The phonetics of suprasegmentals - Linguistics - University of ...
The phonetics of suprasegmentals - Linguistics - University of ...
The phonetics of suprasegmentals - Linguistics - University of ...
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>phonetics</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>suprasegmentals</strong><br />
Dr. Christian T. DiCanio<br />
cdicanio@gmail.com<br />
Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage<br />
Université Lumière Lyon 2<br />
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/∼dicanio<br />
24/3/10<br />
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Suprasegmentals<br />
Segmental Independence<br />
Many phonetic targets in the speech signal have a short durational<br />
window, e.g. the tongue position for [s] in the word ‘descendre’<br />
[desÃdK].<br />
Certain phonetic targets have longer duration, which may overlap<br />
separate targets in shorter durational windows. Such properties are<br />
‘suprasegmental’ if:<br />
1 <strong>The</strong>y have a sufficiently long duration which is able to span across two<br />
or more short duration windows corresponding to segments.<br />
Phonologically, they target units larger than single consonants/vowels.<br />
2 <strong>The</strong>y function independently from contrastive phonetic targets which<br />
they span across.<br />
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"stress"<br />
Segmental Independence<br />
syllable syllable<br />
b ɪ z i<br />
duration<br />
pitch<br />
intensity<br />
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Segmental Independence<br />
What can be suprasegmental?<br />
Phonetic properties that are not used to contrast segments, e.g. pitch,<br />
duration, loudness (intensity), phonation type.<br />
Features which are secondary on segments. Many segments are<br />
voiced, so they have a pitch and some phonation type. All segments<br />
have duration and intensity by virtue <strong>of</strong> being sounds.<br />
How languages use these phonetic features depends on both the<br />
prosodic system (stress, accent, tone, register, intonation) and the<br />
language itself.<br />
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Segmental Independence<br />
Prosodic systems (Hyman, 2006)<br />
A tone language is one which pitch enters into the lexical<br />
representation <strong>of</strong> at least some morphemes. Pitch is used<br />
paradigmatically.<br />
A stress language is a language where pitch may be used<br />
syntagmatically. Stress languages have the following properties:<br />
1 Culminativity: every word has at most one syllable which is the most<br />
prominent.<br />
2 Obligatoriness: every word has at least one syllable which is more<br />
prominent than another.<br />
However, both types <strong>of</strong> languages may use pitch to contrast meaning<br />
on words.<br />
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Segmental Independence<br />
Trique (DiCanio, 2008) English<br />
jũ 4 earthquake<br />
jũ 3 palm leaf<br />
ũ 2 nine k h n " "t h Est contest (V)<br />
jũ 1 loose, light "k h ant h Est contest (N)<br />
kã 1 Pã 3 three õ@"k h Oõd record (V)<br />
kã 3 Pã 1 breath "õEkõ " d record (N)<br />
kã 3 Pã 32 I have gone p h õ@"dus produce (V)<br />
kã 2 Pã 2 I will go "p h õoURus produce (N)<br />
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Stress<br />
Segmental Independence<br />
In most stress languages, stressed syllables have higher pitch than<br />
unstressed syllables. <strong>The</strong> duration <strong>of</strong> the stressed syllable is <strong>of</strong>ten<br />
longer (as in English, Polish) and its loudness may also be greater.<br />
In English, French, Russian, and Estonian unstressed syllables have<br />
reduced vowels, or a reduced set <strong>of</strong> vowels, e.g. Russian [i, e, a, o, u]<br />
in stressed syllables but [i, u, @] in unstressed syllables.<br />
But... stress can be a tricky thing, especially in larger prosodic<br />
contexts (compounds, phrases, sentences).<br />
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Segmental Independence<br />
In context, stress is probably better defined as the syllable on a word<br />
where a intonational peak (accent) can occur. This is more <strong>of</strong> an<br />
abstract phonological definition than a phonetic one.<br />
ə ɹ ɪ dʒ ə n l i<br />
originally<br />
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Pitch: Production<br />
Pitch<br />
