Chapter 8

Question 1

Where is upstream vs downstream in the vocal tract?

Answer 1

Constrictions closer to the mouth are downstream, while those closer to the vocal folds are upstream

Question 2

What are egressive sounds?

Answer 2

Sounds produced on the outward flow of air from the lungs

Question 3

Do vowels or consonants carry greater energy?

Answer 3

The relative openness of the vocal tract in the production of vowels means that vowels, in general, carry greater energy than consonants

Question 4

What are the three sources of speech sounds?

Answer 4

Vibration of the vocal folds; produces a nearly periodic complex wave; vowels are produced by this method

Airflow driven by lung pressure through the open glottis becoming turbulent; creates continuous aperiodic waves generated by turbulence; many consonants are produced by this method (s, f, etc.)

Transient noise; generation of pressures in the mouth; rapid pressure changes in the supraglottal vocal tract (p, k)

Question 5

What is coarticulation?

Answer 5

The phenomenon of simultaneously articulating more than one phoneme

Question 6

What is anticipatory/forward coarticulation?

Answer 6

Adjusting the vocal tract posture in anticipation of the next phoneme

Question 7

What is retentive/carryover/backward coarticulation?

Answer 7

Adjusting the vocal tract posture because of the sound immediately preceding the phoneme

Question 8

What are the three features of consonants?

Answer 8

• The presence or absence of voicing
• Place of constriction of the flow of air from the lungs
• Manner of articulation

Question 9

How is airflow affected in stops and affricates?

Answer 9

Airflow is stopped momentarily

Question 10

What are the continuants?

Answer 10

Vowels, fricatives, glides, and liquids

Question 11

What are the four acoustic cues that are important for the perception of a stop?

Answer 11

• The silence
• The burst noise
• The voice onset time
• The poststop vowel formant transition

Question 12

What is a voice bar?

Answer 12

The presence of voicing during the closed portion

Question 13

Stop gap for voiced vs. voiceless stops.

Answer 13

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

Question 14

What causes the release burst?

Answer 14

During the closed period of the plosive, the air pressure within the mouth (intraoral) is raised above atmospheric pressure, so the release burst results from the sudden meeting of the two pressures

Question 15

What is the general duration of the release burst?

Answer 15

Generally 10-30 ms for voiced stops and slightly longer for their voiceless cognates

Question 16

What kind of spectral envelope for the burst do we see for bilabial plosives?

Answer 16

Generally flat to falling; the energy is broadly distributed across all frequencies or, concentrated in the lower frequencies

Question 17

What kind of spectral envelope for the burst do we see for alveolar plosives?

Answer 17

Tend to have a rising spectral envelope, meaning that the energy is concentrated in the higher harmonics

Question 18

What kind of spectral envelope for the burst do we see for velar plosives?

Answer 18

Velar plosives have their spectral envelope of the release burst concentrated in the middle frequency range

Question 19

What is aspiration?

Answer 19

Aspiration is a bit like a rapid, brief, voiceless sigh

Question 20

What causes aspiration?

Answer 20

The aspiration noise is likely a function of the transition of the vocal folds from voicing to unvoicing and back to voicing

The vocal folds vibrate during the vowel prior to the plosive and then separate slightly during the unvoiced portion of the closed phase of the voiceless stop

Upon release of the stop, the air resumes its flow through the glottis

The turbulent airflow escaping through the narrowed vocal folds creates the aspiration noise before the vocal folds resume vibration

Question 21

When does aspiration NOT occur?

Answer 21

In an “s” cluster or after the release of a voiced stop

Question 22

What is voice onset time?

Answer 22

The time from the release of the stop closure to the onset of voicing

Question 23

What is prevoicing?

Answer 23

When voicing begins just before the release of the plosive (VOT is negative, ranging from -75 to -25 ms)

Question 24

What are positive VOTs?

Answer 24

Positive VOTs can be short lag or long las
- Short-lag VOTs range from 0 (no lag at all) to +25 ms after oral release
- Long-lag VOTs range from 40-100 ms

Question 25

What are the four secondary cues that supplement VOT (helping identify whether the VOT signifies a voiced or voiceless phoneme)?

