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Project 4
Oliver NiebuhrUniversity of KielMeghan ClayardsMcGill University, Montreal
April 5, 2011
Project 4• Research subject of P4 was assimilation of place of articulation…• …contrastively investigated for English and French.
• Involved Institutions: York, Aix, Geneva.• People: Meghan Clayards, Oliver Niebuhr, Gareth Gaskell, Christine
Meunier, Noel Nguyen, Uli Frauenfelder, Leonardo Lancia, Sophie Dufour.
• 2 Steps:– (1) Identification of the PD of place assimilation in E … and F?– (2) Cross-linguistic comparison of the listeners’ sensitivity/ability to use
these details in the decoding of words.
Project 4 Part I• Why place assimilation and why French and English?• Perception-oriented step (2) was the actual starting point.
– French and English are supposed to differ clearly in terms of place assimilation.
– English is well known for having regressive place assimilation across word boundaries (e.g., “swis{s/h} shop”, “ba{d/g} girl”)
– Place assimilation is claimed to not occur in French at all.– So, what do French listeners do with potential instances of place
assimilation, and does it make a difference whether assimilation is partial is complete?
– Ultimately: What kind of cognitive strategy do listeners use in coping with assimilations?
• Is there is single mechanism? • Is it language-specific or language-universal?
Project 4 Part I• Two parallel acoustic analyses of single-sentence read-speech
corpora of 4 English and 4 French speakers.• Elicited with a fast speaking rate similar to the spontaneous
speech of the individual speakers.
• Based on place assimilation in sibilant sequences (/s/, //, /z/, //) across word boundaries…
• …and additional reference sequences of sibilants and labial consonants across word boundaries.
• Acoustic analyses included:– Durations of reference sibilants and sibilant sequences.– Centre-of-gravity (1,5-12kHz) means and ranges of each sibilant and
sibilant sequence.
Project 4 Part I• Main result: English and French are more similar than
commonly thought!– Like English, French does show place assimilation in sibilant
sequences.– Like English, the French assimilations are overall gradual, ranging from
non-assimilations to (temporally & spectrally) complete assimilations.
– But the English assimilation is direction-guided strictly regressive (in some cases /s/ [ss], e.g., “British sea”).
– French assimilation is quality-guided towards post-alveolar into either direction, regressive and progressive.
• Regressive assimilation is stronger, but still less consistent than in English.
• French assimilation occurs independently of simultaneous voice assimilation, which can go into the opposite direction.
Project 4 Part I• Results of duration measurements:
= sibilants in a sequence have equal durations
French: If there are two separable sibilantsections in a sequence, then the postalv.section is almost always clearly longer.
English: There are less sequences withseparable sibilant sections; but if they areseparable, the second sibilant is longer,i.e. no order effect like in French.
Project 4 Part I• Results of centre-of-gravity measurements:
French: single av. and pav. sibilantsclearly differ in mean CoG, both av-pav and pav-av sequences overlap more orless strongly with the pav. reference
English: single av. and pav. sibilantsclearly differ in mean CoG, av-pavsequences are almost all identical withCoGs of pav. reference pav-av differfrom pav. and av. in both CoG means and ranges.
Project 4 part II
• Perception experiments– Phonetic context can radically change
pronunciation – how does the listener recognize “dresh” as
“dress” in “dresh shop”?– At what level is the problem solved?
• Crosses word boundaries so can’t be purely lexical• does it require top-down knowledge?
Visual context
9http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html
Visual context
10http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html
Accounts
Contrast enhancement
• low level• increases dissimilarity
Phonological Inference
11
• language dependant
• high level• ‘undo’ learned patterns
• works on partial assimilation
• not language dependant
• works on partial and complete
Perception Experiment
• Compare languages that differ in assimilation patterns
• Equate stimuli and control acoustics for two language groups- Artificial lexicon
• Use a range of assimilation strengths- Continuum
• Examine the time course of compensation
12
Task
13
25 English listeners (York, UK)
26 French listeners (Geneva, Switzerland)
Rendez le cavisse
pagune s’il vous plait
Render the cavees
pagoon please pagoon
cavees
Task
14
25 English listeners (York, UK)
26 French listeners (Geneva, Switzerland)
pagoon
Rendez le cavisse
pagune s’il vous plait
Render the cavees
pagoon please
cavees
Word 1 Word 2sival
cavees shinnowcaveesh pagoon
pentuf
Word 1 Word 2pidas
tamash samalnalip shamal
remop
Task from Pirog Revill et. al 2008
Word 1 = objects Word 2 = textures
Materials
15
Predictions
Contrast Enhancement Phonological Inference
16
English French
Right context Yes Yes
Left context Yes Yes
English French
Right context Yes ?
Left context no ?
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
English listeners
17“sh” “s”
sshcontrol
Left Context
“Render the ...amal”controltamashpidas
/ʃ/1234567
/s/
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
French listeners
18
Left context
“sh” “s”
sshcontrol
“Render the ...amal”controltamashpidas
/ʃ/1234567
/s/
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00
Right context
English listeners
19“sh” “s”
sshcontrol
“Render the cavee...controlshinnow”sival”
/ʃ/1234567
/s/
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00
“sh” “s”
sshcontrol
French listeners
20
Right context
“Render the cavee...controlshinnow”sival”
/ʃ/1234567
/s/
Summary
Contrast Enhancement Phonological Inference
21
English French
Right context Yes Yes
Left context Yes Yes
English French
Right context Yes ?
Left context no ?
Eye-movements
22
• If compensation is an auditory process, it should happen quickly
• Does it?
Eye-movements
“cavees”“caveesh”“pagoon”
200 ms
12345
Trials
…cavees pagoon…
Time
/s/
- /sh
/ 1
-1
0
Time
% fi
xatio
ns
1
0
Eye-movements
24
Co
ron
al b
ias
(lo
oks
to
/s/
- lo
oks
to
/ʃ/)
Average RT
Render the cavee…
Looks to button start
1
7
cavees
caveesh
Occulo-motor delay (200 msec)
Eye-movements
25
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00
Eye-movements
26
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Summary
27
• Compensation for complete assimilation requires language specific experience
• Some other language general mechanism may also be at play for moderate assimilation
• Doesn’t seem to be rapid but might require some top down knowledge as well
Thanks to...
Sound to Sense:
Uli Frauenfelder, Université de Genève
Sarah Hawkins, Cambridge University
Christine Meunier, Université de Provence
Noel Nguyen, Université de Provence
Eyetrackers:
Gerry Altmann, University of York
Dirk Kerzel, Université de Genève
Gareth Gaskell, University of York
Oliver Niebuhr, University of Kiel
Modeling Predictions
Contrast Enhancement
CoG (Hz)“sh”
Prop
ortio
n “s
” re
spon
se
“s”29
Modeling Predictions
Phonological Inference
CoG (Hz) “s”“sh”
Prop
ortio
n “s
” re
spon
se
30