değerler cinsiyet grubuna göre karşılaştırıldığında aradaki farkların istatistiksel olarak anlamlı olduğu görüldü. Hemen her konuşma malzemesi için kadınlarda erkeklerden daha yüksek nazalans değerleri elde edildi.
Sonuç: Bir konuşmacı üzerinde ölçülen nazalans ölçüm sonuçlarının anormal olduğunu söylemek için genel kabul gören bir kural yoktur. Bu nedenle, bu çalışmada önerilen eşik değerler mutlak değerler olarak düşünülmemeli, algısal değerlendirmeyle birlikte karar verilmelidir.

This study takes a close look at the link between English sounds as realized in normal speech. Sounds are discrete entities that carry in them abstractions which is the import of phonology in every language. The physical properties of sounds which are realized in speech production undoubtedly have an interrelation with this discrete nature of sounds. The researcher adopted a purely analytical approach in viewing this topic, with little reliance on literature. It may be described as a purely scientific study as the researcher uses practical examples and correlates to drum home the interconnection between abstract sounds and their physical properties. The study notes that a letter of the English alphabet, for instance ‘y’, has different production realisations as both a vowel and a consonant based on the articulatory nuances a phonetic analyst associates with it. And secondly, the study finds that English speech sound may or may not have the same physiological identification with its ...

Stuttering is a speech fluency disorder. It can be mainly characterized by an increased presence of disfluencies that affect the speech intelligibility. The aim of this thesis is to study stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) produced by persons who stutter (PWS) during reading tasks and during spontaneous speech. More specifically, we propose, as our first objective, to verify if any morphological or phonetic elements can explain the presence of these disfluencies. Our second objective is to observe articulatory events before and during SLDs. For the studies dealing with the linguistic and phonetic elements that can be problematic to PWS, 10 French-speaking and 10 Slovak-speaking PWS were recorded while reading a text and while having a conversation in their mother tongue. The studies on speech motor events taking place before and during SLDs were realized by means of an EMA. 4 French-speaking subjects participated in this part of the study (2 PWS and 2 control subjects). Our results show that non-voiced consonants and stops were part of the most problematic elements to produce for PWS. The morphological study reveals that the risk of a SLD appearance was higher when the word contained more morphemes. This result should be correlated to the number of syllables that constitute the word. As for the second couple of studies, they focus on the speech motor events in stuttered speech. Our data show that similar articulatory events can take place in the supraglottic cavity during disfluencies perceived as blocks or prolongations. Furthermore, a disruption of coarticulatory gestures was observed in certain disfluencies.

El shipibo, lengua de la familia pano, evidencia casos de consonantes bilabiales con segunda articulación dorsal. Este fenómeno es descrito en el presente estudio como un caso de velarización generado por la vocal central alta no redondeada /ɨ/. Las consonantes complejas en cuestión son el producto de un proceso fonológico, razón por la cual carecen de estatus léxico; a saber, no conforman el inventario fonológico de la lengua shipiba. Sin embargo, el fenómeno es pasible de descripción y plantea una serie de desafíos a nivel teórico. En rigor, el fenómeno es selectivo, pues ocurre únicamente con consonantes bilabiales (en shipibo son tres): la consonante oclusiva bilabial sorda /p/, la consonante bilabial sonora /b/ y el sonido nasal bilabial /m/. Los segmentos anteriores adquieren una articulación de naturaleza secundaria, la cual se ejecuta de forma simultánea al movimiento articulatorio principal realizado con los labios, de forma que los sonidos devienen en las formas fonéticas [pˠ], [bˠ] y [mˠ], consistentes con la vocal central que condiciona el proceso. La selectividad del proceso supone que solo son los segmentos de tipo labial los que son producidos de forma compleja; así, no ocurre lo mismo con los sonidos coronales y dorsales. En tanto que tal, en el presente estudio se realiza un abordaje empírico del proceso a través de un análisis acústico y una pesquisa articulatoria, a fin de definir con claridad si los sonidos en cuestión se articulan o no con los labios retraídos. Además, de plantear conjeturas de carácter fonológico, pues sostenemos que la selectividad del proceso de velarización obedece a la naturaleza no marcada del fenómeno en shipibo; a saber, la lengua opta por la tendencia más natural. Para efectos del caso, se asumen los presupuestos de la fonología no lineal, específicamente la propuesta de Halle, Vaux y Wolfe (2000). Este modelo permite establecer predicciones sobre la base articulatoria del proceso mediante la distinción de los dominios de rasgos para la articulación principal y la articulación secundaria. De esta manera, se distingue el movimiento labial del dorsal en los términos antes señalados. Finalmente, se precisa de la teoría de optimalidad (TO) a fin de definir las razones por las cuales el shipibo opta por las consonantes bilabiales, y no las de otro tipo, para gatillar el fenómeno.

