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Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-02-24Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:33:24Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_af_me_arafcl.pdf: 940072 bytes, checksum: 3baa98e628ee79a59290c8f585f1d473 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo desta dissertação de mestrado é descrever do ponto de vista acústico as fricativas labiodentais, alveolares e palatoalveolares surdas e sonoras do Português Brasileiro em posição de onset e coda silábica. Para este estudo, foi montado um corpus composto por palavras dissílabas (reais e logatomas - palavras que não existem, mas que estão de acordo com a fonotaxe da língua). As palavras do corpus possuíam as seguintes estruturas silábicas: CV.CV; CVC.CV; CV.CVC. Assim, a posição de onset foi ocupada pelas fricativas labiodentais, alveolares e palatoalveolares e pela oclusiva bilabial surda. A posição de coda silábica foi ocupada sempre pelas fricativas alveolares. O núcleo silábico, por sua vez, foi ocupado pelas vogais /a/, /i/ e /u/ com o objetivo de verificar se o contexto vocálico interfere nas características das fricativas. As palavras do corpus foram inseridas na frase veículo “Digo palavra-alvo baixinho”, com o objetivo de homogeneizar o ambiente fonético. O corpus deste estudo foi gravado por cinco informantes (três homens e duas mulheres) naturais de Vitória da Conquista – BA, universitários com idade entre 18 e 27 anos. Cada informante repetiu as frases três vezes. Os parâmetros acústicos adotados para caracterizar as fricativas foram a duração segmental e a frequência do espectro. Como se sabe, a duração segmental pode variar de acordo com vários fatores, por isso, optamos por analisar a duração relativa das fricativas, e não a duração absoluta. Para a análise da taxa de frequência em que são realizadas as fricativas, utilizamos a análise dos quatro momentos espectrais (FORREST ET AL., 1988). Nossos resultados evidenciam que a duração relativa foi eficaz para distinguir as fricativas com relação ao ponto de articulação, à sonoridade, ao contexto vocálico e à posição silábica. No que refere-se à frequência... / The purpose of this master’s degree thesis is to describe from the acoustic point of view the labiodental, alveolar and postalveolar fricatives, voiced and voiceless, of Brazilian Portuguese in onset and coda position in syllables. For this study , a corpus was organized, composed by two-syllable words (real and logatome - words that do not exist, but they are in accordance with the language phonotactics). The words of the corpus had the following syllable structures: CV.CV; CVC.CV; CV.CV. Thus, the onset position was occupied by labiodental, alveolar and postalveolar fricatives and voiceless bilabial plosive. The coda position was always occupied by alveolar fricatives. The syllable nucleus, in turn, was occupied by the vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ in order to check if the vowel context affects the characteristics of fricatives. The words from the corpus were inserted in the support sentence I say target word softly, in order to homogenize the phonetic environment. The corpus of this study was recorded by five participants (three men and two women) from Vitória da Conquista - BA, students aged between 18 and 27 years. Each participant repeated a sentence three times. The acoustic parameters used to define the fricatives were segmental duration and frequency spectrum. As we know, the segmental length can vary depending on several factors. Therefore, we chose to analyze the relative duration of fricatives and not the absolute duration. For the frequency rate analysis in which fricatives are produced, we employed an analysis of four spectral moments (FORREST ET AL., 1988). Our results proved that the relative length was effective to distinguish fricatives in relation to places of articulation, voicing, vowel context and syllable position. As regards the frequency of fricatives, the results show that the values of the first spectral moment were the most effective to distinguish fricatives... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Spectral Moment Analysis has helped further our understanding of the spectral properties of obstruent speech production; however, the physiologic correlates of these spectral measures are not well understood. The aim of the present study was to examine the possible correlations between the linguapalatal contact patterns used to produce the fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/ and the resulting spectral characteristics. Using spectral moment analysis and electropalatography (EPG), the real-word productions of eight speakers of American English were investigated. The spectral measures for the fricative tokens in the present study were found to be similar to data reported in previous research with adult speakers. Although the majority of the correlations examined in this study were found to be statistically significant, none of the correlations accounted for a large proportion of the variance in the data. Generally the strongest correlations were found between the spectral mean and the symmetry of the contact pattern in the anterior region of the hard palate and the width of the contact pattern in the medial region of the palate. These findings may indicate that although the width and symmetry of linguapalatal contact contributes to the spectral signature /s/ and /ʃ/ fricatives, they are likely only part of a much more complex process that may involve other mechanisms such as lip rounding, tongue groove depth and shape, aerodynamic factors, and the shape of the vocal tract in other regions.

