Session Prosody XII:Prosody XII: Hesitation and Articulation Rate
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| Prosody XII-1 |
Hesitations in Third Graders' Productions of Derived Words
Jamie L. Edrington, The University of Memphis Eugene Buder, The University of Memphis Linda Jarmulowicz, The University of Memphis Paper File Additional Files |
| This study examined third grade children’s use of hesitations in elicited productions of derived words containing a stress-changing suffix ( -ity). Eight derived words produced by 20 typically developing third-grade children were phonetically analyzed for five different hesitation types. The number of hesitations used differed significantly as a function of the children’s linguistic skill. Children who were adept in their linguistic abilities used more false starts, but children who were weaker in their linguistic abilities used more glottal stops and pauses. Therefore, children’s use of different hesitations, found only through a phonetic analysis, may reflect their stored representation of the derived words. | |
| Prosody XII-2 |
Vocalic hesitations vs vocalic systems: a cross-language comparison
Ioana Vasilescu, LIMSI-CNRS Rena Nemoto, LIMSI-CNRS Martine Adda-Decker, LIMSI-CNRS Paper File |
| This paper deals with the acoustic characteristics of vocalic hesitations in a cross-language perspective. The underlying question concerns the ``neutral'' vs. language-dependent timbre of vocalic hesitations and the link between their vocalic quality and the phonetic system of the language. An additional point of interest concerns the duration effect on vocalic hesitation compared to intra-lexical vowels. Acoustic measurements have been carried out in American English, French and Spanish. Results on vocalic timbre show that hesitations (i) carry language-specific information; (ii) whereas often close to measurements of existing vowels, they do not necessarily collapse with them. Finally, (iii) duration variation affects the timbre of vocalic hesitation and a centralization towards a ``neutral'' realization is observed. | |
| Prosody XII-3 |
Measuring relative articulation rate in Finnish utterances
Jussi Hakokari, Department of Information Technology, University of Turku Tuomo Saarni, Turku Centre for Computer Science Tapio Salakoski, Turku Centre for Computer Science Jouni Isoaho, Department of Information Technology, University of Turku Olli Aaltonen, Department of Phonetics, University of Turku Paper File |
| This paper presents two investigations into articulation rate, or the distribution of segmental duration, in a Finnish language speech corpus. The first study, rank ordering of short utterances according to their component words’ articulation rate, reveals that 75 % or more of Finnish utterances can be expected show some level of final lengthening. Also initial shortening, or accelerated speaking rate in the beginning of utterances, is present in amounts clearly above chance level. The second study, an investigation into how relative duration progresses in utterances, confirms the observations mentioned before. Furthermore, the second study shows the initial and final effects are statistically significant. Importantly, the results are near-identical to those obtained independently from Southern Swedish, even though the languages and corpora in question are entirely different. | |