Pitch is controlled by changes in the tension <strong>of</strong> the vocal folds, both<br />
longitudinally (along the folds) and medially (between the folds).<br />
<strong>The</strong> pitch <strong>of</strong> a sound corresponds to its fundamental frequency (F0),<br />
but the two are distinct. Pitch is <strong>of</strong>ten perceived as the difference in<br />
frequency between successive harmonics <strong>of</strong> the F0.<br />
<strong>The</strong> pitch range is humans varies. For men, it is usually between<br />
75-250 Hz. For women, it is usually between 120-350 Hz.<br />
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Pitch<br />
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Muscles controlling pitch<br />
Pitch<br />
<strong>The</strong> cricothyroid muscle is the main muscle responsible for pitch<br />
adjustments. It connects the cricoid cartilage to the thyroid cartilage.<br />
It elongates the vocal folds through a contraction which pulls the<br />
cricoid and thyroid cartilages together while the vocal folds are held in<br />
place at the posterior end <strong>of</strong> the cricoid cartilage.<br />
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Pitch<br />
Pitch is also <strong>of</strong>ten controlled by vertical movements <strong>of</strong> the entire larynx,<br />
where the extrinsic laryngeal muscles pull the larynx up when raising pitch,<br />
but down when lowering pitch (Löfqvist et al., 1989; Stevens, 2000).<br />
Tongue-pull hypothesis (figure from Honda [2004] ISCA)<br />
the angle <strong>of</strong> the<br />
cricoid cartilage<br />
(relative to the thyroid<br />
cartilage) changes as<br />
the larynx moves up<br />
or down in the throat.<br />
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Pitch<br />
Even though the production <strong>of</strong> pitch is largely independent from<br />
consonantal or vocalic gestures, certain segmental gestures may result in<br />
pitch changes. For instance, there is a relationship between pitch height<br />
and vowel height.<br />
“Intrinsic” pitch.<br />
On average high vowels have higher pitch than low vowels<br />
/i/ 183<br />
/e/ 169<br />
/æ/ 162<br />
/!/ 164<br />
/"/ 163<br />
/o/ 170<br />
/u/ 182<br />
Data from Lehiste & Peterson (1961) for American English<br />
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Duration<br />
Duration<br />
Like pitch, duration is used as a suprasegmental property. In languages<br />
like English and Polish, it is used to mark stress.<br />
Duration can be used for segmental contrasts (singletons-geminates).<br />
Yet, even in languages with contrastive length, duration may be used<br />
to indicate stress.<br />
Other things, apart from stress, also influence vowel length, like word<br />
size or consonant voicing.<br />
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Duration<br />
Long vowels in multisyllabic words<br />
Duration (in msec) <strong>of</strong> /!"/ in the sequence /t!"t/ in a set <strong>of</strong> Hungarian<br />
words (Tarnóczy, 1965):<br />
210 /t!"t/<br />
180 /t!"to#/<br />
140 /t!"to#$t/<br />
120 /t!"to#$to"k/<br />
110 /t!"to#$to"kn$k/<br />
<strong>The</strong> more syllables in the word the shorter the initial “long” vowel.<br />
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Duration<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is contrastive vowel length in Levantine Arabic (Ham, 2001), but<br />
word size still has an effect on vowel length.<br />
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Duration<br />
Thai vowel length contrast (Abramson, 1974; Roengpitya, 2002)<br />
pàk to stick in pààk mouth<br />
cìp to sip cììp to fold<br />
baN to hide baaN some<br />
òt to abstain òòt to lament<br />
k h âm dusk k h áàm to cross<br />
t h an on time t h aan alms<br />
Vowel length is neutralized in unstressed syllables in Thai. So, stress is not<br />
simply indicated by duration in the language, but by the presence <strong>of</strong> a<br />
durational contrast.<br />
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Duration<br />
<strong>The</strong> effect <strong>of</strong> stress on vowel length in Thai (Gandour et al., 1996).<br />
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Intrinsic Duration.<br />
Duration<br />
Vowel length is tied to vowel height (low vowels tend to be longer<br />
than high vowels).<br />
Intrinsic duration in Swedish (Elert, 1964):<br />
long short<br />
high /i y u/ 140 95<br />
mid /e ! "/ 155 103<br />