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Orientador: Luiz Carlos Cagliari / Coorientador: Vera Pacheco / Banca: Cristina Fargetti / Banca: Larissa Cristina Berti / Resumo: O objetivo desta dissertação de mestrado é descrever do ponto de vista acústico as fricativas labiodentais, alveolares e palatoalveolares surdas e sonoras do Português Brasileiro em posição de onset e coda silábica. Para este estudo, foi montado um corpus composto por palavras dissílabas (reais e logatomas - palavras que não existem, mas que estão de acordo com a fonotaxe da língua). As palavras do corpus possuíam as seguintes estruturas silábicas: CV.CV; CVC.CV; CV.CVC. Assim, a posição de onset foi ocupada pelas fricativas labiodentais, alveolares e palatoalveolares e pela oclusiva bilabial surda. A posição de coda silábica foi ocupada sempre pelas fricativas alveolares. O núcleo silábico, por sua vez, foi ocupado pelas vogais /a/, /i/ e /u/ com o objetivo de verificar se o contexto vocálico interfere nas características das fricativas. As palavras do corpus foram inseridas na frase veículo "Digo palavra-alvo baixinho", com o objetivo de homogeneizar o ambiente fonético. O corpus deste estudo foi gravado por cinco informantes (três homens e duas mulheres) naturais de Vitória da Conquista - BA, universitários com idade entre 18 e 27 anos. Cada informante repetiu as frases três vezes. Os parâmetros acústicos adotados para caracterizar as fricativas foram a duração segmental e a frequência do espectro. Como se sabe, a duração segmental pode variar de acordo com vários fatores, por isso, optamos por analisar a duração relativa das fricativas, e não a duração absoluta. Para a análise da taxa de frequência em que são realizadas as fricativas, utilizamos a análise dos quatro momentos espectrais (FORREST ET AL., 1988). Nossos resultados evidenciam que a duração relativa foi eficaz para distinguir as fricativas com relação ao ponto de articulação, à sonoridade, ao contexto vocálico e à posição silábica. No que refere-se à frequência... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The purpose of this master's degree thesis is to describe from the acoustic point of view the labiodental, alveolar and postalveolar fricatives, voiced and voiceless, of Brazilian Portuguese in onset and coda position in syllables. For this study , a corpus was organized, composed by two-syllable words (real and logatome - words that do not exist, but they are in accordance with the language phonotactics). The words of the corpus had the following syllable structures: CV.CV; CVC.CV; CV.CV. Thus, the onset position was occupied by labiodental, alveolar and postalveolar fricatives and voiceless bilabial plosive. The coda position was always occupied by alveolar fricatives. The syllable nucleus, in turn, was occupied by the vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ in order to check if the vowel context affects the characteristics of fricatives. The words from the corpus were inserted in the support sentence "I say target word softly," in order to homogenize the phonetic environment. The corpus of this study was recorded by five participants (three men and two women) from Vitória da Conquista - BA, students aged between 18 and 27 years. Each participant repeated a sentence three times. The acoustic parameters used to define the fricatives were segmental duration and frequency spectrum. As we know, the segmental length can vary depending on several factors. Therefore, we chose to analyze the relative duration of fricatives and not the absolute duration. For the frequency rate analysis in which fricatives are produced, we employed an analysis of four spectral moments (FORREST ET AL., 1988). Our results proved that the relative length was effective to distinguish fricatives in relation to places of articulation, voicing, vowel context and syllable position. As regards the frequency of fricatives, the results show that the values of the first spectral moment were the most effective to distinguish fricatives... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

The alternation between labial and velar fricatives (e.g. [x]uego fuego ‘fire’) and labial and velar approximants (e.g. a[ɣ]uelo abuelo ‘grandfather’) frequently co-occur in disparate Spanish dialects (Colombia, New Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Chile, among others). I hypothesize that these alternations are triggered by the perceptual similarity between such variants in the context of [u] and [w]. I further hypothesize that the spread of these variables to the upper layers of society is prevented by formal education, since orthography can block sound change. Although the labio-velar alternations have been observed before, there are few experimental studies addressing their acoustic and perceptual motivations. Yet, the only way to understand the mechanisms of sound variation and change is to analyze the physical, acoustic and perceptual characteristics of the sounds involved. This dissertation uniquely combines three methodologies of data elicitation in order to achieve a better understanding of the alternations. Vernacular speech was collected through sociolinguistic interviews. Contextually controlled target words were elicited via a picture naming task. Finally, the hypothesis that the alternations were driven by the perceptual similarity between the sounds was tested via an AX discrimination test. The sociolinguistic data was correlated with the results from the perception experiment to determine whether more variation in speech correlates with higher rates of confusion in perception. The results reveal that Education and Following Context are two of the most powerful factor groups that influence the alternations. The alternation is almost exclusively found before the diphthongs [we, wi], and in stressed syllables. Knowing the orthography plays an important role in blocking the diffusion of this perceptually driven variation. The same factors affecting the variation in sociolinguistics interviews were found to be significant in increasing the confusion between [f] ~ [x] and [β] ~ [ɣ] in the perception experiment. The acoustic analysis (centre of gravity and F2 at vowel onset), however, did not support the hypothesis regarding the similarity of labial and velar fricatives and approximants.

