This study investigated the relationship between head movement and fundamental frequency (F0) during speech by comparing continuous speech of congenitally blind and sighted speakers from YouTube videos. Positive correlations were found between F0 (measured in semitones) and vertical head movement for both speaker groups, with a stronger correlation for blind speakers. In addition, larger head movements and larger head movement per semitone ratios were observed for sighted speakers. These results suggest that physiological processes may account for part of the F0-related head movement and that sighted speakers use the visual modality to communicate F0 information through augmented head movement.
Gitksan, an endangered Tsimshianic language, has contrastive plain and ejective stops at five places of articulation (Rigsby, 1986). These lenis ejectives, which tend to be creaky-voiced, have been previously described as “implosives” (Hoard, 1978). This study asked which acoustic properties can distinguish ejective stops from voiced plain stops in Gitksan. Isolated Gitksan words (n = 540) containing initial prevocalic stops were audio-recorded from two male elder first-language talkers. A Praat script extracted voice onset time (VOT) and center of gravity (CoG) of the burst from the initial stop. VoiceSauce (Shue et al., 2011) extracted voice quality measurements (difference in amplitude between five harmonic pairs, cepstral peak prominence, and harmonic-to-noise ratios across four frequency bands) and three formant transitions from the onset of the post-stop vowel. A random forest model (Breiman, 2001) was fitted with these 15 measures to determine their relative importance in predicting the stop types and their places of articulation. The results suggest that VOT is the primary and voice quality is the secondary cue to stop type, while CoG is the primary and formant transition is the secondary cue to place of articulation in Gitksan. Intertalker variation in voicing and glottalization affects the ranking of these cues.
This study investigated the role of the F0 height of the final tone in signaling the difference between Mandarin statements and echo questions. We recorded native speakers producing pairs of statements and echo questions ending in the four Mandarin tones (high, rising, low, and falling). The first two syllables of the utterances comprised pairs of high and low tones, or rising and falling tones. From these pairs of tones, we extracted the speaker's F0 range at the start of the utterance. With the speaker's initial F0 range serving as a baseline, we compared the difference between statements and echo questions in two ways: 1) using the overall mean of the F0 height of the final tone of each sentence type, and 2) using the mean difference in F0 height of the final tone between the sentences in each statement-question pair. The results of ANOVAs suggest that the F0 height of the final tone is a potential cue for the identification of statements versus echo questions in Mandarin. However, since significant differences in F0 were found between only some of the final tonal pairs, native speakers must also use other prosodic cues to distinguish statements from echo questions in Mandarin.
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