Linking Vowel Height and Creaky Voice Laura M. Panfili - lpanfili@uw.edu The University of Washington April 23, 2016 Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 1/20
Research Questions and Hypotheses Is creaky voice more likely to occur on low vowels than on high vowels in English? High à Low à Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 2/20
Background Phonation Phonation: the process of using air pressure to set the vocal folds into vibration Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 3/20
Background Phonation Types The phonation continuum (Gordon and Ladefoged, 2001): No vocal fold vibration because vocal folds are spread Graphics by Dan McCloy Vocal folds spend more time open than closed Voiced Sounds Vocal folds spend approximately equal amounts of time open and closed, maximum vibration Vocal folds spend more time closed than open No vocal fold vibration because vocal folds are closed (glottal stop) Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 4/20
Background Phonation Voice quality changes based on manipulation of vocal fold: (Raphael et al., 2007) Thickness Length Separation Phonation is used in different ways by different languages Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 5/20
YEAH Breathy Modal Creaky Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 6/20
Methods The Corpus ATAROS (Automatic Tagging and Recognition of Stance) Corpus (Freeman, 2015) Pairs of native PNW English speakers Roughly matched for age Matched or crossed for gender Five collaborative tasks designed to elicit changes in stance Recorded at the UW Phonetics Lab Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 7/20
Methods The Sample 8 pairs (16 speakers) 11 female, 5 male 21 70 years old Budget Task Asked to work together to balance an imaginary town budget The final of five tasks -> most natural speech ~95 minutes of conversation Dyad 1 F, 21 M, 24 Dyad 2 F, 70 F, 68 Dyad 3 M, 26 F, 24 Dyad 4 M, 24 F, 23 Dyad 5 F, 21 F, 27 Dyad 6 F, 49 M, 49 Dyad 8 F, 39 M, 38 Dyad 9 F, 23 F, 19 Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 8/20
Methods Tagging Phonation Vowels were tagged for phonation type based on auditory judgments Two phonetically trained raters Cohen s Kappa 0.85 Tags: B: Breathy M: Modal C: Creaky 0: Flaw in the recording or alignment 1: Something interesting but irrelevant or problematic Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 9/20
Methods Data in the Analysis The final sample excludes: Vowels tagged as 0 or 1 Unstressed vowels Reduced vowels All but the four corner vowels /i u æ ɑ/ The analyzed data includes /i u æ ɑ/ tagged as B, M, C in stressed syllables à 2,459 vowels Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 10/20
Results Vowel Spaces Plotted vowels to verify that they are representative of a typical PNW vowel space Modal tokens only for these vowel plots Male Speakers Female Speakers Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 11/20
Results Vowel Height and Creak Vowel Height Breathy Modal Creaky Total Low 89 (6.6%) 832 (61.8%) 425 (31.6%) 1346 (54.7%) High 62 (5.6%) 873 (78.4%) 178 (16%) 1113 (45.3%) Total 151 (6.1%) 1705 (69.3%) 603 (24.5%) 2459 Low vowels are significantly more likely to be creaky than high vowels (χ2(1, N = 2459) = 83.58, p <.001) Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 12/20
Results Vowel Height and Creak Creaky à phonagon low high Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 13/20
Results - Gender Do women use creaky voice more than men? Breathy Modal Creaky Total Male 22 (3.1%) 514 (72.1%) 177 (24.8%) 713 Female 129 (7.4%) 1191 (68.2%) 426 (24.4%) 1746 Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 14/20
Results - Gender Do women use creaky voice more than men? Women Men phonagon Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 15/20
Discussion Intrinsic Fundamental Frequency (IF0): low vowels have a lower pitch than high vowels (Whalen and Levitt, 1995) The tongue position required in high vowels pulls on the larynx, increasing tension on the vocal folds à higher F0 Creaky voice is produced with low longitudinal tension on the vocal folds, so it would be harder to achieve on high vowels Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 16/20
Conclusion Low vowels are more likely to be creaky than high vowels in this corpus of PNW English Men and women creak with the same frequency Physiology may underpin this pattern high vowels cause more vocal fold tension than low vowels, and creaky voice requires low tension Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 17/20
Future Directions What about breathy voice? Does this pattern hold in other dialects or languages? In languages that use phonation contrastively, are creaky high vowels as frequent as creaky low vowels in the inventory? (Check back with me on this in a few weeks! J) Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 18/20
QUESTIONS? Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 19/20
References Esling, J. H. (2006). Voice Quality. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, pages 470 474. Oxford: Elsevier Freeman, V. (2015). The Phonetics of Stance-Taking. PhD thesis, University of Washington. Gordon, M. and Ladefoged, P. (2001). Phonation types: a cross-linguistic overview. Journal of Phonetics, 29:283 406. Ladefoged, P. and Johnson, K. (2015). A Course in Phonetics. Wadsworth, 7 edition. Laver, J. (1980). The Phonetic Description of Voice Quality. Cambridge University Press, 1 edition. McCloy, D. (2015). phonr: tools for phoneticians and phonologists. R package version 1.0-3. Ohala, J. J. and Eukel, B. W. (1987). Explaining the intrinsic pitch of vowels. In Channon, R. and Shockey, L., editors, In honor of Ilse Lehiste, pages 207 215. Dordrecht. Raphael, L. J., Borden, G. J., and Harris, K. S. (2007). Speech Science Primer: Physiology, Acoustics, and Perception of Speech. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 5 edition. Wassink, A. (2015). Sociolinguistic patterns in Seattle English. Language Variation and Change, 27:31 58. Whalen, D. H. and Levitt, A. G. (1995). The universality of intrinsic f0 of vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 23:349 366. Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 20/20
EXTRA SLIDES Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 21/20
Phonetic Stop Words Excluded from Analysis a about all am an and any are as at be been before being but by can cant can t cause could cuz did do does doing dont don t dunno else em cept few for from get gets going gonna got gotten had has have haven t havent havin he her hers him his how i i d id if i m im in is it its just k kay let let s lets like lot may me my nd of on or our ours out own r she should so some still that thats that s the their theirs them then there theres there s these they this those til till to uh us um very wanna want wants was we well went were what when where which while who will with would you your yours Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 22/20
Phonation Type Corner Vowels æ ɑ i u Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 23/20
Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 24/20
Longitudinal Tension the degree of stretching force on the vocal folds (Zemlin, 1998) Controlled by the thyroarytenoid muscle Creaky voice involves low LT Shorter vocal folds More mass per unit length Slower vibration à lower F0 Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 25/20
Laryngeal Cartilages and Parameters Thyroid Cartilage Cricoid Cartilage Longitudinal! Tension Medial Compression Arytenoid Cartilage Posterior Cricoarytenoid Cartilage Adductive Tension Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 26/20
Vowel Space, All Speakers, Nearey 2-Normalized Research Q & Hypotheses Background Methods Results Discussion Conclusion 27/20