Session 10

• segmental


  - string of phonemes
• suprasegmental


  - above the string of phonemes

  EX: difference b/w texting/emails and talking
• prosody


  - richness of the language

  - influences meaning

  - emphasis that can change meaning

  - rhythm and smoothness

  - cricothyroid muscle mainly used
• elements of prosody


  - linguistic/lexical stress (word-level & contrastive)

  - intonation

  - duration

  - juncture
• word level stress


  - stressed and unstressed syllables (certain ones)
• contrastive stress


  - sentence meaning

  - distinguish nouns (object vs. object, record vs. record)
• intonation


  - change in form, fundamental frequency changes & has variation

  - provides info on speaker affect (extreme fundamental frequency associated with heightened emotion like anger or excitement)
• duration


  - change in length of a sound

  - a syllable that is heavily stressed will usually have a greater duration
• intrinsic duration


  - some sounds naturally longer than others (vowels vs. consonants, continuants vs. noncontinuants)
• phonetic context

  - acoustic and articulatory environment in which a speech sound occurs

  -for example, vowels preceding voiced consonants are longer in duration than vowels preceding voiceless consonants

  EX: compare /i/ vowels in "leaf" and "leave"
• phrase-final/pre-pausal lengthening

  - syllables at the end of a major syntactic unit display this
• juncture


  - word assignment to a sound

  - has to do with timing and pausing

  - finite way of duration

  (hotdog vs. the pause in hot dog)

  - sub category of duration
• one aspect of juncture:


  - specifies syllable affiliation

  - redundancy of speech

  EX: syllable with the /n/ in "an aim" vs. "a name"

  - context provides redundancy to assure meaningtype
• lexical stress


  - the degree of emphasis on individual syllables within words
• what does the degree of stress indicate


  - indicates the relative importance of the various bits of information the speaker intends to convey

  -ex: my mathnotes vs. mymath notes
• fundamental frequency/pitch


  - more heavily stressed syllables are usually marked by a higher f0 than lesser stressed

  EX: declarative statement has a fall off of pitch while a question has a rise in f0 at the end
• intensity/loudness


  - more heavily stressed syllables are usually produced with more energy than weakly stressed syllables (respiration)
• how can questions be differentiated from statements?


  - declarative sentences and wh-questions display a rising-falling intoation pattern

  - rising final intonation signals a yes/no questions

  - final pitch rise may indicate incompleteness of thought
• rise-fall pattern


  - rising pitch followed by a falling pitch within a single utterance

  - in most of the languages

  - babies' cries exhibit a rise-fall intonation pattern
• unmarked breath group


  - called this because of the pattern that appears to be related to a breathing pattern during which speakers make no special adjustments to the phonatory process

  - typical declarative sentence

  - typically f0 falls at the end of a phrase or sentence
• marked break group


  - raising fundamental freequency at the end (shows special meaning is to be conveyed
• increasing fundamental frequency


  - results from higher VF tension
• decreasing fundamental frequency


  - results from laryngeal and respiratory factors

  - relaxing CT muscle

  - decreasing subglottal pressure
• types of feedback mechanisms


  - external feedback

  -- visual, auditory (slow), tactile (slow)

  - proprioceptive feedback (relatively fast)

  - internal feedback (most rapid)
• external feedback: visual


  - speaker knows how the message is received (e.g. zoom classes vs. in person)

  - make adjustments as needed (speaker)

  - provides for better communication

  - does not influence learning speech well (e.g. being born blind does not interfere with someone learning their native lang.)
• external feedback: auditory


  - being born deaf makes learning language very difficult

  - air and bone-conducted sensations (talk with ears plugged)

  - too slow to influence ongoing speech, but provides feedback on what has been said and make corrections
• delayed auditory feedback (DAF)


  - scientist accidentally delayed processing so he started to stutter
• lombard effect


  - talk louder (increase vocal intensity) when there's louder background noise (ex: at a concert)
• filtering out frequencies


  - e.g. phone

  - phone is a low pass filter (allowing low freq. through, not high)
• restrict articulation


  - if something is restricting articulation we can quickly adjust and still speak instantaneously

  EX: in class he talked with a pen in his mouth and we could still understand him while his mouth was able to adjust
• external feedback: tactile


  - sensations of touch (light, deeper pressure) from: articulators in contact (tongue placement, teeth, lips, etc.) and air pressure and flow changes at glottis

  - speech influence under nerve block

  - less sensation moving back in the vocal tract
• less sensation moving back in vocal tract


  - lips, tongue tip, alveolar ridge towards the front so there's most feedback

  - we wouldn't want the constant feedback from the VF touching every time we speak