Proefschrift (Ph. D.)--Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, 1983. / Vita. Text in English; foreword, summary and vita in Dutch. Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-153).

This thesis investigated the realization of the English voiceless post-alveolar affricate and the voiceless post-alveolar fricative in native Panamanian speakers learning English as a second language. The Spanish of Panama has a typical deaffrication process where the post-alveolar affricate phoneme is mostly pronounced as a fricative; as a result, the Spanish affricate has two allophones, the voiceless post-alveolar affricate and the voiceless post-alveolar fricative that occur in free variation in the Spanish of Panama. The word positions tested were word initially and finally only. Thus, the purpose of the study was to determine the dominant sound in the Spanish of Panama, to identify dialectal allophonic transfer from the Spanish of Panama, and to verify the accomplishment of the phonemic split in English through the frequency of usage of the target sounds. Subsequently, in order to exemplify the deaffrication phonological process of Panama, I developed and discussed a Feature Geometry of the Spanish language along with the Underspecified consonants of the Spanish language. In addition, I tested three main theories about acquisition of contrastive target sounds, Markedness, and similarity and dissimilarity of sounds. The results showed that these Panamanian learners of English produced the English voiceless post-alveolar fricative significantly more target appropriately than the English voiceless post-alveolar affricate. This indicates that the dominant sound in the Spanish of Panama is the dialectal allophone, the voiceless post-alveolar fricative, which I suggest may become the default post-alveolar phoneme in the Spanish of Panama. Subsequently, the high frequency of the voiceless post-alveolar fricative also indicates that the participants transferred their Panamanian Spanish dialectal allophone, the voiceless post-alveolar fricative, into English and more importantly, they have not reached the phonemic split for these two English target sounds. Taking the dialectal allophone, the voiceless post-alveolar fricative, as the default post-alveolar phoneme in the Spanish of Panama, The Markedness Differential Hypothesis (Eckman, 1977) accounts for the observed trends described as follows: the learning of the less marked sound (English voiceless post-alveolar fricative) was easier to acquire and the learning of the more marked sound (English voiceless post-alveolar affricate) was difficult to acquire.

The goal of this dissertation was to investigate experimentally the phonetic qualities of the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian. The term ‘palatalized’ refers to consonants (e.g., [tʲ, dʲ]) which are articulated with a secondary palatal gesture superimposed on the primary gesture associated with their plain counterparts (e.g., [t, d]). An acoustic study investigated the claim (Horálek, 1950; Choi, 1998; Ignateva-Tsoneva, 2008) that the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian have undergone depalatalization, which was defined as the decomposition of a secondary palatal [ ʲ ] gesture into a palatal glide [j]. A cross-language comparison was performed. Russian (e.g., [tʲulʲ], ‘silk net’) and British English (e.g., [tju:lip], ‘tulip’) data served as a baseline against which the Bulgarian data (e.g., [tʲul], ‘silk net’) was evaluated. Subjects’ productions of words were recorded for acoustic analyses. The F1, F2 and F3 frequencies of the critical segments were analyzed with a Smoothing Spline ANOVA (Gu, 2002). The analyses indicated that Bulgarian palatalized consonants were identical to those of the Russian palatalized consonants, but different from the consonant-palatal glide sequences of British English. It was concluded that Bulgarian palatalized consonants have not undergone depalatalization. A perception study employed two variations of the gating task (Grosjean, 1980): audio-only and audio-visual. The results of the audio-only experiment indicated that Bulgarian and Russian listeners needed only the information associated with the palatalization portion of the consonant to identify it as palatalized. Bulgarian subjects did not need the transitions with the following vowel (Tilkov, 1983) to identify a consonant as palatalized. The Russian subjects of Richey’s (2000) experiment did not need the formant transitions either to identify the secondary palatal gesture. These findings provide further evidence that the palatalized consonants of the Standard Bulgarian have not undergone depalatalization. The purpose of the audio-visual experiment was to investigate if Bulgarian and Russian listeners use visual information to identify palatalized consonants. The results from this experiment were not as clear cut as those from the audio-only experiment. Factors such as insufficient visual information at earlier gates, as well as attentional load are being considered as possible confounds. In addition, an improved methodology for an audio-visual perception study is outlined. Experimental evidence from the acoustic and perception studies points to similarities in the phonetic shape of the palatalized consonants of Bulgarian and Russian. However, the phonological distribution of these segments is very different in the respective languages. I argue against a one-to-one mapping between the phonetic and phonological representations of the Bulgarian palatalized consonants. Based on distributional evidence, I propose that at the level of phonology they consist of a sequence of /CjV/.

