CSD 310 Consonants and Prosody

Vowels

Produced with a relatively open vocal tract, always voiced, and always produced with a nearly periodic air flow.

Greater energy and less meaning

Vowels have ________ energy and _______ meaning

Consonants

Produced with one or more areas of constriction. Sound source may be voicing, turbulent airflow, or both. Can be produced with nearly periodic airflow. and/or aperiodic airflow.

Less energy and greater meaning

Consonants have ________ energy and _________ meaning

Nasopharynx, Oropharynx, and Laryngopharynx

Order of the pharynx (top to bottom)

Nearly Periodic Complex Waves

Vibration of the vocal folds, driven by the air pressure from the lungs. A steady flow of air is converted into a series of alternative rarefaction and compression of air.

Nearly periodic complex waves

The source of vowels

Continuous Aperiodic Waves

Airflow is driven by the lung pressure up through the open glottis, becoming turbulent as it flows through supraglottal constriction.

Transient Aperiodic Waves

Transient noise due to rapid pressure changes in the supraglottal vocal tract (i.e plosives)

Coarticulation

Simultaneously articulating more than one phoneme at a time

Anticipatory or Forward Coarticulation

Adjustment of the vocal tract in anticipation of the next phoneme

Retentive or Backward Coarticulation

Adjustment of the vocal tract because of the sound immediately preceding the phoneme

Place and manner

Consonants are described by _________ and ____________ of articulation

Place of articulation

Bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palatal, and velar

Manner of Articulation

The degree of construction in the vocal tract and its effect on the airflow. It may be complete (airflow is fully stopped momentarily) or incomplete (airflow is impeded to ag reater or lesser extent for a short or long duration)

Complete Constriction

Airflow is fully stopped momentarily

Incomplete Constriction

Airflow is impeded to a greater or lesser extent for a short or long duration

Stops

Includes bilabials (/p/ and /b/), alveolar (/t/ and /d/) and velar (/k/ and /g/) (and even a glottal version)

Stops

Complex phonemes with many allophonic variations (different ways of saying the same sound). No single invariant acounstic feature.

Four acoustic cues: silence, burst noise, voice onset time, post-stop vowel formant transition

Stop Silence

Occurs during the production of a plosive, just before the release of airflow.

For voiceless stops, complete silence occurs momentarily.

For voiced stops, vocal fold vibration may continue through part of all of the stop, producing a low amplitude sound.

Stop Release Burst

A brief burst noise occurs on release of the blockage and the impounded air.

Release of a voiceless stop in the initial positon may occur with or without aspiration (the /h/ (airy) sound that comes with the plosive)

Release does not usually occur when two stops produced at the same place occur in sequence (ex. hot dog

Voice Onset Time

The time from the release of the stop closure to the onset of voicing. Typically measured in milliseconds.

Prevoicing, Simultaneous, Positive vot

Prevoicing

Voicing begins just before the release of plosive. In this case, voice onset time is negative.

Simultaneous

Voice onset begins at the same time as the release of the captured air.

Positive VOT

Voicing begins just after air is released (can be a short lag or long lag)

Secondary Cues to VOT

Duration of the closure, presence of aspiration, fundamental frequency, and vowels preceding voiced stops tend to be longer than those preceding voiceless

Aspiration

Voiced stops tend to not have _____________

Sonorant Consonants

Voice onset time is longer than before vowels

Vowel Position

Voice onset time is longer before high vowels than before low

Phonemic Context

Voice onset time can be influenced by sonorant consonants and vowel position

Running

There is greater variability in VOT during _____________ than in single word speech

Fricatives

The degree of constriction varies but is sufficient for all __________ to produce a turbulent airflow. These sounds are created in the vocal tract by sending the airflow through constrictions in the tract.

The airflow must be strong enough and the constriction narrow enough to make the airflow turbulent, creating friction.

Friction Noise

The acoustic evidence for place of articulation. The noise is generated from the turbulent airflow and formant transitions in consonant-vowel and vowel-consonant contexts. The noise is primarily affected by the amount of resonating space downstream from the constriction.

Sibilants

For the ___________ /s, ʆ/ the anterior (front) placement emphasizes the higher frequencies

High frequency

Sibilants and unvoiced sounds are harder for HOH people to hear because they are ______ ___________

/h/

The pharyngeal or glottal fricative ______ is produced with vocal fold adduction enough to generate turbulent airflow but without oscillation of the mucosa.

This is usually voicless but can be influenced by the surrounding sounds.

Stops and Fricatives

________ and __________ are the only phonemes that have both voiced and unvoiced correlates

Approximants

Glides or semivowels (/j/ and /w/) and liquids (/r/ and /l/)

Approximants

All are produced with a central stream of airflow (except for /l/)

Lip protrusion or rounding is an important articulatoru movement

They don't distinguish themselves from their neighboring vowels within a waveform.

Has less turbulence than fricatives. The vocal tract is pretty wide open but are categorizes as consonants, primarily because they don’t form the nucleus of a syllable.

Glides or Semivowels

They are considered resonant consonants (just like the nasals). The production requires movement of the tongue and lips to change the vocal tract from the starting position to the next vowel position.

It is the sound of the acoustic changes caused by the movement of the articulators that listeners use to recognize __________.

Liquids

Both sounds are produced by placing the top of the tongue toward the alveolar ridge.

Differences in tongue tip configuration and position create the distinctions between the two sounds.

These are often confused by non-native english speakers because they are so similar.

Nasals

Produced by occluding the oral cavity, opening the velopharyngeal port, and directing continuous airflow out through the nasal cavity. These have very faint formant bands due to a marked decrease in energy compared to the surrounding vowels.

Affricates

A stop followed immediately by a fricative produced at the same location

meaning

How is the _____________ of the utterance communicated?

By the phoneme and coarticulation of phonemes and features that are superimposed on the segments (suprasegmentals)

Suprasegmentals

The elements that are overlaid on syllables, words, phrases, and sentences. These are really important for speech, hearing, and auditory processing.

Prosody

The ensemble of phonetics

Intonation, timing, stress (loudness)

Suprasegmental features

Intonation, timing, and loudness

Perceptual features of prosody

Intonation, duration and juncture, and intensity contour

Acoustic correlates of the perceptual features of prosody

Syllabic stress, prominence, and rhythm

Building blocks of prosody

Intonation (f0 contour)

Reveals the attitudes and feelings of the speaker; conveys the emotional intent of the speaker.

Pitch

In American English, the ______ typically rises at the start of an utterance and falls at the end.

rise

Most questions _______ at the end besides for w-questions which to the opposite (related to intonation)

Duration

The length of a phoneme

Juncture

The way sounds (usually words) are joined to or separated from each other

Sonority

Loudness level of a sound relative to other sounds of similar length, pitch, and stress. This often indicates that we are done talking (we get softer as we wrap up)

Syllabic stress

Loudness contour is generally used in conjunction with f0 contour and timing to define ___________ _________ and prominence

Syllabic Stress

The use of f0 intensity and/or duration to place emphasis on one or more syllables in a word.

Stress

______ can tell us the difference between a verb and a noun in American English

higher

With syllabic stress, f0 is usually ___________

Longer

With syllabic stress, duration is usually ____________

Greater

With syllabic stress, intensity is usually _____________

Prominance

The emphasis placed upon one or more syllables within an utterance for purposes of conveying meaning.

f0 is usually higher, intensity is usually greater, and duration is usually longer.

Speech Rhythm

A language-dependent phenomenon that encompasses both the temporal and spectral patterned recurrence of strong and weak prosodic elements. Encompasses pitch, stress, loudness, and rate (how quickly they are talking to get their point across)