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Dynamic Specification of Coarticulated Vowels

Research Chronology, Theory, and Hypotheses

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Vowel Inherent Spectral Change

Part of the book series: Modern Acoustics and Signal Processing ((MASP))

Abstract

This chapter summarizes research conducted over a 35 year period on the dynamic specification of vowels. A series of experiments comparing vowels in consonant context with vowels produced in isolation failed to support talker normalization theories that predicted higher accuracy through prior exposure to a talker’s “point vowels.” Instead, these studies showed that vowels in consonant context were more accurately identified than isolated vowels, supporting a dynamic specification of vowels theory over static target theories, leading to the proposal that important information is contained in the formant transitions. Consonant–vowel coarticulation is not a source of “noise”, rather it gives rise to an acoustic array in which the consonants and vowels are cospecified in the time-varying spectral configuration which we call dynamic specification. Subsequent experiments showed high identification accuracy for “silent center vowels” in which the central portion of the CVC syllable was removed by gating. Identification accuracy was not disrupted when the onset and offset portions were produced by different speakers. Vowel identification improved with increasing duration of the onsets or offset portions. Onsets were identified more accurately than offsets but neither was as well identified as the silent center syllables. Collectively these and other experiments summarized herein support the view that the most important source of information for speaker-invariant vowel identity is carried in dynamic specification of vowel onset and offset spectral patterns, with vowel duration also playing a role. Subsequent experiments with North German vowels, which do not exhibit the degree of vowel diphthongization reported in American English dialects, showed that listeners rely on dynamic spectro-temporal information specified by syllable onsets and offsets, in addition to cues provided by inherent vowel duration. Cross-language comparisons are presented from the perspective of adaptive dispersion theory. These comparisons support the view that dynamic properties are perceptually more important in differentiating vowels in languages with large vowel inventories.

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Abbreviations

CVC:

Consonant vowel consonant

CV:

Consonant vowel

VC:

Vowel consonant

F1:

First formant

F2:

Second formant

F3:

Third formant

AE:

American English

NG:

North German

PF:

Parisian French

VISC:

Vowel inherent spectral change

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Acknowledgments

The research work reported in this chapter has been supported by the Center for Research in Human Learning at the University of Minnesota, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Universities of Minnesota and South Florida as well as the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We are grateful to all these institutions for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. PhD Program in Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences Graduate School and University Center City University of New York, New York, USA

    Winifred Strange & James J. Jenkins

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  1. Winifred Strange
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Correspondence to Winifred Strange .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical Engineering, and Telecommunications, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, New South Wales, Australia

    Geoffrey Stewart Morrison

  2. School of Behavioral and, Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Richardson, TX, 75083, Texas, USA

    Peter F. Assmann

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Strange, W., Jenkins, J.J. (2013). Dynamic Specification of Coarticulated Vowels. In: Morrison, G., Assmann, P. (eds) Vowel Inherent Spectral Change. Modern Acoustics and Signal Processing. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14209-3_5

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