Search

In the current study, we explore the factors underlying the well-known difficulty in acoustic classification of front nonsibilant fricatives (Maniwa, Jongman & Wade 2009, McMurray & Jongman 2011) by applying a novel classification method to the production of Greek speakers. The Greek fricative inventory [f v θ ð s z ç ʝ x ɣ] includes voiced and voiceless segments from five distinct places of articulation. Our corpus contains all of the Greek fricatives produced by 29 monolingual speakers, but our focus is on the distinction between the front nonsibilant fricatives [f v θ ð]. For comparison, we also discuss the other places of articulation where relevant. We apply a relatively novel classification method based on cepstral coefficients, previously successful in categorizing English obstruent bursts (Bunnell, Polikoff & McNicholas 2004), English vowels (Ferragne & Pellegrino 2010), Romanian fricatives (Spinu & Lilley 2016), and Russian fricatives (Spinu, Kochetov & Lilley 2018). For this study, fricative boundaries were automatically aligned using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and then manually checked. Six Bark-frequency cepstral coefficients (c0–c5) were extracted from 20-millisecond Hann windows. HMMs were used to divide the fricatives and adjacent vowels into three regions of internally minimized variance. A multinomial logistic regression analysis then used the mean cepstral coefficients from each region as predictors for classification by consonant identity. Our method yields highly successful classification rates, exceeding the performance of previous methods. We discuss these results in light of the differences of the phonemic distributions of fricatives between English and Greek.

Numerous studies indicate positive effects of bilingualism on cognition, mostly found in the domains such as attention, inhibitory control, auditory processing, and memory (Bialystok, 2018; Krizman et al., 2012; Spinu, 2022). While most studies focusing on memory have explored differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in working memory and, more recently, in auditory sensory memory, the question of whether bilingualism also affects iconic memory remains understudied. In this study, we explore whether bilingual experience results in enhanced iconic memory in the form of gestural, visuospatial recognition. We present bilingual and monolingual participants from NYC (n = 40) with thirty sets of foreign characters, one at a time, then ask them to recall which characters they have seen before from a list of characters that includes novel ones bearing high resemblance with previously shown characters. Second, we display to the same participants thirty sets of ASL signs (15 2D images and 15 3D short videos), with high resemblance as well, utilizing the same method to evaluate their gestural and visuospatial abilities in iconic memory. While the experiment is currently underway, the findings will shed more light on whether the benefits associated with additional language experience extend to non-linguistic domains, likely resulting from enhanced cognitive function mechanisms.

Recent work has shown that exposure to orthographic effects can promote first-language (L1) phonological transfer. However, it is relatively unknown whether orthographic effects persist in highly proficient bilinguals. Here, we examined how L1 orthographic depth (regularity in grapheme-phoneme correspondences) modulated Korean-English and Farsi-English bilinguals’ (n = 25 each) production of fricatives in English words (e.g., /ˈmeloʊ/ vs. /ˈmelən/). Native English speakers (n = 25) served as a control group. Because fricatives are produced as geminate sounds in both Korean and Farsi, we expected L1-based transfer. Participants completed four tasks: an eye-movement reading task, word-naming task, cloze test, and language background questionnaire. The stimuli were controlled for word frequency, word length, number of syllables, and stress. We expect language-specific differences, corroborating previous neuro-linguistic evidence that shallow and deep orthographies differentially rely more heavily on phonological and lexical pathways, depending on language-specific demands. To explore this aspect, we employed an acoustic classification method for fricatives extracting cepstral coefficients and using HMMs to divide the sounds in regions based on their internal variance, aimed at determining whether fricatives produced by different groups can be classified correctly. This work has implications for both second-language (L2) speech learning models and classroom instruction.