This dissertation investigates articulatory characteristics of English /I/ in child speech. The study is primarily based on experimental data collected using ultrasound imaging techniques from eight English children ages 3;11 to 5;9. Replicating previous articulatory studies of syllable-based allophones of /I/ in adult speech production, the articulatory components of III in child speech production are analyzed for the static information and relative timing between tongue movements. Secondarily, the acoustic analysis of this data and its perception judgments by adults are presented.' One of the major findings of this study is that children at these ages produce /I/ using different spatial and temporal coordination than adult speech production, although some children produce /I/ more similar to adult /I/ in terms of articulatory organization. Further, the findings are addressed in relation to speech motor development, and hypotheses are tested to see which motor developmental process(es) (differentiation, integration, refinement) can describe the acquisition of /I/. The ultrasound results of the tongue movements in children's /I/ indicate that all general motor developmental processes are active in these children, and the spatial and temporal coordination of the articulatory gestures of /I/ is rather simplified or modified, and needs to be further refined. I argue that the tendency toward late acquisition of /I/ is due directly to the articulatory complexity of its spatial and temporal characteristics. This work contributes much-needeid empirical data of the articulatory characteristics of /I/ to both language acquisition and speech sciences and constitutes a novel application of ultrasound imaging to child speech research. Organization of this dissertation is as follows. Subsequent to the overall introduction of the study in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 presents the empirical background and hypotheses for the study. It reviews speech and developmental studies in production and perception conducted by other researchers, and proposes empirical questions. Chapter 3 provides the methodology for the study. It introduces ultrasound techniques and experiment design and procedure. Chapter 4 presents the results of the spatial characteristics of the children's /I/ in terms of number of gestures, tongue shape, constriction location, and allophonic variation with respect to different syllable positions. Chapter 5 discusses the results of the temporal characteristics of the children's /I/ gestures. Inter-gestural timing of allophones of /I/ is examined to determine whether timing distinguishes positional allophones in these children's speech. Chapter 6 provides post-experiment perception judgments made by adults, and acoustic analysis of samples of tokens used in the current study. Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the results and discusses the implications of the dissertation. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

Orientador: Lourenço [UNESP} Chacon / Resumo: A fim de responder de que maneira a aquisição da ortografia de consoantes nasais e líquidas sofreria influências de aspectos fonológicos da língua – especificamente da estrutura silábica – e da seriação escolar, propusemos dois objetivos: (1) verificar em que medida a acurácia ortográfica de consoantes soantes é dependente das posições que essas consoantes podem preencher na estrutura da sílaba e/ou do ano escolar; e (2) verificar em que medida os tipos de erros são dependentes dessas variáveis – posição silábica e ano escolar. Duas hipóteses nortearam o desenvolvimento desta investigação: (a) a de que a acurácia ortográfica seria influenciada pela posição silábica em que a consoante soante pode ser registrada e também pela seriação escolar; e (b) a de que os tipos de erros cometidos seriam também influenciados pela posição silábica e seriação escolar. Nossas hipóteses foram embasadas na organização hierárquica da sílaba (SELKIRK, 1982), bem como em parâmetros educacionais que regem a dinâmica do ciclo I do Ensino Fundamental. Para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, analisamos produções textuais de crianças, com idades entre seis e oito anos, matriculadas em turmas do Ciclo I do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola pública. Essas produções consistem em recontagens de quatro narrativas. Na análise dos dados, consideramos a relação entre: (a) acurácia ortográfica com posições estruturais da sílaba, ano escolar e posição de coda na palavra; e (b) omissões e substituições com posições... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In order to answer how the orthography acquisition of nasal and liquid consonants would be influenced by phonological aspects of language – specifically syllable structure – and school grade, we proposed two objectives: (1) to verify how the orthography accuracy of sonorant depends on the positions these consonants may fill in the syllable structure and/or the school year; (2) to verify how these kinds of errors depend on these variables – syllable position and school year. Our hypotheses were based on the syllable hierarchical organization (SELKIRK, 1982), as well as on educational parameters that govern the dynamics of cycle I of elementary school. For the development of this research, we have analyzed text compositions by six- to eight-year children enrolled in elementary school classes of a public school. These compositions consist of rewriting of four narratives. In the data analysis phase, we have considered the relationship between: (a) orthographic accuracy with structural positions of the syllable, school year and coda position in the word; and (b) omissions and replacement with structural positions of syllable, school year and coda position in the word. We have performed analyses for nasal consonant class and liquid consonant class independently. As a result we found: (a) for nasal consonants: success percentage higher than error percentage in all the syllable positions; effect of syllable position in orthographic accuracy, except for type of error; effect of school... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

The schools of California are becoming increasingly aware of their responsibility in the assimilation of minority groups into participation in the full life of the community. Varied studies are underway to determine effective methods of meeting the needs of these groups of differing cultural, racial, language, and economic backgrounds. One of these areas of need is that that of speech, with which this study is concerned.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether children with autism recognize the same perceptual voicing boundaries of stop consonants as normally developing children of the same age group. This was explored using three groups of participants: ten children with autism between the ages of 8-14, five typically developing children between the ages of 8-14, and five typically developing seven-year-old children. Children in all groups listened to initial stop consonant syllables with voicing contrasts, with voiced and voiceless cognates presented. The initial consonants were altered along a voice onset time continuum within the typically perceived boundaries of each consonant. Participants were instructed to select the box containing the letter of the initial consonant they perceive when they hear each syllable. Results revealed greater difference between the responses of the children with autism when compared with the older control group, than when compared with the younger children. The responses of the children with autism were more similar to those of the children in the second control group. This could be indicative of a delay in the children with autism of perception of the categorical boundaries along the dimension of voice onset time compared to typical children's perception of these consonants.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:23:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Teresa Rosangela Lofredo Bonatto.pdf: 2333969 bytes, checksum: 5ca789ba06460e596a8e60420ff59a97 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-09-13 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Plosive sounds are produced early in childhood, yet it is not uncommon cases in speech therapy clinics of children who have difficulty pronouncing them, particularly as regards the distinction between voiced and voiceless plosives. Existing literature in Phonetics states that the production of plosives involves the constriction of the vocal folds which can in turn increase the degree of supra-laryngeal obstruction in par with that of sublaryngeal obstruction and, as a result, make voicing difficult. In order to produce voiced obstruent sounds similarly to adults, the child has to learn to synchronize glottal and oral gestures. Procedures for the acoustic investigation of such plosives abound in the literature, among which we can mention Voice Onset Time (VOT), the total duration of the plosive segment and the duration of the vowel sound which either precedes