This paper will discuss voicing characteristics of Czech plosives. In the theoretical part of the paper, vocal cords are described as well as their participation on voicing. Next, a brief history, division, and application of voice synthesisers is discussed. Synthesizers allow the user to manipulate individual characteristics of any speech signal. In the practical part of the paper, HLsyn is used to synthesize individual Czech plosives with various voicing characteristics. Perceived voicing is then evaluated based on preliminary perceptual verification. Keywords: voicing, plosives, synthesis, HLsyn, perception test

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a aquisição do processo fonológico de vozeamento em português brasileiro. Para isso, foram analisados tanto dados naturalísticos de uma criança acompanhada longitudinalmente de 1;4 anos até 4;0 anos, quanto dados experimentais/latitudinais de 46 crianças de 2;0 anos até 4;1 anos. Foi investigada a aquisição de /s,z/ na posição de onset (estudo naturalístico) e também a aquisição de [s,z] nas posições de coda medial e final em ambos os estudos. Verificamos que o período de aquisição dos segmentos na coda foram tardios, se comparados com os períodos encontrados na literatura (Mezzomo, 2003). Por isso, analisamos, também, a aquisição desses segmentos de acordo com o contexto seguinte: pausa, surdo e sonoro. Observamos que o contexto sonoro foi o mais difícil para as crianças, já que a aquisição ocorreu por volta de 4;0 anos. Além disso, analisamos as estratégias utilizadas pelas crianças durante o processo de aquisição e encontramos um padrão relacionado à produção inicial do segmento [s] mesmo em contextos em que a produção deveria ser sonora. Foi feita uma comparação dos resultados obtidos no contexto sonoro dos dois estudos (naturalístico e experimental) com o trabalho de Newton & Wells (2002) que analisa os processos de assimilação, elisão e liaision e constatamos, a partir da análise das ocorrências de vozeamento correto, pausa e outras realizações que o processo de vozeamento não surge assim que a criança começa a produzir sentenças com duas palavras e não está adquirido até os 4;0 anos (última faixa etária analisada). A partir desses resultados, concluímos que o processo de vozeamento é uma regra fonológica a ser adquirida e não um fenômeno apenas fonético (como mostraram os autores). Dado que o processo de vozeamento é uma regra fonológica, concluímos que a análise lingüística, feita a respeito do processo de vozeamento na fala do adulto, está correta ao assumir que a forma subjacente para a regra de vozeamento é o [s], pois também nos dados infantis percebemos uma tendência das crianças em produzir fricativas surdas e evitar a produção de fricativas sonoras. / This research aimed at analyzing the acquisition of the phonological process of voicing in Brazilian Portuguese. To do so, naturalistic data, longitudinally collected from a child since she was 1;4 until she became 4;0, as well as experimental data, latitudinally collected from 46 children from the age 2;0 to the age 4;1, were analyzed. In addition, the acquisition of /s z/ in onset position and in medial and final coda position were investigated in both studies. We observed that the period of segment acquisition was later in comparison to the ones mentioned in the literature ( Mezzomo, 2003). Therefore we also analyzed the acquisition of /s z/, taking into account the following context, that is to say, what there is after them: a pause, a voiceless or a voiced segment. We noticed that the most difficult context for children was the one that contained a voiced segment, since the acquisition of /z/ in coda position occurred only at the age of 4;0. Besides, we analyzed the strategies used by children during the acquisition period of the voicing process and, as a result, we found a pattern in relation to the initial productions: children start producing [s] even when [z] is expected to be produced. We also compared the results that we obtained through the investigation of voiced contexts in both the naturalistic and the experimental studies to Newton and Wells (2002)\'s work, in which the processes of assimilation, elision and liaision are analyzed. Differently from their results, our research showed that the voicing process does not occur as soon as children start producing sentences with two words, since it is not still acquired until the age of 4;0 (the last period analyzed). Based on these results, we concluded that the voicing process is a phonological rule that must be learnt by children and, consequently, it is not a mere phonetic phenomenon, as pointed by the authors. Also based on our results, we concluded that the linguistic analysis done for the adult speech is right when it assumes that [s] the underlying form to which the voicing rule is applied, since we noticed a tendency for children to produce the voiceless fricative [s] and avoid its voiced counterpart [z].