Answer 25

The duration of the closure (generally longer for voiceless stops) The presence of aspiration (voiced stops are unaspirated) The fundamental frequency (it tends to go downward in anticipation of the closure for both a voiceless and voiced stop; after the release burst of the voiceless stop, voicing resumes at an elevated fundamental frequency for a moment before settling down into a stable f0 for the steady-state portion of the vowel; for the voiced plosive, the fundamental frequency for the subsequent vowel is relatively flat, whether voicing continued without interruption or with a small interruption during the closed portion of the plosive) Vowels preceding voiced stops tend to be longer than those preceding voiceless stops, likely due to anticipatory coarticulation; the anticipation of cessation of vocal fold vibration for the voiceless stop likely shortens the duration of the voicing for the preceding vowel

Question 26

How does the VOT of voiceless stops change with f0?

Answer 26

VOT of voiceless stops decreased as f0 increased

Question 27

How does phonemic context affect VOT?

Answer 27

VOTs have been found to be longer before sonorant consonants than before vowels, and found to generally be longer before high vowels than before low vowels

Question 28

What is a locus?

Answer 28

The frequencies at which the formants originate are called the locus for that place of articulation

Question 29

How does the movement of F1 change with constriction?

Answer 29

F1 ascends when the vocal tract moves from a posture of occlusion to one of openness, and F1 descends as the constriction is formed

Question 30

What are the relevant perceptual markers for place of articulation?

Answer 30

The onsets and offsets of F2 and F3

Question 31

Constriction at the lips...

Answer 31

Lowers all formants

Question 32

If a constriction at the lips lowers all formants, how does the release of bilabial stops affect them?

Answer 32

The release of the bilabial stops, therefore, means that the following vowel will begin with narrowed lips, and so F2 and F3 begin the vowel at lower frequencies, which then move upward very quickly as the lip opening is widened

Question 33

How is the glottal stop achieved?

Answer 33

By rapid cessation of voicing through closure of the vocal folds

Question 34

When does the venturi effect occur?

Answer 34

When a narrow constriction is produced for the fricatives and results in frication noise - Voiceless fricatives: frication noise is the only sound source - Voiced fricatives: have a phonatory source and the supraglottal frication noise

Question 35

What does frication noise look like for labiodental and linguadental fricatives?

Answer 35

Constriction is broad and realtively open compared to that of other fricatives, therefore, frication noise has a broad spectrum but a low energy level

Question 36

What does frication noise look like for alveolar and palatal fricatives?

Answer 36

Energy in the higher frequencies because the anterior resonating cavity downstream from the constriction emphasizes the higher frequencies in the frication noise

Question 37

What does frication noise look like for the glottal fricative /h/?

Answer 37

Little energy is produced, and the sound source is produced so far upstream that the /h/ takes on the spectral characteristics of the vowel following it

Question 38

How do contextual variables influence vowel length?

Answer 38

Vowels are generally of longer duration before voiced stops and fricative than before their voiceless cognates

Question 39

What are the approximants?

Answer 39

Liquids and glides

Question 40

For glides in the CV context, how are F1 and F2 moving?

Answer 40

F1 rises (becuase of the release of lip rounding) F2 moves up for /w/, but down for /j/

Question 41

For glides in the VC context, how are F1 and F2 moving?

Answer 41

F1 moves down F2 moves down for /w/, and up for/j/

Question 42

What are the two acoustic differences that differentiate a glide from a diphthong?

Answer 42

Glides are produced with greater vocal tract constriction than the vowels The formant transition from vowel to glide is gaster than in that of the diphthong

Question 43

What does a constriction in the alveolar area cause?

Answer 43

It causes the frequencies of F2 and F3 to increase

Question 44

What are the acoustic evidence features of the /r/ phoneme?

Answer 44

Has a low F3, but F1 and F2 are like those of /l/ Has a velar pinch between F2 and F3

Question 45

What is the difference between a dark and light /r/?