or follows it. The aim of the present study is to characterize, by means of acoustic phonetics investigation, the production of plosive consonants in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), in the speech of three and twelve year-old children. In order to undertake such investigation, we used a corpus comprised of six plosives of BP, extracted from the production of two-syllable words inserted in carrier phrase. The children were selected after detailed analysis and the acoustic sign inspection was carried out in the sound wave shape using the broadband spectrogram. Extractions were made of VOT as well as of each of the vowel and consonant segments from the /a/ sound of diga , besides the key-words, of the word baixinho and the full sentence, starting from the first vowel (ex: D/i/g/a/p/a/p/a/baixinho ). The corpus composed of 3-year-old children was used in the perceptive study with the participation of 120 judges. The results showed that the judges identified the plosives /b/, /d/ e /g/ as voiced when accompanied by at least 53% of sound spectra. As regards /p/, /t/ e /k/, plosives, the appearance of breathy vowel caused these consonants to identified as voiced, while aspiration had no effect whatsoever in the perception of judges in the case of voiceless plosives. As to production results, variability in the mean scores and high standard deviation for voiceless, tonic and post-tonic plosives were observed by and large in all the age brackets. Overall, VOT proved to be a satisfactory parameter for voicing differentiation in infant talk, observed in the speech of children over 3 years of age. However, VOT measures were not consistent enough to differentiate plosives, bilabials and alveolar sounds. This study adopted theoretical notions as proposed by Source - Filter Theory (Fant, 1960), Articulatory Phonology (FAR - Browman and Goldstein, 1986; 1990. 1992) and Articulatory Acoustic (FAAR - Albano, 2001), Direct Realism Theory (Fowler, 1986), and the theory of the phonological system acquisition termed by Albano (1990) as O Toque de Ouvido . Based on this theoretical background, we can affirm that voicing contrast was present in the speech of all the children. We can also affirm that in the production of 3-year-olds there have been greater latency between the coordination of glottal and articulatory gestures, which was observed by the great availability in the productions in the measures of VOT. Velar sounds showed less variability. It was inferred , based on the analysis of spectrographic characteristics along with theoretical foundations of gestural phonology (FAR and FAAR), that small children have difficulty interrupting a gesture and starting another one, probably due to difficulties arisen from overlapping gestures , which are better articulated the older one gets / Os sons obstruintes plosivos são produzidos logo cedo pelas crianças, mas apesar disso é comum encontrarmos na clínica fonoaudiológica aquelas que apresentam dificuldades para pronunciá-los, principalmente em relação a estabelecer a distinção entre os vozeados e os não-vozeados. Para a produção dos sons vozeados a literatura fonética explica que o grau de constrição das pregas vocais pode aumentar o nível de obstrução supra-laríngea igualando-o ao da sub-larínge e como conseqüência dificultar o vozeamento. Para produzir os sons obstruintes vozeados semelhantes aos do adulto, a criança tem que aprender a sincronizar o gesto glotal e oral. Para a investigação acústica da produção dessas plosivas a literatura aponta várias medidas, dentre elas o Voice Onset Time (VOT), a duração total do segmento correspondente à plosiva e a duração da vogal que a precede ou a sucede. O objetivo do presente estudo é caracterizar, por meio de uma investigação fonéticoacústica, a produção das consoantes plosivas no Português Brasileiro (PB), na fala de crianças de 3 a 12 anos. Para realizar tal investigação, utilizamos um corpus contendo as seis plosivas do PB, a partir da produção de palavras dissílabas, inseridas em frases-veículo. As crianças foram selecionadas após análise criteriosa e a inspeção do sinal acústico foi realizada na forma de onda e no espectrograma de banda larga. Foram realizadas a extração do VOT e de cada um dos segmentos vocálicos e consonantais a partir do /a/ de diga , além das palavras-chave, da palavra baixinho e da frase completa, começando com a primeira vogal (Ex: D/i/g/a/p/a/p/a/baixinho ). O corpus das crianças de 3 anos foi utilizado para a realização do estudo perceptivo com a participação 120 juizes. Quanto