Research has revealed positive consequences of bilingualism on cognition, some of which have been collectively referred to as the ‘bilingual advantage’, although the term remains controversial. The lack of replicability of such studies is often ascribed to methodological issues, such as the difficulty of quantifying the bilingual experience. Emerging areas of research where a consistent bilingual advantage has been identified include studies on phonetic and phonological learning (PPL)—the ability to learn the features of a novel accent effectively after initial exposure. Our main goal is to explore articulatory skill as a potential mechanism underlying the differences in PPL between mono- and bilingual populations. We used MRI instrumentation to visualize the movements of the tongue, lips and velum as our English monolingual and English-Spanish bilingual participants (n = 24) were trained to produce unfamiliar speech sounds, specifically high front rounded vowels, low back nasalized vowels, and secondarily palatalized labiodental fricatives. We also administered a PPL task and a performance-based test of language proficiency. With data analysis underway, we hypothesize that PPL correlates with articulatory skill and proficiency modulates the results across the board. Our study thus adds to the body of work on the coupling between sensory and cognitive functions.

Phonetic and phonological learning was reported to be enhanced in bilinguals; however, the underlying mechanisms remain understudied. Prior work suggests a bilingual advantage in articulatory skill and auditory sensory memory, raising the question of the involvement of sensorimotor functions in phonetic and phonological learning. To explore this relationship, we compare the performance of English monolinguals and English-Spanish bilinguals on three tasks:(1) Articulatory skill, using a novel sound learning task with articulatory complex sounds not present in our participants' inventory.(2) Auditory sensory memory, measured via an adaptive digit span task. (3) Phonetic and phonological learning, using an artificial accent of English displaying diphthongization of mid-front lax vowels and tapping of intervocalic liquids. All tasks were conducted online 1-on-1 via Zoom. Tasks 1 and 3 were scored based on four listeners' perceptual judgments. For Task 2, we obtained response accuracy and input-output similarity scores. While data analysis is currently underway, preliminary findings replicate the previously observed bilingual advantage in phonological learning and auditory sensory memory and reveal a correlation between them. Bringing together motor, sensory, and acquisitional components and investigating the ways in which they are related adds to lesser explored mechanisms potentially underlying the bilingual advantage.

Aims and objectives: Recent findings suggest enhanced phonetic and phonological learning ability in bilinguals compared with monolinguals. While other cognitive differences between these two groups have been identified in the past, the most frequently investigated mechanism potentially underlying them has been executive function. When considering phonetic and phonological learning, however, we are faced with greater involvement of sensorimotor mechanisms, since audition, perception, and articulation are all important components in the learning of new patterns of pronunciation. The present study investigates memory mechanisms, with a focus on auditory sensory memory, in these two groups of speakers. Methodology: An adaptive digit span task with suffix effect was administered to two groups of speakers (bilinguals and monolinguals). Data and analysis: The two groups were compared in terms of accuracy rates (overall and by serial position), maximum digit span reached, and the proportion of participants who reached the highest list length. Findings/conclusions: The results show that bilinguals have longer digit spans and demonstrate higher accuracy compared with monolinguals for all serial positions inside every list length, suggesting an advantage not only in terms of recently heard items (i.e., recency effect, attributable to auditory sensory mechanisms) but also for the items heard in the beginning of longer list lengths (i.e., primacy effect, attributable to working memory). Originality: The role of sensory mechanisms in language learning, in particular auditory sensory (echoic) memory, was posited to have been underestimated to date. The current study addresses this gap by investigating alternative mechanisms that could support differences in behavior resulting from language experience of various types. Significance/implications: The connection between auditory sensory memory and linguistic experience suggests that sensory mechanisms are involved in some of the observed cognitive differences between bilinguals and monolinguals. In particular, sensorimotor mechanisms might at least partially account for more effective phonetic and phonological learning in bilinguals. The current study thus sheds more light on the coupling between cognitive and sensory functions.

