PowerPoint Presentation

James M ScobbieCASL Research Centre

LOT summer schoolUltrasound, phonetics, phonology: Articulation for Beginners!With special thanks to collaboratorsJane Stuart-Smith & Eleanor LawsonJoanne Cleland & Zoe RoxburghNatasha Zharkova, Laura Black, Steve CowenReenu Punnoose, Koen SebreghtsSonja Schaeffler & Ineke MennenConny HeydeAlan Wrench (aka Articulate Instruments Ltd) for AAA software and UTI hardware Various funding thank you to ESRC, EPSRC, QMU

June 2013Sociophonetics / Lg var & changeScottish EnglishDerhoticisation among WC speakers Rhotic tongue shapeIs it time for some nitty gritty stuff?Scottish English againFronted /u/Extensions, if timeNorthern Irish /u/ and diphthongs

Tick these off as I go2MRI [o]

MRI [i]

MRI [y]

SSE /o/

What about real vowels?

UTI single speaker for comparisonExample of a UTI vowel space, un-rotated

Front!Front?Probably Zoe8What about articulation?Compare frontness in F2 & frontness in mmheight in F1 & height in mmWhat are articulatory frontness and height?

Whole tongue shape?Constriction degree / cross-sectional area / tube diameter?High point of the tongue surface? Daniel Jones (1917)

Experimental phonetics and its utility to the linguist. Nature 100: 96-98.Some examples of something easyVowels/u/ in relation to /i/ in terms of frontness/u/s similarity to /i/ in tongue shapeEasy questions are still worth asking!

Analysing minimal data setsA socially-stratified corpus (ECB08) was collected to examine social variation in post-vocalic /r/ articulation WC vs. MC teenagersFor context, each speaker produced just one (real word) token of each vowel phonemeLabial consonants avoid lingual coarticulation9 monophthongal vowel phonemes 3 diphthongs /ai/, /au/, /oi/ were not elicitedSingle word citation forms, no carrier phraseOne time point was analysed artic target

What can we get out of this?Video UTI, so only ~30fpsAveraging acoustics is also hardMale and female speakersAdolescent speakers of variable vocal tract lengthNo opportunity for complex normalisation

How front is Scottish /u/?hembeamfamehipmapboomhumawehopeWC n=8, MC n=7 1 token each

Front!Formants and frontnessFormants are vocal tract resonancesA standard approach for 60 years has been to measure F1 & F2Low F1 = height & High F2 = frontnessWe will come back to these metaphors laterNothing is as simple as this metaphor implies, when you get down to detailHigher formants are also importantOther factors affect these formantsBut they are easy to measure, and plot well

SSBE for comparisonHawkins and Midgely, cf Wells, Deterding

Front!Acoustic analysisCalculate the F2 distance (Bark) from /i/, the vowel with the highest F2To /o/, /u/ and /e/ for each speakerRepeat for a normalised set by treating the /i/-/o/ distance as 100% (corner vowel to corner vowel), which will make comparison to articulation easierCalculate the distance (Bark) from /i/To /u/ and /e/ (and /o/) for each speakerIt was hard to measure F1 for /a/, so no normalisation

Acoustic analysis/u/ is acoustically non-backRelative to each speakers /i/ (& /o/),/u/ is Mid F2 (Hz) Mid-high F2 (Bark)61% front (from /o/)/e/ has high F294% front2 speakers have/u/ < 50% front (just)

Front!17This is all speakers, each done individually, i.e. normalised to /i/ in a linear way.Acoustic analysis/u/ and /e/ are significantly non-high /u/ not significantly different to /e/ or /o/ in F1In 5/14 speakers, /u/ had a higher rel F1 than /e/Hz / Bark are almost identical at these frequencies

18This is all speakers, each done individually, i.e. normalised to /i/ in a linear way./u/ acoustic summary/u/ has a raised F22.6 Bark lower than /i/4.1 Bark higher than /o//u/ has a raised F10.6 Bark higher than /i/Non-distinct from the raised F1 of /e/, 0.4 BarkWith UTIWe only have mid-sagittal tongue curvesNot passive articulators (vocal tract tube)Not all the tongue surfaceNot all the internal tongue tissueNot lips (well, not for this data set)One token per speaker (for this data set)But unlike EMAWe are not limited to 3 or 4 anterior pointsAnd unlike MRIUTI is cheap, non-invasive, portable and quickWe can collect & trace 12 tokens of 5V in half a day

UTI consistently shows Scottish /u/ is lower and centralised/fronted compared to other vowelsFront!Vowel space (typical WC)21LM17

Front!Vowel space (typical MC)EF422High point of tongueWhats horizontal about a curving vocal tract?Whats the orientation of the probe to the head?Images can be rotated by you, looking, for qualitative understanding, if there is a fixed aspect ratio on x/y axesImages can be rotated for quantitative analysis of horizontal and vertical by the analystOcclusal plane is replicable and standard and provides a reasonable horizontal for the anterior portion of the vocal tract

common /o i/ tangentAssumed occlusal

ECB08 didnt collect occlusal biteplanesDifferent shape hard palates dont helpTwo approaches to estimating horizontal rather than adopting the basic axes of the probeECB08 Soc-Lx sample

Articulatory analysis

/u/ is fronter in articulatory space than acoustics

/u/ is either more front than central, or fully front99.6%,