aos resultados obtidos, os juízes identificaram as plosivas /b/, /d/ e /g/ como vozeadas quando apresentavam, pelo menos, 53% de barra de sonoridade. No caso das plosivas /p/, /t/ e /k/, a presença da breathy vowel favoreceu a identificação dessas consoantes como vozeadas e a presença da aspiração não interferiu no julgamento dos juizes para as plosivas não-vozeadas. Quanto aos resultados da produção, pudemos observar para as plosivas não-vozeadas, tônicas e pós-tônicas, variabilidade nos valores das médias e desvios-padrão elevados para todas as faixas etárias. De forma geral, verificamos que o VOT foi um parâmetro satisfatório para a diferenciação do vozeamento na fala infantil, e esta foi encontrada a partir dos 3 anos. O VOT não foi específico para diferenciar entre o ponto articulatório das plosivas bilabiais e alveolares. Os pressupostos teóricos que adotamos, como a Teoria da Fonte e do Filtro (Fant, 1960), a Fonologia Articulatória (FAR - Browman e Goldstein, 1986; 1990; 1992) e a Acústica Articulatória (FAAR - Albano, 2001), a Teoria do Realismo Direto (Fowler, 1986) e a proposta de aquisição do sistema fonológico que Albano (1990) denominou O Toque de Ouvido , nos permitem afirmar que o contraste de vozeamento esteve presente na produção de fala de todas as crianças. Podemos afirmar, também, que principalmente na produção das crianças de 3 anos, ocorreu maior latência entre a coordenação dos gestos glotal e articulatório, que foi observada pela grande variabilidade em suas produções em termos de VOT, sendo que as velares revelaram menor variabilidade. Inferimos com base na análise das características espectrográficas e com apoio nos fundamentos teóricos da fonologia gestual (FAR e FAAR) que as crianças pequenas têm dificuldades em interromper um gesto e iniciar outro, provavelmente em função de dificuldades em relação à sobreposição de gestos e com o aumento da idade essa sobreposição passa a ser melhor realizada

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No. of bitstreams: 1 gementi-spolzino_mm_dr_arafcl.pdf: 5416214 bytes, checksum: 273f75657bf3062be915f3a4ce4fd7a3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-13 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo da presente tese é estudar as fricativas (sibilantes e chiantes) nas cantigas trovadorescas, a partir das relações existentes entre letras e sons e as possíveis grafias nas cantigas religiosas e profanas. O corpus é composto por 50 Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM), das 420 cantigas marianas em louvor à Virgem Maria, compiladas em galego-português por Afonso X, e por 150 cantigas profanas, sendo 50 cantigas de amigo, 50 cantigas de amor e 50 cantigas de escárnio e maldizer. A metodologia utilizada baseia-se na análise das rimas e das variações gráficas presentes nas cantigas trovadorescas, o que nos possibilitou um estudo inédito sobre a realização fônica das fricativas (sibilantes e chiantes) de uma época da língua em que não há mais falantes vivos. Além disso, fez parte dos procedimentos metodológicos de nossa pesquisa a consulta a glossários, rimários e dicionários do português medieval, material que nos auxiliou no mapeamento das rimas nas cantigas medievais. A análise do sistema consonantal do Português Arcaico (PA), para estabelecer se havia ou não oposição entre os sons representados pelos grafemas focalizados, foi embasada no modelo estruturalista de Pike (1971 [1947]) e em obras que retomam o modelo de Pike, como Cagliari (2002), Souza e Santos (2012), Ferreira Netto (2011), Pickering (2010). Através da análise dos dados, verificamos que as consoantes fricativas na posição de onset silábico nas cantigas religiosas e profanas se comportam de maneira um pouco diferente nos dois corpora. Os segmentos representados pelos grafemas <ss>/<s>, por um lado, e <ç>/<c>/<z>, por outro, estabelecem entre si uma relação de oposição fonológica. Em relação à posição de coda silábica, nas CSM, os dados indicam uma oposição entre as sibilantes vozeadas e desvozeadas em posição de coda, bem como entre as sibilantes e as chiantes, mas os dados analisados nas cantigas profanas indicam que poderia já haver uma neutralização de vozeamento entre as sibilantes e entre estas e a consoante representada por <x>. Como não dispomos da presença do falante nativo para a comprovação da pronúncia da época, nosso estudo mostra, através da análise dos dados, a riqueza informativa da documentação poética, visto que o estudo das rimas e das variações gráficas é de fundamental importância para o estabelecimento