Volume 37, Issue 4

The observed timing pattern of an utterance reflects a number of linguistic factors, including rate of utterance, accent, and phonological units such as segment, syllable, stress group, phonological phrase, etc. This investigation seeks to isolate the durational correlates of accent and of the higher-level phonological units. An experimental method is adopted which enables the effects of the other, extraneous factors (rate of utterance, etc.) to be filtered out. Once this has been done, the results show consistent durational correlates for the units phonological word, phonological phrase, etc., but none for accent. An abstract timing pattern for French utterances is proposed.

Two experiments were conducted, on Japanese and on Arabic, to explore the extent to which vowels adjacent to longer and shorter apical consonants would compensate for the consonant durations. In the Arabic experiment, little evidence of timing compensation was found, whereas Japanese vowels on both sides of a consonant varied inversely with the consonant, and the consonant constriction duration varied inversely with the inherent vowel durations. The result is that the duration of the two-syllable test words scarcely changed at all. These results support the notion that Japanese morae have constant durations although they undermine the definition of the mora as a simple CV unit. These findings suggest that rhythmic structures in speech need not be thought of as constructed by the perceiver; they may also be present in the acoustic signal itself. More generally, our results imply the existence of language-specific timing rules that cannot be captured in the segmental terms insisted upon by current linguistic phonetic theory.

High speed cineradiograms were used to examine the articulatory characteristics associated with selected allophones of American English /r/. Only one of the three speakers produced a ‘retroflexed’ /r/ with a raised tongue apex. The other speakers produced a ‘bunched’ /r/ characterized by a raising of the tongue dorsum. Two basic types of /r/ were observed for all three speakers: (1) prevocalic /r/, which initiated a syllable, and (2) post-vocalic /r/, which terminated a syllable or formed a syllabic nucleus. The prevocalic allophone was characterized by greater lip rounding, a more advanced tongue position, and less tongue dorsum grooving. The two allophones also were associated with different variability and movement attributes. The differences in /r/ allophones were found to be similar to previously reported differences in American English /1/ allophones.

This experiment was designed to examine the degree of phonological reduction in speech directed at children by adults, as opposed to speech directed at other adults. 8 British mothers were recorded speaking to their 2- to 4-year-old children and to adults in a relaxed home environment. The recordings were analyzed with respect to number of applications of four commonly used phonological rules. It was found that speech to children shows significantly greater phonological reduction in most cases. It is hypothesized that this manifestation of informality may express an affectionate attitude towards the child, thus providing emotional support even if complicating the language-learning task for her or him.