A previous study [H. Sussman, H. McCaffrey, and S. Matthews, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 1309-1325 (1991)] of American English CV coarticulation showed a remarkably linear relationship between onset frequencies of F2 transitions, plotted on the y axis, in relation to the F2 midvowel "target" frequencies, plotted on the x axis, for CVC tokens with initial [b d g] and ten medial vowel contexts. Slope and y-intercept values of regression functions fit to these scatterplots ("locus equations") were shown to serve as statistically powerful phonetic descriptors of place of articulation. The present study extends the locus equation metric to three additional languages--Thai, Cairene Arabic, and Urdu--having both two and four place contrasts for syllable-initial voiced stops. A total of 14 speakers (Thai = 6, Arabic = 3, Urdu = 5) produced 1740 CVC tokens that were acoustically analyzed using MacSpeech Lab II. Strong linear regression relationships were found for every stop category across all speakers. Slopes and y intercepts systemically varied as a function of place of articulation. Cross-language comparisons of stop place categories were performed but variability of slope and y intercept means tempered conclusions concerning the existence of CV "phonetic hot spots."
A previous study [Sussman et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 1309–1325 (1991)] of American English CV coarticulation showed a remarkably linear relationship between onset frequencies of F2 transitions (plotted along the ordinate) in relation to midvowel target frequencies (plotted along the abscissa) in CVC tokens with initial /bdg/ followed by ten medial vowels. Slope and y intercept of regression functions (‘‘locus equations’’) fitted to these coordinates systematically varied as a function of stop place. Discriminant analyses, using as predictor variables, slope and y intercept, yielded 100% correct classification of stop place categories. Locus equations provide a systematic lawfulness to coarticulatory variation and a relationally invariant phonetic index for stop place classification. The present study extends the metric to three additional languages−Thai, Cairean Arabic, and Urdu. Resulting scatterplots were extremely linear and varied as a function of stop place. Plotting slope X y intercept yields a derived map of CV phonetic space with which to relationally compare 2, 3, and 4-stop place languages. Within-language stop place contrasts were consistly divergent in CV space. Variability of labial, alveolar/dental, and velar coordinates across five languages showed fairly broad clustering of stop place categories, rather than narrowly focused ‘‘phonetic hot spots.’’ The data are discussed in relation to quantal and adaptive dispersion theories. [Work supported by NSF.]
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