The main goal of this paper is not only to present the current official version of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a system of phonetic notation created and developed by the International Phonetic Association that is intended to be a standardized representation of all sounds that occur in natural languages, but also to propose the standardized IPA for Polish. The paper postulates the need for unification and internationalization of metalanguage in Polish linguistic studies, especially in the field of phonetic research, points out advantages of the IPA, and briefly describes previous attempts to transcribe Polish sounds using this phonetic notation. The main aim of the paper focuses on the proposal of the representation of Polish vocals and consonants. Alternate interpretations have been discussed and new solutions have been developed. Special attention has been devoted to possible representations of Polish nasal diphthongs, palatalized and so-called post-palatal sounds, and alveolar fricatives that have been analyzed as retroflex consonants. As the result a complete inventory of Polish sounds represented in the IPA has been presented.

The acoustic and articulatory properties of Ukrainian consonant phones were investigated, and a full set of relevant IPA notations was proposed for these and compiled in a table. Acoustic correspondence of Ukrainian phones to those appearing in European languages was analyzed and discussed. Special attention was paid to the phonemes /v/ (represented in Cyrillic script as "/в/") and /gh/ (ren-dered in Cyrillic script as "/г/") that cause the most difficulties in their description. In particular, our experiments and observations suggest that a standard Ukrainian phoneme /v/ is realised as labiodental fricatives [v] and [v j ] before vowels and also as sonorant bilabial approximants [β̞ β̞ ˛ β̞ ɔ] between a vowel and a consonant, in the initial position before consonants and after a vowel at the end of a word, and sometimes is devoiced to [v̥ ] in the coda after a voiceless consonant. In some utterances after a vowel (before a consonant and in the coda), a strongly rounded bilabial approximant [β̞ ɔ] may approach a non-syllabic semivowel [ṷ]. These conclusions are in good agreement with the consonantal status of the Ukrainian language and with the general tendencies of sound combinations in the world languages. The findings of this research contribute to better understanding of Ukrain-ian and its special features in comparison with other world languages that may have substantial practical use in various phonetic and translation studies, as well as in modern linguistic technologies aimed at artificial intelligence development, machine translation incorporating text-to-speech conversion, automatic speech analysis, recognition and synthesis, and in other areas of applied linguistics.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions found on IPA Source corresponds to what is known as Mid-Atlantic (MA) pronunciation. MA is a neutral pronunciation incorporating some aspects of both British Received Pronunciation and General American speech. Standardized for the stage in 1942 by General American (GA) pronunciation differs from RP in the use of certain vowel colors and a general lax quality of the consonants.

With growth of EFL in Iran, based on context requirements, textbook evaluation has received substantial attention. Teachers' experiences and perceptions play vital roles in the process of book evaluation. The study is based on the Jolly Phonics series (Lloyd & Wernham, 1995) used by number of institutes and colleges in teaching in Iran. The main objective of the study was to find out whether this teaching material follows the essential objectives for teaching English as a foreign language to children or not. Considering the point that teachers have an indispensable role in analyzing and making an applicable and practical decision on evaluating and choosing the best possible material to be taught, the study focused on the teachers' perceptions. The series were evaluated against Nokelainen's (2006) checklist. To this end, 72 female experienced teachers of Baby College institutes in Tehran and Gorgan branches, Iran, were randomly selected and given the Pedagogically Meaningful Learning Questionnaire (PMLQ) of 40 questions to fill in. The findings showed that teachers mostly believe Jolly Phonics series and the teaching method can stand as a capable and trustable material for young EFL learners. However, in order to make it more profitable it may involve using decisions in adapting textual materials to the needs and interests of pupils as the learners' requirements are changing regarding the adventures of their environment. It is suggested that being a teacher's guide to educate the teachers how to adapt and teach the materials on the base of learners' needs would be much better than just knowing or learning how to teach it. The textbook will continue to play an important role in helping teachers in teaching process, but it should not be a dictator (Williams, 1983), and the investigated material is respectful to this idea as it can well cover the flexibility, motivation, applicability, learner control and learner activity objectives since most of the teachers agreed on this fact.