Despite considerable controversy surrounding the “bilingual advantage” phenomenon, recent meta-analyses reveal a majority of studies on the topic have reported that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on tasks related to executive functioning, such as mental flexibility and inhibitory mechanisms. A more recent line of investigation also shows that bilinguals typically score higher than monolinguals on tasks involving phonetic and phonological learning as well as auditory sensory memory. In this study, we aim to gain insight into how these different functions are related by exploring the correlations between four cognitive tasks in 30 bilinguals and 30 monolinguals. The tasks were designed to test: (1) inhibition; (2) mental flexibility; (3) phonetic and phonological learning (PPL); and (4) auditory sensory memory (ASM). All the participants were tested and data analysis is currently underway. Based on existing literature, we hypothesize enhanced bilingual performance on all of these tasks, as well as a connection between PPL and ASM. While the literature does not allow for a straightforward prediction, we will also investigate whether executive functions play a role in PPL and are correlated with ASM. Our study will thus lead to better understanding of the coupling between sensory and cognitive functions.

This study examines a rare cross-linguistic contrast, that between plain and secondarily palatalized postalveolar fricatives, through (i) an acoustic analysis of the production of 31 Romanian speakers, and (ii) a perception experiment with a different group of 31 native speakers. Evidence of acoustic separation between plain and palatalized forms was found for 27 of the subjects, suggesting that the contrast is produced by the majority. This is consistent with previous reports of native speakers collected in 1961. These findings were supported by the results of the perceptual experiment, which showed that native speakers exhibit moderate sensitivity to this contrast. An examination of each of the two genders' production separately suggests that a process of neutralization may be in progress, more strongly realized by males compared to females. Aside from documenting this phenomenon in Romanian, an explanation is sought for its longevity, and it is proposed that grammatical restructuring offers the best account for the observed facts.

Research question: We address the question of whether the cognitive advantage of the bilingual mind, already demonstrated in the case of auditory processing or novel word acquisition, also applies to other linguistic domains, specifically to phonetic and phonological learning. Design: We compare the performance of 17 monolinguals and 25 bilinguals from Canada in a production experiment with two tasks: imitation and spontaneous reproduction of a novel foreign accent, specifically Sussex English. Data and analysis: To eliminate potential sources of variability, our focus is on a sound already existing in the subjects’ production (the glottal stop), but differently mapped to surface representations in the novel accent to which they were exposed (i.e., as an allophone of coronal stops in word-final position). We measured the glottal stop rates of our subjects in baseline, training, and post-training. Results: The two groups behaved differently, with bilinguals showing a larger increase of their glottal stop rate post-training. Our results are thus consistent with a bilingual advantage in phonetic and phonological learning. Originality: We interpret these findings in light of recent psycholinguistic work and conclude that echoic memory strategies, possibly underlain by stronger subcortical encoding of sound in bilinguals, may account for our results by facilitating the re-mapping between existing mental representations of sounds and existing articulatory command configurations. Significance: Our study adds to the body of work suggesting that there may be an advantage of bilingualism in second dialect learning in adulthood, and provides an explanation in terms of perceptual strategies in which echoic memory is involved. We also contribute to the body of research suggesting that imitation of an action can result in improved understanding of that action.

The main goal of this study is to determine whether articulatory differences exist between monolinguals (n = 19) and bilinguals (n = 21) through the analysis of tongue-twister production, following Goldrick & Blumstein (2006). The latter were divided into early bilinguals (consistent exposure to both of their languages before age 5, n = 8), mid bilinguals (exposure to L2 between 5 and 10 years, n = 5), late bilinguals (L2 exposure between 10 and 15 years, n = 3) and trilinguals (n = 5).The stimuli comprised 64 sequences that each contained four syllables (e.g., kif tif tif kif) and had to be repeated three times to a beat of a metronome (150 beats per minute). The recordings were rated by a trained listener, who gave a score of 1 for each accurately produced onset and coda consonant, and a score of 0 otherwise. In addition, a subset of the sounds produced were manually aligned in Praat to validate the raters' scoring and determine whether speakers also differed in less perceptible aspects of speech. The results show that while there are no overall differences in accuracy between the two groups (monolingual versus multilingual), bilinguals who were first exposed to their second language later in life (between 5 and 15) exhibit a statistically significant advantage in the articulation of tongue-twisters (Dugaillard & Spinu, 2019). Our findings underscore the importance of directly measuring bilingual language proficiency and incorporating this information to experimental design (DelMaschio & Abutalebi 2018, Sulpizio et al. 2019).

