This ultrasound and acoustics study of American English /ɹ/ and /s/ investigates whether variability in production as measured in the midsagittal plane is related to individual differences in the shape of the hard palate in the coronal plane. Both token-to-token variability and variability between different phonetic contexts were investigated. While no direct relationship was found between palate flatness and articulatory variability, a secondary analysis revealed that speakers' articulatory variability for one segment was related to their variability in the other. Speakers with flatter palates tended towards lower articulatory variability scores, but speakers with more domed palates showed both high and low variability scores.
References
1.
Bates
, D.
, Mächler
, M.
, Bolker
, B.
, and Walker
, S.
(2015
). “Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4
,” J. Stat. Softw.
67
(1
), 1
–48
.2.
Baum
, S. R.
, and McFarland
, D. H.
(1997
). “The development of speech adaptation to an artificial palate
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
102
(4
), 2353
–2359
.3.
Behrens
, S.
, and Blumstein
, S. E.
(1988
). “Acoustic characteristics of English voiceless fricatives: A descriptive analysis
,” J. Phon.
16
, 295
–298
.4.
Bladon
, R.
, and Nolan
, F.
(1977
). “A video-fluorographic investigation of tip and blade alveolars in English
,” J. Phon.
5
, 185
–193
.5.
Boersma
, P.
, and Weenink
, D.
(2009
). “Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (version v.6.1.03) [computer program]
,” https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/ (Last viewed 25 September 2019).6.
Boyce
, S.
, Tiede
, M.
, Espy-Wilson
, C. Y.
, and Groves-Wright
, K.
(2015
). “Diversity of tongue shapes for the American English rhotic liquid
,” in Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
, August 10–14, Glasgow, UK, Paper No. 847.7.
Brunner
, J.
, Fuchs
, S.
, and Perrier
, P.
(2009
). “On the relationship between palate shape and articulatory behavior
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
125
(6
), 3936
–3949
.8.
Butcher
, A.
(1989
). “Measuring coarticulation and variability in tongue contact patterns
,” Clin. Ling. Phon.
3
(1
), 39
–47
.9.
Carre
, R.
, and Mrayati
, M.
(1988
). “Articulatory-acoustic-phonetic relations and modeling, regions, and modes
,” in Speech Production and Speech Modeling
, edited by A.
Marchal
and W.
Hardcastle
(Kluwer Academic
, Dordrecht)
.10.
Dart
, S. N.
(1991
). “Articulatory and acoustic properties of apical and laminal articulations
,” Ph.D. thesis, UCLA
, Los Angeles, CA
.11.
Dediu
, D.
, Janssen
, R.
, and Moisik
, S. R.
(2017
). “Language is not isolated from its wider environment: Vocal tract influences on the evolution of speech and language
,” Lang. Commun.
54
, 9
–20
.12.
Dediu
, D.
, and Moisik
, S. R.
(2019
). “Pushes and pulls from below: Anatomical variation changes the relative probabilities of sound change pathways
,” Glossa: J. General Ling.
4
(1
), 7
.13.
Delattre
, P.
, and Freeman
, D. C.
(1968
). “A dialect study of American r's by X-ray motion picture
,” Linguistics
6
, 29
–68
.14.
Espy-Wilson
, C. Y.
, Boyce
, S.
, Jackson
, M.
, Narayanan
, S.
, and Alwan
, A.
(2000
). “Acoustic modeling of American English /r
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
108
(1
), 343
–356
.15.
Franken
, M. K.
, Acheson
, D. J.
, McQueen
, J. M.
, and Eisner
, F.
(2017
). “Individual variability as a window on production-perception interactions in speech motor control
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
142
(4
), 2007
–2018
.16.
Guenther
, F. H.
, Espy-Wilson
, C. Y.
, Boyce
, S.
, Matthies
, M.
, Zandipour
, M.
, and Perkell
, J. S.
(1999
). “Articulatory tradeoffs reduce acoustic variability during American English /r/ production
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
105
(5
), 2854
–2865
.17.
Harper
, S.
, Goldstein
, L.
, and Narayanan
, S.
(2020
). “Variability in individual constriction contributions to third formant values in american english /ɹ/
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
147
(6
), 3905
–3916
.18.
Holt
, L. L.
, and Lotto
, A. J.
(2006
). “Cue weighting in auditory categorization: Implications for first and second language acquisition
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
119
(5
), 3059
–3071
.19.
Houde
, J. F.
, and Jordan
, M. I.
(1998
). “Sensorimotor adaptation in speech production
,” Science
279
, 1213
–1216
.20.
Iskarous
, K.
, Shadle
, C. H.
, and Proctor
, M. I.
(2011
). “Articulatory–acoustic kinematics: The production of American English /s
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
129
(2
), 944
–954
.21.
Johnson
, K.
(2015
). (personal communication).22.
Jongman
, A.
, Wayland
, R.
, and Wong
, S.
(2000
). “Acoustic characteristics of English fricatives
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
108
, 1252
.23.
Katseff
, S.
, Houde
, J. F.
, and Johnson
, K.
(2012
). “Partial compensation for altered auditory feedback: A tradeoff with somatosensory feedback?
,” Lang. Speech
55
(2
), 295
–308
.24.
Lametti
, D. R.
, Nasir
, S. M.
, and Ostry
, D. J.
(2012
). “Sensory preference in speech production revealed by simultaneous alteration of auditory and somatosensory feedback
,” J. Neurosci.