The aim of this dissertation is to contribute as much as possible to the limited knowledge about the phonetics and phonology of Cypriot Greek (CyGr) geminates by examining the acoustics, articulation, and perception of CyGr plosive and affricate gemination. CyGr plosives and affricates were selected in particular, because their gemination is realised rather unusually, i.e. by means of both the closure and release. The investigation of CyGr stop and affricate gemination has also theoretical implications, such as which theoretical framework (moraic or timing-based theory) would best accommodate CyGr geminates, how CyGr geminates should be syllabified, the moraicity of geminates and its phonetic implementation, the existence of moraic onsets, and the correlation between gemination and aspiration.
The first chapter of the thesis introduces CyGr providing a brief description of its phonetic inventory with a focus on geminates.
Chapter 2 comprises an acoustic study of lexical and post-lexical gemination of CyGr stops and affricates, both at the segmental and suprasegmental level.
Chapter 3 is a limited articulatory study of lexical alveolar stops, which supplemented the evidence from Chapter 2.
Chapter 4 reports the results of a perceptual study on lexical alveolar stops, aiming to identify the cues that play a role in the perception of geminates by speakers of CyGr.
Chapter 5 presents the second perceptual experiment of the thesis, which tests if and how speakers of CyGr differentiate perceptually between word-initial singleton, word-initial geminate, word-boundary geminate, and word-boundary super-geminate stops.
Chapter 6 consists of four perceptual experiments, each one testing the perception of stimuli from six languages (namely CyGr, Turkish, Italian, Polish, English, and Korean) by native speakers of one of four languages: CyGr, Cypriot Turkish, Polish, and Italian.
Finally, Chapter 7 discusses the phonological and phonetic status of CyGr geminate stops and affricates and suggests theoretical implications of the collective results.

The subject of this study is the phonetic characteristics of the Qur'anic language - an important aspect of the language with numerous works that has been written on its various aspects. In this context, each phoneme of the Qur’anic language separately evaluated, problems with their articulations presented in the context of both classical Qiraat and Tajweed resources and modern linguistic data.

This research is the study of Classical Arabic or Qur’anic Arabic sounds which belong to rooted Sami language with 29 essential sounds (letters) and the phonomenon around these sounds that are idgham, ikhfa, iqlab, imala, tashil from modern and classical sources. Our goal in this study is to reexamine and evaluate the phonetic structure if the Qur’an language in the light of modern criteria and linguistic data which has been an important topic since the earlier days, and to contribute to preservation of the authentic structure of the Qur’anic language within a scientific framework by redetermining its authentic structure. Thus, with this thesis, not only it is aimed to preserve the Qur’an as textual strcipture, but also to preserve its verbal structure. This study is comprised of; an introduction, conclusion and four sections.

Ce travail portant sur la modernisation systématique d‟une langue bantoue du Cameroun - le yambetta - dans un domaine scientifique, notamment l‟agriculture, a pour objet d‟aider la collectivité yambetta à saisir le sens exact des mots qu‟elle emploie ou dont elle a besoin pour son développement dans le secteur agricole. L‟agriculture est la principale activité qui facilite les conditions de vie dans la communauté yambetta. Les agriculteurs de cette collectivité doivent comprendre et maîtriser le langage agricole diffusé par les médias et relayé par les agents agricoles, pour obtenir un bon rendement dans leur secteur d‟activité. Pour ce faire, il s‟est avéré important de développer la terminologie adéquate à l‟utilisation du yambetta comme médium de transmission des savoirs agricoles modernes, en dotant cette langue d‟un lexique adapté aux réalités du discours agricole et en réalisant la traduction de quelques fiches techniques d‟agriculture en zone rurale. Il s‟agit d‟une recherche sur la traduction non pas seulement en tant que produit, mais aussi et surtout en tant que processus d‟aménagement linguistique, notamment de modernisation, d‟intellectualisation de la langue yambetta. Manifestement, il s‟ensuit que les langues peuvent être différentes les unes des autres sur le plan de la forme, mais chaque terme, chaque message contient un sens ; et c‟est ce sens qui doit être dégagé dans la langue cible. Toutefois, le contexte africain exige une réorientation de l‟activité traduisante. Outre le sens, cette activité doit prendre en compte la diversité culturelle et préserver les besoins identitaires des différentes communautés humaines quelles qu‟elles soient.
Ainsi, cette étude s‟appuie sur les approches culturelles de la terminologie et de la traduction pour moderniser le yambetta dans le secteur agricole, et proposer concomitamment un cadre méthodologique généralisable à la modernisation des langues africaines. Loin d‟être une théorie, la traduction par élaboration terminologique proposée dans cette étude, tributaire de la traduction par simplification terminologique, est une méthode qui relève les limites des simples ouvrages lexicographiques dans la modernisation des langues africaines, en montrant par les textes comment le bon effet sémantique et culturel est attribué aux termes, aux syntagmes, aux énoncés, en fonction du contexte global de communication où ils s‟inscrivent.
Ce projet, qui s‟intègre parfaitement dans l‟un des grands projets de l‟ACALAN, celui sur la terminologie, est une contribution concrète et tangible au grand chantier de l‟équipement et de l‟amélioration du statut de facto des langues africaines, afin qu'elles retrouvent officiellement la place privilégiée qui leur revient dans la construction des États nations et de l'Union africaine.