A major issue in bilingualism research is how the bilingual mind processes and reconciles two languages without apparent difficulty when trying to use only one. Research has revealed that when bilinguals produce speech, cross-linguistic competition induced by simultaneous activation of both languages is circumvented by inhibitory and selection mechanisms that allow for phonological articulation of the desired language. Such language-specificprocesses are presumed to derive from domain-general mechanisms that monitor and regulate behavior, to ensure high levels of cognitive performance. To examine the connection between language-specific and domain-general processes, performance on linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks are compared. In our study, Spanish-English participants perform linguistic tasks that induce competition, inhibition, and selection (e.g., production of translation equivalents that are phonologically similar in the two languages) as well as non-linguistic tasks that induce similar challenges (e.g., alternating between visual or auditory stimuli depending on the task requirements). A fine-grained acoustic analysis of timing and accuracy in verbal production (i.e., VOT, vowel formants, frication spectral peak) will be performed. Positive correlations between performances on the two task categories would support the theoretical view that efficient mental manipulation of two languages relies on control mechanisms that are generally involved in higher-order cognitive behavior.

Bilingualism has been linked with improved function regarding certain aspects of linguistic processing, e.g., manipulating language in terms of discrete units, novel word acquisition, and learning unfamiliar sound patterns in novel accents. Recent experimental work with non-native contrasts suggests that bilinguals have enhanced phonetic learning and speech perception abilities compared to monolinguals. We investigate phonetic learning skills in monolinguals (n = 20) and early, simultaneous bilinguals (n = 20). The subjects were trained and tested on an artificial accent of English. One the features distinguishing the novel accent from the standard variety was the presence of vocalic epenthesis in the voiceless s-clusters [sp, st, sk]. For example, words such as “spy” or “school” were pronounced as “suh-py” [səpaj] and “suh-cool” [səkul]. A total of 760 target items were evaluated manually. A score of 1 was assigned for each token produced with an epenthetic vowel between s and the following consonant, otherwise the score was 0. Early bilinguals outperformed the monolinguals on the acquisition of this pattern. Acoustic analyses are underway to assess the differences between the two groups' productions, such as quality, duration, and placement of the epenthetic vowel, as preliminary observations revealed a high number of long-distance phenomena such as [spəhaj] or [spəʔaj].Bilingualism has been linked with improved function regarding certain aspects of linguistic processing, e.g., manipulating language in terms of discrete units, novel word acquisition, and learning unfamiliar sound patterns in novel accents. Recent experimental work with non-native contrasts suggests that bilinguals have enhanced phonetic learning and speech perception abilities compared to monolinguals. We investigate phonetic learning skills in monolinguals (n = 20) and early, simultaneous bilinguals (n = 20). The subjects were trained and tested on an artificial accent of English. One the features distinguishing the novel accent from the standard variety was the presence of vocalic epenthesis in the voiceless s-clusters [sp, st, sk]. For example, words such as “spy” or “school” were pronounced as “suh-py” [səpaj] and “suh-cool” [səkul]. A total of 760 target items were evaluated manually. A score of 1 was assigned for each token produced with an epenthetic vowel between s and the following consonant, ot...