Madurese, a Western Malayo-Polynesian language spoken on the Indonesian island of Madura, exhibits a three-way laryngeal contrast distinguishing between voiced, voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops and an unusual consonant-vowel (CV) co-occurrence restriction. The CV co-occurrence restriction is of phonological interest given the patterning of voiceless aspirated stops with voiced stops rather than with voiceless unaspirated stops, raising the question of what phonological feature they may share. Two features have been linked with the CV co-occurrence restriction: Advanced Tongue Root [ATR] and Lowered Larynx [LL]. However, as no evidence of voicing during closure for aspirated stops is observed and no other acoustic measures except voice onset time (VOT), fundamental frequency (F0), frequencies of the first (F1) and the second (F2) formants and closure duration relating to the proposed features have been conducted, it remains an open question which acoustic properties are shared by voiced and aspirated stops. Three main questions are addressed in the thesis. The first question is what acoustic properties voiced and voiceless aspirated stops share to the exclusion of voiceless unaspirated stops. The second question is whether [ATR] or [LL] accounts for the patterning together of voiceless aspirated stops with voiced stops. The third question is what the implications of the results are for a transparent phonetics-phonology mapping that expects phonological features to have phonetic correlates associated with them. In order to answer the questions, we looked into VOT, closure duration, F0, F1, F2 and a number of spectral measures, i.e. H1*-A1*, H1*-A2*, H1*-A3*, H1*-H2*, H2*-H4* and CPP. We recorded fifteen speakers of Madurese (8 females, 7 males) reading 188 disyllabic Madurese words embedded in a sentence frame. The results show that the three-way voicing categories in Madurese have different VOT values. The difference in VOT is robust between voiced stops on the one hand and voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops on the other. Albeit statistically significant, the difference in VOT values between voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops is relatively small. With regard to closure duration, we found that there is a difference between voiced stops on the one hand and voiceless unaspirated and aspirated stops on the other. We also found that female speakers distinguish F0 for the three categories while male speakers distinguish between F0 for voiced stops on the one hand and voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops on the other. The results for spectral measures show that there are no significant differences in H1*-A1*, H1*-A3*, H1*-H2*, H2*-H4* and CPP between vowels adjacent to voiced and voiceless aspirated stops. In contrast, there are significant differences in these measures between vowels adjacent to voiced and voiceless unaspirated stops and between vowels adjacent to voiceless aspirated and voiceless unaspirated stops. Regarding the question whether voiced and voiceless aspirated stops share certain acoustic properties, our findings show that they do. The acoustic properties they share are H1*-A1* for both genders, H1*-H2* for females, H1*-A3* and H2*-H4* for males, and CPP for females at vowel onset and for males at vowel midpoint. However, they do not share such acoustic properties as VOT, closure duration and F0. Voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated stops can be distinguished by VOT, F0 and spectral measures, i.e. H1*-A1*, H1*-A3*, H1*-H2*, H2*-H4* and CPP. However, these two voiceless stop categories have similar closure durations. As regards the question if [+ATR] or [+LL] might be responsible for the patterning together of voiceless aspirated stops with voiced stops, our findings suggest that either feature appears to be plausible. Acoustic evidence that lends support to the feature [+ATR] includes lower F1 and greater spectral tilt measures, i.e. H1*-A1*, H1*-A3*, H1*-H2* and H2*-H4*, and lower CPP values. Acoustic evidence that supports the feature [+LL] includes lower F1 and greater spectral tilt measures, i.e. H1*-A1*, H1*-A3*, H1*-H2* and H2*-H4*, and lower CPP values. However, the fact that voiceless aspirated stops are voiceless during closure raises a problem for the feature [+ATR] and the fact that F0 for voiceless aspirated stops is higher than for voiced stops also presents a problem for the feature [+LL]. The fact that not all acoustic measures fit in well with either feature is problematic to the idea that the relationship between phonetics and phonology is transparent in the sense that phonological features can be directly transformed into their phonetic correlates. Following the view that not all phonological features may not be expected to be phonetically grounded, for example, when they are related to historical sound change, we hold the idea of a phonetics-phonology mapping which allows for other non-phonetic factors to account for a phonological phenomenon. We also provide historical and loanword evidence which could support that voiceless aspirated stops in Madurese may have derived from earlier voiced stops, which probably retain their historical laryngeal contrast through phonologisation.