This chapter discusses past and present methods, theories and questions in the study of the phonology of English. The first section explores reasons why English phonology is relevant, on a practical and social level as well as on a theoretical level. After a brief review of historical developments in the study of English phonology, the main part of the chapter discusses current trends and approaches, especially the use of acoustic phonetics to address phonological questions. Key areas of debate and future developments that are addressed include how both phonological research and language teaching deal with variation in varieties of English. The final section explores future developments, specifically, how technological change might influence research practices in English phonology and the viability of intelligibility as a goal in language teaching.

This teaching material (module) is basically prepared for Afar language and Literature students. The module comprises the general science of linguistics, Phonetics and phonology, but particularly discusses Afaric phonetics and phonology. in detail. This module may initiate scholars who have interest to study Afar languag (Qafar-af).

This thesis is an investigation of the sound system of Lopit, an Eastern Nilotic (Nilo-Saharan) language traditionally spoken in South Sudan. The primary aim of this study is to develop a phonetically-based description of aspects of Lopit segmental and tonal phonology, with a focus on the Dorik variety of the language.

This is first approached via analyses of phonological and morphological patterns in Lopit, using data collected during extended fieldwork with members of the Lopit community in Melbourne, Australia. A number of hypotheses regarding Lopit phonological contrasts and processes are put forward, including proposals for nine monophthongs, an inventory of 27 consonants, and three tones used for both lexical and grammatical distinctions. Some differences in the number and nature of contrasts are found compared to observations in the limited existing materials on Lopit.

Four production experiments are then undertaken to examine the acoustic and articulatory evidence for three phenomena of particular interest. The first is the phonological feature ‘Advanced Tongue Root’, widely attested in African languages and here suggested to distinguish monophthongs /i, e, o, u/, labelled [+ATR], from /ɪ, ɛ, a, ɔ, ʊ/, labelled [-ATR]. The results of an acoustic experiment reveal lower first formant frequencies as the primary correlate distinguishing [+ATR] from [-ATR] vowels, and a following ultrasound-based experiment shows that vowels in the [+ATR] set have a more anterior tongue root position than those in the [-ATR] set.

Length contrasts proposed for selected obstruents and sonorants include a contrast between singleton glides /w, j/ and geminate glides /wː, jː/, a typologically uncommon distinction which has received little phonetic attention crosslinguistically. The results of an acoustic investigation of Lopit glides show that duration is a robust correlate of glide contrasts at the same place of articulation, with the putative geminates being significantly longer. Furthermore, they have a more constricted articulation, as evidenced by lower first formant frequencies and lower root-mean square amplitude values.

An acoustic experiment testing the proposed contrast between High, Low and Falling tones confirms that these three tones are distinct, with higher fundamental frequency values for the High compared to Low tone, and a trajectory of high to low values for the Falling tone. It is also shown that the fundamental frequency and duration characteristics of these tones are sensitive to the tonal context in which they occur.

These experiments contribute the first phonetic data on Lopit, and, combined with the phonological and morphological analyses, significantly increase the level of description of an under-documented Nilo-Saharan language. This study also develops typological understandings of the phonetic implementation of ATR contrasts, the status of length distinctions among glides, and Nilotic tone systems, and demonstrates the value of incorporating phonetic data into the documentation of African languages.