Answer 45

Dark rhotic: CV context - Comes from a more posterior articulatory position of the tonuge - Tongue retracts and the back of the tongue is high - F3 is very low and anticipatory coarticulation does not generally occur Light rhotic: VC context - Arises from greater tongue advancement - Tongue advances and is raised in the palatal region - Preceded by a vowel, and strongly influences the preceding vowel (the vowel becomes r-colored) F3 is not as low

Question 46

What are antiformants/zeros?

Answer 46

The opposite of formants; they do not allow the harmonic energy to be passed well (they dampen energy) They arise from divisions of airflow in the vocal tract, which act to capture or trap the energy rather than allow it to pass

Question 47

What's the difference between a dark and a light /l/?

Answer 47

Dark /l/: VC context - Both F1 and F2 are low, but more energy in F3 because of the more open articulatory posture - No discontinuity Light /l/: CV context - Low F1 and F2 - Some small discontinuity

Question 48

How are nasals produced?

Answer 48

By occluding the oral cavity, opening the velopharyngeal port, and directing continuous airflow out through the nasal cavity

Question 49

What is the acoustic evidence for a nasal?

Answer 49

Low F1 (called a nasal murmur) - F1 associated with the resonance of the nasal cavity coupled to the pharyngeal cavity - F2 and F3 vary among the three nasal consonants, but generally a large range of frequencies above F1 contain no formant Low energy level throughout production Voiced, but only faint formant bands (because of the lower energy level) - They lose energy from damping of the thick tissues and narrow nasal passages

Question 50

What is nasalization?

Answer 50

The addition of nasal resonance to the vocal tract transfer function (which occurs because of coarticulation)

Question 51

What does nasalization add to the vocal tract transfer functions?

Answer 51

Antiresonances - Reduces the energy of any harmonics that are near the same frequency as the antiresonance - In the spectrogram, the location of antiresonances often is reflected in a decrease or lack of visible harmonic energy

Question 52

What is the acoustic evidence for nasalization?

Answer 52

- F1 is moved to a slightly higher frequency but with lesser amplitude due to the low-frequency antiresonance - Higher-frequency antiresonances cause dampening of F2 and F3, lowering their energy - So all of the spectral peaks of the formants have a lower amplitude

Question 53

What is an affricate?

Answer 53

A stop followed immediately by a homorganic fricative The affricate must consist of a stop and a fricative both produced in the same place of articulation, and have the same voicing

Question 54

What are some phonatory aerodynamic measures?

Answer 54

- Phonation quotient - Maximum sustained phonation - S/z ratio - Vocal efficiency

Question 55

What are shared consonants?

Answer 55

Those that are similarly produced in both languages

Question 56

What are language-specific consonants?

Answer 56

Those that occur in one language but not another

Question 57

What is intraoral air pressure?

Answer 57

The pressure level in the oral cavity (the greater the constriction, the greater the intraoral pressure)

Question 58

Why do fricatives require a greater breathing effort?

Answer 58

The greater breathing effort required for fricatives results from having to maintain sufficient pressure to drive the airflow through the narrow aperture between the tongue and the palate to generate turbulence for frication noise

Question 59

Are phonemes in final utterance position more likely to have greater or lesser intraoral pressure?

Answer 59

Phonemes in final-utterance position tend to be produced with less intraoral pressure than their initial position, likely due to a “fall off” at the end of an utterance

Question 60

Do children or adults generally use higher intraoral pressures?

Answer 60

Generally, children use higher intraoral pressures than adults (this may be because children speak louder than adults)

Question 61

What are the three ways that hypernasality can decrease overall intelligibility?

Answer 61

The radiated acoustic signal has less energy (nasal antiformants dampen the acoustic radiated energy) - less intensity (harder to hear) Sometimes the emission of excessive airflow through the nose results in turbulence, which can be heard as excessive noise, which interferes with the acoustic information necessary for speech comprehension The escape of air through the open velopharyngeal port into the nasal cavity results in decreased intraoral pressure

Question 62

What is nasalance?

Answer 62

A ratio of the nasal energy to the overall combined nasal and oral energy as measured from the acoustic pressure waveform (which correlates with perceived nasality)