No description available.

No description available.

Alteration in the tension or stiffness of the vocal folds, mediated by the cricothyroid (CT) muscle activation, is one of the laryngeal strategies attributed to devoicing during speech production. While some studies have reported a consistent increase in CT activity associated with voiceless sounds in comparison to their voiced cognates during speech (Kagaya & Hirose, 1975; Dixit & MacNeilage,1981; Lofqvist, McGarr & Honda, 1984; Löfqvist et al., 1989; Hoole et al., 2004), other studies have suggested that closer relation of CT activity to supra-segmental characteristics of the utterance rather than voicing contrasts (Hirose & Gay, 1972; Hirose and Ushijima,1978; Collier, Lisker, Hirose & Ushijima, 1979). The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that during intervocalic syllable production, CT muscle activity was consistently higher for voiceless sounds than their voiced cognates, to assist in vowel devoicing, when pitch, intensity, stress and aspiration were kept controlled. Simultaneous recordings of thyroarytenoid and cricothyroid muscle activity, video-nasendoscopy, and audio signals were obtained from eight, gender-matched adult speakers during intervocalic (VCV) syllable production. The speech sounds represented contrasts in manner of production including, plosives, affricates and fricatives with their voiced-voiceless and aspirated-unaspirated cognates Two voicing transition events were identified and marked on the EMG signals: Vowel-Consonant Transition (VC) and Consonant-Vowel Transition (CV).The mean amplitude of CT muscle activity during voicing transitions (VC, CV) was calculated over a 60 ms time window preceding the acoustic event. CT muscle activity was normalized to a percent of mean maximum activity and compared between voiced/voiceless and aspirated/unaspirated cognates across different categories of speech sounds, subjects and, VC and CV transitions. During the VC transition of intervocalic syllable production of voiceless and voiced speech sounds, a consistent increase in CT muscle activation was not observed across all subjects suggesting that CT activity is not essential for devoicing. Four of the eight subjects (M1, M4, F2, F3) showed consistently higher CT activity for voiceless than voiced sounds while, four of the eight subjects (M2, M3, F1, F4) either did not show any increase in CT muscle activity or showed an inconsistent pattern of increase. The magnitude of difference in CT activity between voiceless and voiced sounds ranged from 3-24% with the highest difference for voiceless fricatives, followed by voiceless aspirated stop plosives and voiceless affricates, and with least difference for unaspirated stop plosives. During consonant vowel (CV) transition of intervocalic syllable production seven of the eight subjects showed lower or comparable levels of CT EMG activity for voiceless speech sounds in comparison to their voiced cognates. Results of one-tailed unpaired t-test revealed that four of the eight participants, M1 [t (60.69) = 10.17, p < .001], M4 [t (8.88) = 57.03, p < .001], F2 [t (5.88) = 35.20, p < .001] and F3 [t (8.91) = 51.00, p < .001], showed significantly higher CT activity for the voiceless than voiced sounds during the VC transition of intervocalic syllable production but the results were not significant for subjects M2, M3, F1 and F4. No statistically significant difference was found between aspirated and unaspirated cognates for all the eight subjects on a two-tailed, unpaired t-test. No gender differences were observed in the findings.