32
(27
), 9351
–9358
.25.
Lammert
, A.
, Proctor
, M.
, and Narayanan
, S.
(2013
). “Morphological variation in the adult hard palate and posterior pharyngeal wall
,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res.
56
, 521
–530
.26.
Lawson
, E.
, Scobbie
, J. M.
, and Stuart-Smith
, J.
(2011
). “The social stratification of tongue shape for postvocalic /r/ in Scottish English
,” J. Socioling.
15
(2
), 256
–268
.27.
Lisker
, L.
(1957
). “Minimal cues for separating /w, r, l, y/ in intervocalic position
,” Word
13
, 256
–267
.28.
Mielke
, J.
, Baker
, A.
, and Archangeli
, D.
(2010
). “Variability and homogeneity in American English /r/ allophony and /s/ retraction
,” Lab. Phonol.
10
, 699
–729
.29.
Mrayati
, M.
, Carre
, R.
, and Guerin
, B.
(1988
). “Distinctive regions and modes: A new theory of speech production
,” Speech Commun.
7
, 257
–286
.30.
R Core Team
(2019
). “R: A language and environment for statistical computing
,” Technical Report, https://www.r-project.org (Last viewed 25 March 2019).31.
Bakst
, S.
, and Johnson
, K.
(2018
). “Modeling the effect of palate shape on the articulatory-acoustics mapping
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
144
(1
), EL71
–EL75
.32.
Shadle
, C. H.
(1985
). “The acoustics of fricative consonants
,” Ph.D. thesis, MIT
, Cambridge, MA
.33.
Sprouse
, R. L.
, and Johnson
, K.
(2016
). “The Berkeley Phonetics machine
,” in Proceedings of Interspeech 2016
, September 8–12
, San Francisco, CA
.34.
Stevens
, K. N.
(1972
). “The quantal nature of speech: Evidence from articulatory-acoustic data
,” in Human Communication: A Unified View
, edited by E. E.
David
and P. B.
Denes
(McGraw-Hill
, New York
), pp. 51
–66
.35.
36.
Stevens
, K. N.
, and Keyser
, S. J.
(2010
). “Quantal theory, enhancement and overlap
,” J. Phon.
38
, 10
–19
.37.
Stone
, M.
, Faber
, A.
, Raphael
, L. J.
, and Shawker
, T. H.
(1992
). “Cross-sectional tongue shape and linguopalatal contact patterns in [s], [ʃ], and [l]
,” J. Phon.
20
, 253
–270
.38.
Stone
, M.
, Gomez
, A. D.
, Zhuo
, J.
, Tchouaga
, A. L.
, and Prince
, J. L.
(2019
). “Quantifying tongue tip shape in apical and laminal /s/: Contributions of palate shape
,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res.
62
(9
), 3149
–3159
.39.
Stone
, M.
, Rizk
, S.
, Woo
, J.
, Murano
, E. Z.
, Chen
, H.
, and Prince
, J. L.
(2012
). “Frequency of apical and laminal /s/ in normal and postglossectomy patients
,” J. Med. Speech Lang. Pathol.
20
(4
), 19
.40.
Stone
, M.
, Shawker
, T. H.
, Talbot
, T. L.
, and Rich
, A. H.
(1988
). “Cross-sectional tongue shape during the production of vowels
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
83
(4
), 1586
–1596
.41.
Thibeault
, M.
, Menard
, L.
, Baum
, S. R.
, Richard
, G.
, and McFarland
, D. H.
(2011
). “Articulatory and acoustic adaptation to palatal perturbation
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
129
(4
), 2112
–2120
.42.
Tiede
, M. K.
, Boyce
, S. E.
, Holland
, C. K.
, and Choe
, K. A.
(2004
). “A new taxonomy of American English /r/ using MRI and ultrasound
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
115
(5
), 2633
–2634
.43.
Toda
, M.
, Maeda
, S.
, and Honda
, K.
(2010
). “Formant-cavity affiliation in sibilant fricatives
,” in Turbulent Sounds: An Interdisciplinary Guide
, edited by S.
Fuchs
, M.
Toda
, and M.
Zygis
(De Gruyter Mouton
, Berlin
).44.
Vorperian
, H. K.
, Kent
, R. D.
, Lindstrom
, M. J.
, Kalina
, C. M.
, Gentry
, L. R.
, and Yandell
, B. S.
(2005
). “Development of vocal tract length during early childhood: A magnetic resonance imaging study
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
117
, 338
–350
.45.
Weirich
, M.
, and Fuchs
, S.
(2013
). “Palatal morphology can influence speaker-specific realizations of phonemic contrasts
,” J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res.
56
(6
), 1894
–1908
.46.
Yuan
, J.
, and Liberman
, M.
(2008
). “Speaker identification on the SCOTUS corpus
,” in Proceedings of Acoustics 08
, June 29–July 4
, Paris, France
, pp. 5687
–5690
.47.
Zhou
, X.
, Espy-Wilson
, C. Y.
, Boyce
, S.
, Tiede
, M.
, Holland
, C.
, and Choe
, A.
(2008
). “A magnetic resonance imaging-based articulatory and acoustic study of ‘retroflex’ and ‘bunched’ American English /r
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
123
(6
), 4466
–4481
.© 2021 Acoustical Society of America.
2021
Acoustical Society of America
You do not currently have access to this content.