Research shows that bilinguals tend to outperform monolinguals on certain cognitive tasks. While these advantages are typically attributed to differences in executive function, serial memory and syntactic processing may also help account for the differences observed between these populations. Bilinguals have been shown to outperform monolinguals on a variety of memory recall tasks, but it remains unclear whether these findings generalize to tasks involving serial memory. To answer this question, a digit recall task was administered to 11 monolingual and 11 bilingual participants. An algorithm was built to analyze the digit recall data and examine the mechanism underpinning the differences in memory performance in bilingual and monolingual participants. The algorithm found bilinguals making significantly fewer transpositional errors than monolinguals in the recall task (p < .005). One follow-up question pertained to the role of L1 syntactic processing as a possible predictor of serial memory error patterns. To test this question, a sentence recall task was administered to the same sample after completing the digit recall task. This task tested if bilingual exposure could predict syntactic memory error patterns. A Pearson's Chi-squared test found null results, leaving the transpositional error findings open for interpretation.

International audience; abstract

While not uncontroversial, the claim that bilingual experience underlies certain cognitive advantages has been at the forefront of recent work. Thus, enhanced skills were associated with bilingualism in terms of multitasking, auditory encoding of sound, and resistance to dementia. Among the mechanisms potentially supporting the cognitive differences between mono- and bilinguals, those pertaining to executive function have been investigated extensively. Our study adds to a more recently initiated direction seeking to determine if there is also a connection between bilingualism and sensorimotor mechanisms. Specifically, we explore experimentally articulatory skill, expressed as accuracy, speed, and acoustic prototypicality in the production of tongue-twisters. Three groups of undergraduates (n = 40)—monolingual, early bilinguals, and late bilinguals—read artificially constructed tongue-twisters such as “kifkivkivkif” three times in succession, matching a 150 bps rhythm on a metronome. After a practice session, each participant read 64 items, many of which induced mispronunciations. The productions were manually evaluated for correctness, revealing that the monolinguals and late bilinguals outperformed the early bilinguals. In the next phase, acoustic analyses will be performed to determine more fine-grained phonetic properties, e.g., consonant duration, formant transitions, and extent of devoicing, possibly revealing different hyper-/hypoarticulation patterns in the three groups.

This study explores the phenomenon of language attrition. Specifically, we investigate the phonetic properties of consonant gemination across three groups of speakers of Palestinian Arabic: monolinguals (i.e., native speakers born in Palestine who have lived there their entire life, n = 5), late bilinguals (i.e., speakers born in Palestine who emigrated to the US during their teens, n = 6), and heritage speakers (i.e., speakers of Palestinian descent, born in the US and who speak both English and Arabic in their daily lives, n = 7). All speakers were in their mid-1920s. The participants were tested using a delayed word repetition task. The stimuli comprised 158 bi-syllabic Arabic minimal and near-minimal pairs (e.g., /ħam:aːm/ “bathroom” versus /ħama:m/ “pigeon”) including long and short stops, fricatives, and sonorants. We controlled for stress and syllabic position. Distractors were also included. The acoustic analysis is underway, and consists of manually aligning the target consonants, extracting the mean consonant duration and comparing it across groups. Additional measures include voicing, aspiration, and formant transitions. The findings will enable us to address the question whether universal phonetic factors (from the perspective of Markedness Theory) have an effect on degree of attrition by specifically comparing consonants from different voicing categories and manners of articulation.