In recent years, a great deal of research on second language (L2) acquisition has been concerned with non-target production of L2 learners, addressing issues such as native language (L1) transfer into L2 and the nature and source of developmental errors. Previous studies have mostly focused on the analysis of discrete L2 segments (Flege 1987, 1999; Major & Kim 1996), rather than on L2 phonological patterns. This study, however, examines the production of sequences of sounds in Russian L1 and L2 from both the phonetic and phonological perspectives.This dissertation investigates native and non-native production of real and nonsense words containing obstruent clusters in which a phonological phenomenon known as regressive voicing assimilation is required. In Russian, forms like lodka `boat' are rendered orthographically with a voiced obstruent which is pronounced as a voiceless one when followed by a voiceless obstruent. The results of the experiments reveal several production patterns in L1 and L2 speech as well as gradiency in devoicing which are further analyzed within the stochastic Optimality Theory framework. Categorical production is accounted for by the re-ranking of L1 and L2 constraints; whereas, gradiency in production is viewed as a result of the re-ranking of constraints within phonetically detailed constraint families.

Research on prosodic structure, the underlying structure organising the prosodic grouping of spoken utterances, has shown that it consists of hierarchically organised prosodic constituents. The present thesis explores the nature of this constituency, in particular the question of whether prosodic structure is comprised of a given set of qualitatively distinct domains, or of a set of domains of the same type varying only gradiently in "strength", or a possible mixture of both types of relations across prosodic levels. This question is addressed by testing how prosodic constituency (mirrored on boundary strength manipulations) is signalled acoustically via pre- and post-boundary durations, intonation contours, and two sandhi processes, namely vowel hiatus resolution and post-nasal stop voicing in Modern Greek. Results show that the phonetic signalling of boundary strength provides support for a mixture of both differences of type and strength across prosodic levels, with some levels only differing in terms of their strength. Pre-boundary durations and resolution of vowel hiatus are gradiently affected by boundary strength with shorter to longer durations from lower to higher domains, and less instances of vowel deletion higher in the hierarchy. Post-nasal stop voicing is qualitatively affected by boundary strength with almost all voicing instances occurring in the lowest constituent of the structure in the way a qualitative view of prosodic constituency would predict, and in line with research on prosodic phonology. Finally, both the alignment and scaling of intonation contours at the edges of domains is found to distinguish qualitatively the lowest domain from the higher ones. All higher phrasal domains align with respect to the boundary and their peak scaling varies consistently gradiently across speakers. When combining those two findings, support is provided for the existence of differences of strength and type within the same process. Taken together the results from these four phenomena support the postulation of an underlying prosodic structure with a limited number of qualitatively distinct domains, within which at the same time some type of recursivity or structured variability must be allowed for. It is shown that there are structural properties of speech, like the length of the utterance, influencing the organisation of utterances in a principled gradient manner, supporting the existence of differences of strength within domain types. These findings bear significance for theories of prosodic structure that have assumed either the view of solely qualitative differences, or sole boundary strength differences, as well as for future proposals on prosodic constituency. Finally, the use of Modern Greek in this thesis adds to the existing literature on a language that has been extensively used by researchers working in views supporting the existence of qualitative distinctions of type across prosodic domains, and provides the first in depth experimental analysis of post-nasal stop voicing.

