Differences in male and female vocal tract dimensions are hypothesized to have a number of dynamic consequences – undershoot, greater acoustic vowel space size, articulatory speed. Evidence for some of these predictions is sought by investigating articulatory and acoustic patterns in interword vowel sequences in the University of Wisconsin X-ray Microbeam Speech Production Database (UWDB). Mean...

Studies of proficient second-language (L2) learners have often noted phonetic drift of their native language (L1) vis-à-vis monolingual norms. Such drift has been attributed to perceptual linkage between similar sounds in L1 and L2. This study provides evidence that L1 phonetic drift is limited neither to advanced L2 learners, nor to crosslanguage influence at a segmental level. During the firs...

Talkers vary in the phonetic realization of their vowels. One influential hypothesis holds that listeners overcome this inter-talker variability through pre-linguistic auditory mechanisms normalize acoustic or cues form input to speech recognition. Dozens competing normalization accounts exist—including both specific vowel perception and general purpose can be applied any type cue. We add cross...

Compression of the vowel space area and reduced dispersion have been observed as features California Vowel Shift (CVS, D’Onofrio, Pratt, Van Hofwegen 2019). The present research provides empirical data to address gap in literature regarding influence regional sound change on contact languages, namely CVS Bay Area Spanish. Analysis word list tasks given bilingual speakers Spanish monolingual Mex...

This paper examines two current sound changes in Canadian English (CE): the Canadian Shift (CS) and the fronting of back-upgliding vowels. Among the changes involved in the CS is the retraction of the TRAP vowel from its initial position in the low-front quadrant of the vowel space to a new position in the low-central region. Among the changes affecting the back-upgliding vowels is a forward sh...

This paper explores the reason why Finnish single (short) vowels tend to occupy less peripheral positions in the F1/F2 vowel space compared to their double (long) counterparts. The results of two production studies suggest that the less extreme vowel quality of single vowels is best described as arising from undershoot of articulatory/acoustic targets due to their short durations, assuming sing...

This paper presents an analysis of DRESS and FLEECE in the speech of 80 New Zealanders. We show that DRESS is continuing to raise as part of the New Zealand English front vowels chain shift until it has almost completely overlapped the space occupied by FLEECE. In response, FLEECE is developing a more pronounced on-glide, so that a long vowel is becoming caught up in what has been a short vowel...

Acoustic space is a useful tool which shows how the formant frequencies help objectively define the vowel space in a language. The present study revalidates the use of an empirically verifiable, quantifiable concept of acoustic space which also helps us revisit the DT Hypothesis and Quantal Theory. Through this study the authors show how relative positioning of vowels in vowel space is more imp...