We collected production data from monolingual English speakers who were trained to produce a foreign accent of English, specifically Russian English (RE). First, the subjects read a paragraph in their own accent (baseline). Second, they listened to recordings of English sentences produced by a native speaker of Russian; next, the sentences were replayed, and the subjects imitated each sentence after hearing it. Finally, they were instructed to read the baseline sentences again (without audio prompts), trying their best to reproduce the RE accent. Several acoustic analyses are underway, addressing (a) vowel characteristics, (b) realization of stops, and (c) intonation patterns. Preliminary results show considerable differences in speakers' performance. The questions we address based on the data collected are (1) is there a continuous or more categorical change in speakers' ability to reproduce the RE accent? (2) which aspects of RE are most salient to native English speakers?, and (3) is there a correlation in quality and quantity such that speakers who pick up on more cues also produce them in more native-like manner? Our goal is to develop an algorithm to predict a given speaker's accentedness, and compare its performance with native speakers' accentedness ratings in a follow-up perceptual experiment. We collected production data from monolingual English speakers who were trained to produce a foreign accent of English, specifically Russian English (RE). First, the subjects read a paragraph in their own accent (baseline). Second, they listened to recordings of English sentences produced by a native speaker of Russian; next, the sentences were replayed, and the subjects imitated each sentence after hearing it. Finally, they were instructed to read the baseline sentences again (without audio prompts), trying their best to reproduce the RE accent. Several acoustic analyses are underway, addressing (a) vowel characteristics, (b) realization of stops, and (c) intonation patterns. Preliminary results show considerable differences in speakers' performance. The questions we address based on the data collected are (1) is there a continuous or more categorical change in speakers' ability to reproduce the RE accent? (2) which aspects of RE are most salient to native English speakers?, and (3) is there a correlatio...

Research shows that bilinguals tend to outperform monolinguals on certain cognitive and linguistic tasks. While the mechanism underlying these advantages remains unclear, it has been suggested that bilinguals have enhanced working memory, which may be responsible for some of the cognitive advantages observed in these populations. To examine the mechanism responsible for the bilingual advantage, serial working memory was compared between monolingual and bilingual undergraduate students using an adaptive digit span test (n = 77). The results of the test were algorithmically adjusted in order to reveal not only if each digit was correct, but also the existence of serial errors and digit scrambling. The results showed that bilinguals made significantly fewer transpositional errors compared to monolinguals (p < 0.02, d = 0.61). These results are thought to be caused by differences in attention to serial information between bilinguals and monolinguals. Another possible explanation for these results is that bilinguals implement more cognitive memory techniques (like chunking), and are therefore better at retaining serial information. The computational methods developed in this experiment will help guide paths for further research on the impact of syntactical co-activation on serial memory recall, and primacy/recency effects.

We use a classification tool previously tested on Romanian fricatives to categorize the front (non-sibilant) fricatives of English by place of articulation. Labiodental and interdental fricatives are difficult to distinguish acoustically, posing problems even for human perception. Prior classification work with English front fricatives has not been very successful with this contrast, with correct classification rates ranging from 40 to 60%. The feature set we use for coding the acoustic properties of the fricatives and their following vowels comprise the first six cepstral coefficients (c0–c5). The acoustic features are measured at 10-ms intervals across each segment; the measures obtained are then binned into three contiguous intervals for both the fricative and the vowel, representing the onset, steady state, and offset of each segment. The boundaries between regions are set by using a hidden Markov model to determine three internally uniform regions with respect to their acoustic properties. The mean v...

As part of a larger study investigating the acoustic correlates of accentedness in the reproduction of various accents of English by English monolinguals and French-English bilinguals, we explored speakers' ability to imitate and spontaneously reproduce patterns of realization of word-final coronal stops in three different accents: SE England (Sussex) in which these stops are 100% glottalized, and Russian English and South African English, in which these stops exhibit canonical release about 50% of the time. We have so far fully analyzed the Sussex results and partially analyzed the Russian results. The two groups were characterized by different behaviors: while the bilinguals successfully reproduced the Sussex English accent, the monolinguals did not. By contrast, neither of the groups was successful in reproducing the Russian English accent. After considering the characteristics of each group of speakers and each accent, we conclude tentatively that it is the bilinguals, as a group, who were more succes...

