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Acoustic Cues to Laryngeal Contrasts in Hindi
Susan Jackson and Stephen Winters
University of Calgary
Acoustics Week in Canada
October 14, 20111
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Introduction• Speakers are sensitive to the phonemic distinctions of their native language.
• These distinctions are perceived through acoustic cues in the input, which are also language-specific.
• For example, a syllable-initial voiceless stop =
• aspirated in English
• unaspirated in French
• Certain cues in the speech stream might have meaning for one listener group while being superfluous or disregarded by another (Abramson & Lisker, 1970).
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Introduction• Jackson (2009): tested whether L1 English and L1 French listeners would perceive Hindi’s four-way system of laryngeal contrasts differently.
• Hindi laryngeal contrasts:
• two main elements: voicing and aspiration
• Together, these create a 2x2 paradigm of four distinct phonemes:
• voiced unaspirated e.g. /b/• voiceless unaspirated e.g. /p/• voiceless aspirated e.g. /ph/• voiced aspirated e.g. /bɦ/
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Voiced Aspirated Stops• Hindi’s voiced aspirated stops are somewhat unique--
• They involve the production of four acoustic cues in sequence:
1. Voicing during the closure phase of the stop
2. A release burst following the stop closure
3. Periodic breathy voicing mixed in with turbulent aspiration noise
4. A steady vowel portion, produced in modal voice
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An example
5
/bɦa.ˈvɪʃ.ja/ ‘future’
voiceasp
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Initial Assumptions• Distinctive Feature-based predictions:
1. French stops are distinguished by the [voice] feature
• French listeners would be more sensitive to [voice] contrasts in Hindi.
• E.g., [b] ~ [p] or [bɦ] ~ [ph]
2. English stops are distinguished by the [spread glottis] feature
• English listeners would be more sensitive to [spread glottis] contrasts in Hindi.
• E.g., [p] ~ [ph] or [b] ~ [bɦ]
• Both groups should be sensitive to contrasts involving both features.
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Earlier Findings, Part 1
• ABX discrimination task: generally confirmed these predictions.
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Earlier Findings, Part 2
• Deviations from the predicted pattern generally involved the voiced aspirated stops.
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New Directions• Note: voiced aspirated stops were novel to both listener groups yet employed both [voice] and [spread glottis] features.
• It’s necessary to go beyond the features and consider the phonetic cues involved• Goal:
• disambiguate the role of aspiration and (closure) voicing cues in the perception of Hindi laryngeal contrasts
• Strategy: • independently combine each acoustic cue in spliced stimuli to determine its effect on perception of those laryngeal contrasts by both native (Hindi) and non-native (English) listeners.
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Introducing: The Cues1. Aspiration
• Presence
• Absence
2. Aspiration quality
• Voiceless
• Breathy voiced
3. Closure voicing duration
• Short (cues breathy voiced stops)
• Long (cues voiced stops) (Schieffer, 1992)
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Raw Materials• 10 native Hindi (L2 English) speakers produced the raw tokens from which stimuli were created.
• They were recorded reading 178 Hindi nonce words which had stop, fricative and affricate onsets.
• Only stop-initial words were used in perception study.
• Two places of articulation: velar and retroflex.
• Two speakers: one male and one female.
• Length of closure voicing varied by place of articulation and speaker.
• average difference of 41 msec between voiced (=long) and breathy (=short) stops
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Raw Materials• Two features with three values each...
Long closure voicing Voiceless aspirationShort closure voicing Breathy voiced aspirationNo closure voicing Unaspirated ... were combined to create a paradigm of 9 stimuli
LongCV-Asp ShortCV-Asp NoCV-Asp
LongCV-BreathyAsp ShortCV-BreathyAsp NoCV-BreathyAsp
LongCV-Unasp ShortCV-Unasp NoCV-Unasp
b:h bh ph
b:ɦ bɦ pɦ
b: b p
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13
‘LongCV-BreathyAsp’
Breathy voice + closure voicing
‘LongCV-Asp’
Aspiration (-voice) + closure voicing
‘LongCV-Unasp’
Unaspirated + closure voicing
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Perception Experiment• ABX task:
• Listeners hear a pair of stimuli, A and B, followed by a token X
• Task: determine whether X matches A or B
• Inter-stimulus interval: 720 msec
• Listeners: students at the University of Calgary
• 15 native English speakers
• 15 native Hindi speakers
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Perception Experiment:Nitty Gritty
• Each of the 9 stops was paired with 4 contrastive items.
• For example, [p] was paired with:
• [ph] and [pɦ] (= aspiration contrasts)
• [b] and [b:] ( = closure voicing contrasts)
• Each pair was presented in both orders
• Each pair was presented at two places of articulation
• Each pair was produced by two different speakers
• Total: 288 randomized trials
• Duration of experiment 25 minutes
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Results: Aspiration contrasts
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English P-value
1-2 < .001
2-3 0.001
1-3 0.008
Hindi P-value
1-2 < .001
2-3 0.999
1-3 < .001
1 2 3
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Results: Aspiration contrasts• No main effect of language of listener!
• However, a significant effect of contrast type
• English: Asp ~ Unasp > Breathy ~ Unasp > Asp ~ Breathy
• Hindi: Asp ~ Unasp, Breathy ~ Unasp > Asp ~ Breathy
• The Asp ~ Breathy contrast is difficult for both groups of listeners;
• But the English listeners are sensitive to the quality of aspiration.
• Basically: (phonetically) unfamiliar contrasts are more challenging.
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Results: Closure Voicing contrasts
18
English P-value
1-2 0.024
2 -3 0.029
1-3 0.829
Hindi P-value
1-2 0.001
2 -3 0.003
1-3 0.733
1 2 3
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• Native language of listener once again didn’t matter.
• But another significant effect of contrast type…
• English: LongCV ~ NoCV, ShortCV ~ NoCV > LongCV ~ ShortCV
• Hindi: LongCV ~ NoCV, ShortCV ~ NoCV > LongCV ~ ShortCV
• The presence vs. absence of closure voicing mattered to listeners;
• But the duration of closure voicing did not.
• However, there was a significant effect of closure voicing length on the perception of aspiration quality for both listener groups…
Results: Closure Voicing contrasts
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Aspiration * voicing length (English)
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*
**
L N SL N SL N S
• pɦ ~ ph >
bɦ ~ bh, b:ɦ ~ b:h
• pɦ ~ p > b:ɦ ~ b:
• Apparent advantage in discrimination of breathy voiced aspiration when there is no closure voicing present.
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Aspiration * voicing length (Hindi)
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**
L N SL N SL N S
• pɦ ~ ph >
bɦ ~ bh, b:ɦ ~ b:h
• Same advantage in discrimination of breathy voiced aspiration when there is no closure voicing present.
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Aspiration * voicing length: thoughts
• When closure voicing is present, it becomes more difficult to distinguish between breathy voiced aspiration and unvoiced aspiration.
• Without closure voicing, listeners may be forced to rely on cues in the aspirated portion of the stop
• that is, +/- concomitant vocal fold vibration.
• Aspiration quality may be perceptually integrated, somehow, with closure voicing.
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Conclusions• Surprising similarity between both listener groups
• In particular: Hindi listeners don’t have an advantage in the perception of closure voicing contrasts.
• General trend: familiar contrasts are easier to process
• English listeners are somewhat sensitive to the distinction between voiceless aspiration and breathy voiced aspiration.
• Hindi listeners don’t display an advantage when this cue varies independently of closure voicing.
• Overall moral of the story: phonetics matters.
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Merci!