The alternation between labial and velar fricatives (e.g. [x]uego fuego ‘fire’) and labial and velar approximants (e.g. a[ɣ]uelo abuelo ‘grandfather’) frequently co-occur in disparate Spanish dialects (Colombia, New Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Chile, among others). I hypothesize that these alternations are triggered by the perceptual similarity between such variants in the context of [u] and [w]. I further hypothesize that the spread of these variables to the upper layers of society is prevented by formal education, since orthography can block sound change. Although the labio-velar alternations have been observed before, there are few experimental studies addressing their acoustic and perceptual motivations. Yet, the only way to understand the mechanisms of sound variation and change is to analyze the physical, acoustic and perceptual characteristics of the sounds involved. This dissertation uniquely combines three methodologies of data elicitation in order to achieve a better understanding of the alternations. Vernacular speech was collected through sociolinguistic interviews. Contextually controlled target words were elicited via a picture naming task. Finally, the hypothesis that the alternations were driven by the perceptual similarity between the sounds was tested via an AX discrimination test. The sociolinguistic data was correlated with the results from the perception experiment to determine whether more variation in speech correlates with higher rates of confusion in perception. The results reveal that Education and Following Context are two of the most powerful factor groups that influence the alternations. The alternation is almost exclusively found before the diphthongs [we, wi], and in stressed syllables. Knowing the orthography plays an important role in blocking the diffusion of this perceptually driven variation. The same factors affecting the variation in sociolinguistics interviews were found to be significant in increasing the confusion between [f] ~ [x] and [β] ~ [ɣ] in the perception experiment. The acoustic analysis (centre of gravity and F2 at vowel onset), however, did not support the hypothesis regarding the similarity of labial and velar fricatives and approximants.

This study examined Taiwanese ESL learners' perception and production of English interdental fricatives (IFs) with respect to three variables: perception errors, production errors, and three ranges of length of residence (LOR) in the US (LOR < 1 year; LOR= 3-4 years; LOR ; at least 7 years). Through the investigation, several relationships among perception, production errors, and LOR were revealed. In addition, the types and patterns of the pronunciation errors as well as the phonological processes involved in the mispronunciations were investigated. The instrument included both perception and production tasks, as well as a demographic questionnaire. More specifically, the production task contains two syllable positions: word initial and word final; two sources: word list and text. The data were analyzed through auditory and spectrographic devices with an involvement of an inter-rater agreement. The results showed that there was a positive relationship between perception and production errors for each of the three groups. Namely, the more perception errors made by the Taiwanese ESL learners, the more production errors occurred. The correlation increases with each group, i.e., with LOR. The relationship between LOR and perception and production errors were significantly negative as the longer the learners had stayed in the US, the fewer errors in perception and production were made and vice versa. A descriptive analysis revealed that the initial theta and the final eth are the most difficult sounds for the Taiwanese learners to perceive. In addition, both voiceless and voiced IFs were found to be difficult to pronounce in the final position. Regarding the source where the target sounds were located, the results indicated that reading text (rather than a word list) caused more pronunciation errors for most of the learners except the group with LOR at least 7 years, which had a better performance in the production task compared with the other two groups, regardless of which source the target sounds were located. From the overall findings, ESL teachers are encouraged to apply multiple teaching tools and to provide feedback with effective correction techniques to learners in order to adjust and overcome their pronunciation errors.

Previous research has investigated adults' ability to adapt their speech when a electropalatographic (EPG) pseudopalate is placed in the oral cavity; however, less is known about how younger speakers who are continuing to develop their motor speech abilities might adapt their speech to the presence of the device. This study examined the effect of an EPG pseudopalate on elementary school-aged children's ability to produce the fricatives /s/ and /ƒ/. Audio recordings of six children were collected at eight time intervals including before placement of the pseudopalate, at 30-minute increments for two hours with the pseudopalate in place, immediately following removal of the pseudopalate and 30 minutes after removal. An acoustic analysis was completed looking at consonant duration, spectral mean, spectral variance, and relative intensity. Disturbance of speech patterns from the presence of the pseudopalate was noted for most of the acoustic measures, most noticeably for the relative intensity of both /s/ and /ƒ/, as well as for the spectral mean and spectral variance of /ƒ/. Although there was a relatively high amount of variability among and within speakers, signs of adaptation were apparent after only 30 minutes for some participants. For some acoustic measures, however, full adaptation often did not occur until the pseudopalate was removed. Although future research is needed, it is hoped that this study will provide a greater understanding of children's ability to adapt to the EPG pseudopalate.