TY - JOUR
T1 - Acoustic variability within and across German, French, and American English vowels
T2 - Phonetic context effects
AU - Strange, Winifred
AU - Weber, Andrea
AU - Levy, Erika S.
AU - Shafiro, Valeriy
AU - Hisagi, Miwako
AU - Nishi, Kanae
N1 - Funding Information:
The research reported here was funded by a grant to the first author (NIH NIDCD-RO1-00323). Thanks to the following people for help on the data analysis and the manuscript: James J. Jenkins, Franzo F. Law II; Yana Gilichinskaya. Portions of this research were reported in a poster at ASA () and in a chapter by . 1
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - Cross-language perception studies report influences of speech style and consonantal context on perceived similarity and discrimination of non-native vowels by inexperienced and experienced listeners. Detailed acoustic comparisons of distributions of vowels produced by native speakers of North German (NG), Parisian French (PF) and New York English (AE) in citation (di)syllables and in sentences (surrounded by labial and alveolar stops) are reported here. Results of within- and cross-language discriminant analyses reveal striking dissimilarities across languages in the spectral/temporal variation of coarticulated vowels. As expected, vocalic duration was most important in differentiating NG vowels; it did not contribute to PF vowel classification. Spectrally, NG long vowels showed little coarticulatory change, but back/low short vowels were fronted/raised in alveolar context. PF vowels showed greater coarticulatory effects overall; back and front rounded vowels were fronted, low and mid-low vowels were raised in both sentence contexts. AE mid to high back vowels were extremely fronted in alveolar contexts, with little change in mid-low and low long vowels. Cross-language discriminant analyses revealed varying patterns of spectral (dis)similarity across speech styles and consonantal contexts that could, in part, account for AE listeners' perception of German and French front rounded vowels, and "similar" mid-high to mid-low vowels.
AB - Cross-language perception studies report influences of speech style and consonantal context on perceived similarity and discrimination of non-native vowels by inexperienced and experienced listeners. Detailed acoustic comparisons of distributions of vowels produced by native speakers of North German (NG), Parisian French (PF) and New York English (AE) in citation (di)syllables and in sentences (surrounded by labial and alveolar stops) are reported here. Results of within- and cross-language discriminant analyses reveal striking dissimilarities across languages in the spectral/temporal variation of coarticulated vowels. As expected, vocalic duration was most important in differentiating NG vowels; it did not contribute to PF vowel classification. Spectrally, NG long vowels showed little coarticulatory change, but back/low short vowels were fronted/raised in alveolar context. PF vowels showed greater coarticulatory effects overall; back and front rounded vowels were fronted, low and mid-low vowels were raised in both sentence contexts. AE mid to high back vowels were extremely fronted in alveolar contexts, with little change in mid-low and low long vowels. Cross-language discriminant analyses revealed varying patterns of spectral (dis)similarity across speech styles and consonantal contexts that could, in part, account for AE listeners' perception of German and French front rounded vowels, and "similar" mid-high to mid-low vowels.
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U2 - 10.1121/1.2749716
DO - 10.1121/1.2749716
M3 - Article
C2 - 17672658
AN - SCOPUS:34547642818
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 122
SP - 1111
EP - 1129
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 2
ER -