das realizações fonéticas e para a depreensão do sistema fonológico vigente (MATTOS E SILVA, 1989, p. 40). Por isso, este estudo é relevante na compreensão da história da língua portuguesa, uma vez que a coleta e a análise dos dados trazem confirmações de suposições levantadas pelos estudiosos sobre as fricativas sibilantes e chiantes no PA e indícios que ajudam a apontar a datação de processos fonológicos como a neutralização das fricativas em coda (MATTOS E SILVA, 2006; MAIA, 1997 [1986]; TEYSSIER, 1987). / The objective of this thesis is to study (sibilant and nonsibilant) fricatives on medieval cantigas as from the existing relation among graphemes and represented sounds and possible spelling in religious and secular songs. The corpus is composed by 50 Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM in Portuguese acronyms), extracted from 420 Marian songs to worship the Virgin Mary, compiled in Galician-Portuguese by Afonso X, and 150 secular songs, composed by 50 cantigas de amigo (= friend songs), 50 cantigas de amor (= love songs) and 50 cantigas de escárnio e maldizer (= satirical songs). The methodology is based on the analysis of rhymes and spelling variations presented on medieval songs, in order to study the phonetic realization of fricatives from a language time with no more living speakers. In addition, our research consultation on glossaries, rhyming dictionaries and dictionaries of medieval Portuguese was part of the methodological procedure. The analysis of the consonantal system of archaic Portuguese (PA in Portuguese acronyms) to establish whether there was or not opposition among sounds represented by the focused graphemes was based on the structuralist model of Pike (1971 [1947]) and on contributions which resume Pike’s model, as Cagliari (2002), Sousa and Santos (2012), Ferreira Netto (2011), Pickering (2010). Through data analysis, we verified that fricative consonants on onset syllabic position present a little different behavior in religious and secular cantigas. Sounds represented by graphemes <ss>/<s>, on the one hand, and <ç>/<c>/<z>, on the other hand, establish a relation of phonetic opposition. Regarding the opposing syllabic coda, data provided by the CSM indicate an opposition among voiced and voiceless sibilant consonants, between sibilant and nonsibilant as well, but data analyzed on secular songs indicate that there could be already a voicing neutralization among sibilants themselves and among them and consonants represented by <x>. Because we do not have the presence of a native speaker for proving the exact pronunciation from that time, our study shows, through data analysis, the informative richness of poetic documentation, since the study of rhyme and graphic variations is fundamental to establishing phonetic variations and to the apprehension of the current phonetic system (MATTOS E SILVA, 1989, p. 40). For that reason, this study is relevant for the comprehension of the Portuguese language history, since the collection and the analysis of data confirm the assumptions raised by scholars about sibilant and nonsibilant fricatives on PA and the evidence provided by the data helps dating of phonetic processes such as neutralization of fricatives on syllabic coda (MATTOS E SILVA, 2006; MAIA, 1997 [1986]; TEYSSIER, 1987)

Present diploma thesis deals with perceptively noticeable deviations in realization of consonants in Czech of Vietnamese native speakers. The aim of the thesis is identification, characterization, categorization and quantification of the deviations from common Czech pronunciation according to specific ways of realization. In the theoretical part the consonant systems of both the languages and their syllabic structures are compared contrastively. The following chapter is dedicated to a short analysis of the pronunciation exercises and their didactic contribution in the most frequently used textbooks of Czech as a foreign language. Moreover, a textbook designated for Vietnamese speakers and an English textbook were analyzed for a better comparison. The research itself is based on an analysis of 16 records of Vietnamese native speakers by a method of careful listening in Praat program. The results have shown that the most frequent deviations in the speech of Vietnamese speakers were caused by interference from their mother tongue, especially because of the different consonant systems of Czech and Vietnamese and their different phonotactic rules. Keywords: Czech as a foreign language, Vietnamese, pronunciation, consonants, phonetics, didactics