Acoustics and articulatory durational measures of Italian and Polish

PROJECT

Vowel duration and consonant voicing: A production study

COMPENDIUM

DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/W92ME

URL https://osf.io/w92me/

PUBLICATION

An exploratory study of voicing-related differences in vowel duration as compensatory temporal adjustment in Italian and Polish

DOI 10.5334/gjgl.869

Abstract

Over a century of phonetic research has established the cross-linguistic existence of the so called “voicing effect”, by which vowels tend to be shorter when followed by voiceless stops and longer when the following stop is voiced. However, no agreement is found among scholars regarding the source of this effect, and several causal accounts have been advanced. A notable one is the compensatory temporal adjustment account, according to which the duration of the vowel is inversely correlated with the stop closure duration (voiceless stops having longer closure durations than voiced stops). The compensatory account has been criticised due to lack of empirical support and its vagueness regarding the temporal interval within which compensation is implemented. The results from an exploratory study of Italian and Polish suggest that the duration of the interval between two consecutive stop releases in CVCV words in these languages is not affected by the voicing of the second stop. The durational difference of the first vowel and the stop closure would then follow from differences in timing of the VC boundary within this interval. While other aspects, like production mechanisms related to laryngeal features effects and perceptual biases cannot be ruled out, the data discussed here are compatible with a production account based on compensatory mechanisms.

1 Variables

index

observation number within speaker

speaker

speaker’s ID

file

audio chunk file name

rec_date

date and time of recording

ipu

SPPAS IPU index

prompt

sentence stimulys

word

word stimulus

time

time of the sentence onset within the concatenated audio file (s)

sentence_ons

onset time of the sentence (s)

sentence_off

offset time of the sentence (s)

word_ons

onset time of the target word (s)

word_off

offset time of the target word (= C1 onset) (s)

v1_ons

onset time of V1 (= C1 offset) (s)

c2_ons

onset time of C2 (= V1 offset) (s)

v2_ons

onset time of V2 (= C2 offset) (s)

c1_rel

time of C1 release (s)

c2_rel

time of C2 release (s)

voicing_start

time of voicing onset (s)

voicing_end

time of voicing offset (s)

voicing_duration

duration of voiced interval (ms)

voiced_points

number of points out of 5 within the first half of C1 closure in which voicing is present

GONS

onset of C1 closing gesture (s)

max

time of maximum displacement of C1 closing gesture (s)

NOFF

offset of C1 gesture nucleus (s)

NONS

onset of C1 gesture nucleus (s)

peak1

first tongue velocity peak (s)

peak2

second tongue velocity peak (s)

c1_duration

duration of C1 (ms)

c1_clos_duration

duration of C1 closure (ms)

c1_vot

C1 Voice Onset Time (ms)

c1_rvofft

C1 release to V1 offset time (ms)

v1_duration

duration of V1 (ms)

c1_duration

duration of C1 (ms)

c2_clos_duration

duration of C2 closure (ms)

v2_duration

duration of V2 (ms)

v_v

V1 onset to V2 onset (Vowel-to-Vowel) duration (ms)

word_duration

duration of the word (ms)

sentence_duration

duration of sentence (s)

language

speaker’s native language (Italian, Polish)

gender

speaker’s sex (f, m)

glottocode

language Glottocode

item

word ID number

ipa

IPA transcription of the word

c1

first consonant (C1)

c1_phonation

voicing of C1 (voiceless, voiced)

vowel

V1 and V2 (a, o, u)

anteropost

backness of the vowel (back, central)

height

height of the vowel (high, mid, low)

c2

second consonant (C2)

c2_phonation

voicing of C2 (voiceless or voiced)

c2_place

place of C2 (coronal, velar)

speech_rate

speech rate as syllables per second

speech_rate_c

centred speech rate as syllables per second