A recent gender identification study using Cepstral coefficients extracted from voiced and voiceless fricatives from four different places of articulation yielded 78% correct classification in a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) [Spinu and Lilley (2010)]. This high accuracy was somewhat unexpected, as previous cross‐linguistic studies of fricatives generally found no significant effects of gender on various types of acoustic measures. The current study investigates whether humans can identify gender based solely on frication noise as successfully as the LDA. 30 English‐speaking undergraduates were asked to identify the gender of fricatives produced by 10 speakers (5 males and 5 females)—a subset of the sounds used in the LDA study. The analysis, currently in progress, suggests that humans may not be as successful as the LDA. These findings are expected to shed light on both (a) the differential distribution of acoustic features related to gender in fricatives, and (b) the extent to which these features are available/employed in human perception.

The relationship between vowel length and a following NC cluster in Luganda and other Bantu languages has received attention from both phonetic and phonological perspectives, however, the data are typically drawn from relatively small corpora. This study provides the results of the first relatively large-scale acoustic investigation of Luganda, using systematically constructed stimuli recorded by 10 native speakers of Luganda in Kampala, Uganda. Our results mostly confirm earlier findings and lend support to claims that the most appropriate analysis for Luganda requires a mismatch between the underlying representation of vowels and following NC clusters and their phonetic manifestation. Underlyingly, such strings consist of a short vowel followed by a moraic nasal coda, with the consonant in the onset of the next syllable (i.e. VN.CV). By contrast, the surface phonetic form contains a long vowel that is claimed to be lengthened in compensation for the nasal's loss of moraic value, although the nature of the nasal is not altogether clear. We also provide measurements of the nasals and consonants in NC clusters and propose that they constitute a unitary pre-nasalized onset segment, as opposed to a consonant cluster in the onset of the syllable following the lengthened vowel (i.e. [CVV.N^CV]).

Several gender classification methods based on acoustic information were compared. The data came from 31 native speakers of Romanian (10 males, 21 females). A subset of fricatives and vowels (7348 tokens) was divided by hidden Markov model training into three acoustically uniform regions. For each region, (a) a set of cepstral coefficients, specifically c0–c4 and (b) two sets of spectral moments, specifically bark‐transformed and linear moments 1–4 plus rms, were extracted. The acoustic data were then used in a linear discriminant analysis to classify the tokens by gender. The findings show that cepstral coefficients perform better than spectral moments in gender classification, and that spectral moments are more successful than linear moments. The overall correct classification was 90% for the cepstral analysis, 78% for bark spectral moments, and 72% for linear moments. When the data from fricatives and vowels were examined separately, it was found that in all cases the vowel information yielded more acc...

Hidden Markov models (HMMs) with two types of acoustic features were used to classify fricatives by place of articulation and palatalization status. The data were recordings of 31 native speakers of Romanian who produced a total of 3674 fricatives. Segments from four places (labial, alveolar, postalveolar, and dorsal) were examined, each of which appeared as plain and palatalized (with a palatal secondary articulation). Both the fricatives and the preceding vowels were divided by HMM training into three acoustically uniform regions, corresponding to the three states of the HMM models. Separate sets of monophone HMMs were trained using (a) the first four spectral moments plus rms amplitude and (b) the first five Bark‐cepstral coefficients. Generally, the first and second regions/states of the fricatives were more important in classifying the segments by place, while the third state contributed more to the classification by palatalization status. The success of the classification depended on the specific co...

Departing from the crosslinguistic generalization whereby the contrast between the plain and palatalized consonants is favored at the coronal, as compared to the labial, place of articulation, recent perceptual studies show native speakers of Romanian displaying higher sensitivity to this contrast in labials. To investigate this unexpected behavior, a production study was conducted with 31 subjects. Five plain and palatalized fricatives (/f, v, z, S, h/) were analyzed in terms of average duration and spectral properties (coefficients of the Bark Cepstrum). A linear discriminant analysis was run using duration and the Cepstral coefficients to predict segment type (plain/palatalized). 78.2% of 3674 tokens were classified correctly; however, the contribution of the duration and spectral properties of each segment showed interesting asymmetries. To summarize, /h/ was most successfully distinguished, /S/ was least successfully distinguished, and /f/ and /v/ were distinguished better than /z/. Our acoustic anal...