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Browsing Book Chapters by Subject "Acoustic correlates"

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    Acoustic Correlates Of Harmony Classes In Somali
    (2019-08-13) Kimper, Wendell; Bennett, Wm. G.; Green, Christopher; Yu, Kristine
    In this paper, we present pilot data from a small number of native speakers of Somali, investigating the acoustic correlates of the tongue root and/or voice quality feature relevant to vowel harmony in that language. We find statistically detectable differences along the predicted acoustic dimensions (on the basis of previous articulatory descriptions), and use Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) to extend classifications to previously-uncategorized items. However, we find no clear evidence that these differences are categorical or phonological.
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    Acoustic Correlates To Contrastive Tone Heights In Two African Languages
    (2021-10-19) Oakley, Madeleine
    Languages with contrastive tone may phonetically realize tonal distinctions through changes in F0, relative F0, and vowel duration, amongst other cues (Abramson 1979; Zhang 2001; Levi 2005; Brunelle & Kirby 2016; Yu 2010). It has been argued that there is a universal correlation between vowel duration and F0, where H tones correspond to short vowels, and L tones correspond to long vowels (Abramson 1979; Dreher & Lee 1968; Gandour 1977). This pilot study expands the study of acoustic correlates of tonal contrasts by examining the interaction of pitch and duration in two understudied African languages: Nobiin and Guébie. The pilot study results do not show evidence for a negative correlation between pitch and vowel duration, suggesting this presumed universal correlation may be language (or even speaker) specific. Furthermore, the acoustic correlates to tone are independent of the phonological inventories of Nobiin and Guébie, which has implications for the phonetics/phonology interface.