low /æ œ #/ 164 111<br />
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Duration<br />
American English vowel duration (Hillenbrand et al., 1995)<br />
/i/ 282 ms /u/ 273 ms<br />
/I/ 226 ms /U/ 229 ms<br />
/eI/ 300 ms /oU/ 300 ms<br />
/E/ 226 ms /5/ 216 ms<br />
/æ/ 311 ms /O/ 318 ms<br />
/a/ 300 ms /ô/ 297 ms<br />
Lower vowels are longer than higher vowels.<br />
Lax vowels /I, E, U, 5/ are shorter than non-lax vowels, with a<br />
difference ratio <strong>of</strong> 1:1.33.<br />
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Loudness<br />
Loudness<br />
Stress differences in languages also sometimes correlate with<br />
differences in loudness, but this is uncommon. In English, stressed<br />
syllables are <strong>of</strong>ten no louder than unstressed sylables (Ladefoged,<br />
1971).<br />
Loudness <strong>of</strong>ten does vary with respect to vowel quality or pitch level.<br />
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Loudness<br />
Intrinsic Loudness - low vowels are louder.<br />
English: VU (volume unit) meter readings<br />
(Lehiste & Peterson, 1959)<br />
/i/ 80.1 /i/ -9.7<br />
/e/ 81.1 /e/ -3.6<br />
/a/ 85.7 /a/ 0<br />
/o/ 83.5 /o/ -7.2<br />
/u/ 80.4 /u/ -12.3<br />
Hungarian: dB relative to /a/<br />
Fónagy, 1966<br />
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Loudness<br />
Intensity pr<strong>of</strong>ile <strong>of</strong> 5 different tones in Trique<br />
Intensity (dB.)<br />
65 70 75 80 85<br />
3<br />
3<br />
3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
3 3 3 3 3 3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
23 2<br />
1<br />
23 2 2<br />
3<br />
1<br />
1<br />
1<br />
3<br />
1<br />
3<br />
1<br />
1 1<br />
2 4 6 8 10<br />
Time (normalized)<br />
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3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
1<br />
3
Summary<br />
Loudness<br />
Pitch is used in words with contrastive tone or stress.<br />
Duration is used in words with contrastive stress or tone but is also<br />
manipulated for use voicing, word size, and vowel quality.<br />
Loudness is used in words with contrastive stress and may also be<br />
used to distinguish tones, but it is never as much <strong>of</strong> a major acoustic<br />
correlate <strong>of</strong> a phonological contrast as pitch or duration are. It is also<br />
used to distinguish vowel quality.<br />
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Loudness<br />
Abramson, A. S., 1974. Experimental <strong>phonetics</strong> in phonology: Vowel duration in Thai.<br />
Pasaa 4, 71–90.<br />
DiCanio, C. T., 2008. <strong>The</strong> Phonetics and Phonology <strong>of</strong> San Martín Itunyoso Trique.<br />
Ph.D. thesis, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> California, Berkeley.<br />
Gandour, J. T., Potisuk, S., Harper, M. P., 1996. Effects <strong>of</strong> stress on vowel length in<br />
Thai. In: <strong>The</strong> Fourth International Symposium on Language and <strong>Linguistics</strong>. Institute<br />
<strong>of</strong> Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol <strong>University</strong>, pp. 95–103.<br />
Ham, W. H., 2001. Phonetic and Phonological Aspects <strong>of</strong> Geminate Timing.<br />
Outstanding Dissertations in <strong>Linguistics</strong>. Routledge.<br />
Hillenbrand, J., Getty, L. A., Clark, M. J., Wheeler, K., 1995. Acoustic characteristics <strong>of</strong><br />
American English vowels. Journal <strong>of</strong> the Acoustical Society <strong>of</strong> America 97 (5),<br />
3099–3111.<br />
Hyman, L. M., 2006. Word-prosodic typology. Phonology 23, 225–257.<br />
Ladefoged, P., 1971. Preliminaries to Linguistic Phonetics. Chicago, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
Chicago.<br />
Löfqvist, A., Baer, T., McGarr, N. S., Seider Story, R., 1989. <strong>The</strong> cricothyroid muscle in<br />
voicing control. Journal <strong>of</strong> the Acoustical Society <strong>of</strong> America 85, 1314–1321.<br />
Roengpitya, R., 2002. A historical and perceptual study <strong>of</strong> vowel length in Thai. In:<br />
Macken, M. A. (Ed.), Papers from the 10 th Annual Meeting <strong>of</strong> the Southeast Asian<br />
Lingusitics Society. Arizona State <strong>University</strong>, Program for Southeast Asian Studies,<br />
pp. 353–366.<br />
Stevens, K. N., 2000. Acoustic Phonetics, 1st Edition. MIT Press.<br />
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