Det undersökta området för denna studie behandlar klassrumsdiskussioner kring ett matematiskt innehåll utförda av elever i två klasser i år 6 som är nivågrupperade. Dessa två grupper består övervägande av lågpresterande respektive övervägande av högpresterande elever. Denna studie är ett undervisningsförsök med syfte att undersöka hur metoden som innefattar medvetna strategier i form av ”talk-moves” fungerar i dessa klassrumsdiskussioner. Skillnader och likheter under nämnda klassrumsdiskussioner jämförs mellan nämnda grupper. Studien är begränsad till att behandla samspelet mellan elevernas prat och tankar under berörda klassrumsdiskussioner. Till största delen består metoden som används för denna studie av videoinspelningar som sedan observerades. Dessa ”talk-moves” innebär att läraren får verktyg att bjuda in samtliga elever att delta i klassrumsdiskussioner.  Läraren kan också använda dessa verktyg till att möjliggöra för eleverna att bygga sin egen kunskap. Detta innebär i sin tur en möjlighet för eleverna att komma förbi utantillinlärning. / The area of subject of this study is classroom discussions in mathematics. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the method called “talk-moves” functions in two ability grouped classes of year six. Each group consists mainly of low-level ability students and high-level ability students. During these clasroom discussions differencies and similarities are compared between these two groups. The limitation of the study consists of the connections between the students´ talk and thoughts. The main part of the method of this study are videorecordings which were later observed. The teacher is able to use “talk-moves”  as tools which are used to invite all students of the class to participate in mentioned classroom discussions. It is also possible for the teacher to use these tools to enable the students to build their own knowledge. This means in turn a possibility for the students to overcome learning by heart.

Notre thèse traite de la rétroflexion et de la corrélation double de voisement et d’aspiration tant du point de vue phonétique que phonologique. En utilisant la palatographie et la linguographie directes, nous avons montré que les coronales simples sont produites majoritairement comme des lamino-dento-alvéolaires, les affriquées comme des lamino-alvéolaires, et enfin que les rétroflexes varient entre le type cacuminal et le type rétroflexe. Les différentes modélisations phonologiques des segments coronaux ont été examinées et confrontées à nos résultats dans une perspective de phonologie de laboratoire. Renvoyant principalement au mouvement vertical de la pointe de langue, nous avons proposé un trait [rétroflexe], en tant que trait de manière rattaché au noeud coronal. L’étude de la corrélation de voisement et d’aspiration a d’abord été menée au niveau acoustique. Le modèle ACT (Mikuteit & Reetz 2007) que nous avons utilisé, nous a permis de décrire acoustiquement les quatre types d’occlusives du népali tant du point qualitatif que quantitatif. Cependant, l’ACT (After Closure Time) n’a pu être utilisé comme paramètre unique pour les distinguer alors qu’il était suffisant en bengali. Nous avons ensuite mené une étude des contraintes cooccurrencielles entre occlusives aspirées, en nous fondant sur l’analyse du dictionnaire népali en ligne de R.L. Turner (1931). Nous avons pu dégager la généralisation suivante : hormis certaines racines contenant les séquences de type /Tʰ…h/ (où Tʰ = n’importe quelle occlusive aspirée et sourde), les occlusives aspirées sont absentes des affixes et les combinaisons de racines et d’affixes contiennent au maximum une aspirée. / Our thesis deals with the retroflexion and the voicing and aspiration contrasts in Nepali from a phonological and phonetic point of view. Using palatography and linguography, we showed that dentals are mainly produced as lamino-denti-alveolar, affricates as lamino-denti-alveolar and, at last, that retroflexes vary, being either cacuminal or retroflex.Various phonological models of coronal features were examined and compared in the light of our articulatory results in a Laboratory Phonology perspective. Referring mainly to the vertical movement of the tip of the tongue, we proposed the feature [retroflex], as a manner feature attached to the coronal node. The study of the voicing and aspiration contrast was first done at the acoustical level. The ACT model (Mikuteit & Reetz 2007) provides us for a useful tool to describe acoustically the four types of stops in Nepali, from a qualitative as well as a quantitative point of view. However, ACT (After Closure time) could not be used as a single parameter to distinguish them, while it was sufficient in Bengali. Finally, we performed a study of co-occurrence constraints between aspirated stops, based on the analysis of the online Nepali dictionary of R. L. Turner. We could extract the following generalisation: except in some roots including sequences such as /Tʰ…h/ (where Tʰ= any aspirated unvoiced stops), the aspirated stops are not found in affixes and combinations of roots and affixes contain maximally one aspirated stop.