Experimental Linguistics

Allongements vocaliques en français de Belgique : une approche perceptive

by Alice Bardiaux

co-authored with Philippe Boula de Mareüil
published in proceedings of "La perception des accents du français hors de France. Avignon - 17-18 nov. 2011"

Ipsilateral and Contralateral Phonetic Context Effects

by Kevin Sitek

Undergraduate honors thesis coordinated by Keith Johnson.

Published in the UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2011).

Research in the field of speech perception has shown that the perception of certain speech sounds is dependent on... more Research in the field of speech perception has shown that the perception of certain speech sounds is dependent on their neighboring sounds. In this paper, we will show that this phonetic context effect is significant regardless of whether the context is presented to the same ear as the base target or the isolated third formant transition. Additionally, the results hint that the effect is greater when the formant transitions are presented to the ipsilateral ear as the context segment than when they are presented to the contralateral ear. The results therefore describe a process in which the left and right auditory streams combine before most, but likely not all, phonetic information is retrieved.

An articulatory study of word-initial stop gemination in Cypriot Greek

by Spyros Armosti

Armosti, Spyros (2012/to appear) An articulatory study of word-initial stop gemination in Cypriot Greek. To appear in the Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of Greek Linguistics (Komotini, 1–4 September 2011).

In languages that allow word-initial voiceless geminate stops, the acoustic duration of the closure (which is the main... more In languages that allow word-initial voiceless geminate stops, the acoustic duration of the closure (which is the main cue to gemination) cannot be perceptually detected after a pause (i.e. utterance-initially); thus, if there are no secondary acoustic cues to gemination, the contrast can be expected to be neutralised. However, recent studies have shown that, even though the gemination contrast is neutralised acoustically and perceptually, articulatorily the distinction still holds in languages such as Swiss German (Kraehenmann & Lahiri, 2008). In these articulatory studies, it was shown that word-initial geminates were systematically longer in their articulation than their singleton counterparts, both utterance medially and initially (despite of the fact that in the latter case there was no acoustic difference in duration between singleton and geminate stops). An equally important finding of those studies was that stops were longer in utterance-initial position than in utterance-medial, a finding that was interpreted as prosodic lengthening (and strengthening in cases whereby it involved more linguopalatal contact). Lengthening and strengthening effects of prosodic factors on stops are expected to manifest acoustically and articulatorily in Cypriot Greek (CyGr) also. Furthermore, these phonetic effects may interact with possible strengthening effects that may accompany the phonological contrast of stop gemination. Since in CyGr, the gemination contrast of voiceless stops is acoustically and perceptually maintained even in absolute initial position because of the presence of long aspiration (which is a strong cue to gemination), it would be interesting to investigate whether the contrast is also articulatorily maintained utterance-initially.
These aspects of the articulation of CyGr stop gemination were investigated with an electropalatographic study, the results of which are reported in this paper. In particular, the acoustic durational contrast between singleton and geminate alveolar stops was shown to be mirrored at the articulatory level in terms of the length of articulation, even in utterance-initial position. However, this was true only in the unstressed case, as stress and position in the utterance seem to have enhancing effects on the duration and strength of the consonants. These enhancing phonetic effects indicate that there can be some gradience in the binary phonological contrast between singletons and geminates, in the sense that the length and strength of the stops are susceptible to these prosodic factors; a consequence of this gradience is the articulatory neutralisation of the singleton~geminate contrast under the combined influence of stress and utterance position. Nevertheless, the contrast is always preserved acoustically (and perceptually) by means of the duration of the stop’s aspiration.

The perception of Cypriot Greek 'Super-Geminates'

by Spyros Armosti

Armosti, Spyros (2007) The perception of Cypriot Greek super-geminates. In J. Trouvain & W. Barry (eds.) Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (Saarbrücken, 6–10 August 2007), 761–764.

In Cypriot Greek, word-final /n/ assimilates to word-initial fricative and sonorant geminates producing... more In Cypriot Greek, word-final /n/ assimilates to word-initial fricative and sonorant geminates producing ‘super-geminates’. This study examines whether these super-geminates are perceptually distinct from other types of word-initial and post-lexical geminates. The results of the study indicate that super-geminates were not readily identified by the subjects, while the contrast between word-initial geminates and singletons was more marked.

The perception of plosive gemination in Cypriot Greek

by Spyros Armosti

Armosti, Spyros (2010) The perception of plosive gemination in Cypriot Greek. In A. Ralli, B. D. Joseph, M. Janse, & A. Karasimos (eds.) On-line Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistic Theory (Chios, 11–14 June 2009), 33–53.

In the literature on Cypriot Greek (CyGr) geminate stops and affricates, there has been a recent debate on the main... more In the literature on Cypriot Greek (CyGr) geminate stops and affricates, there has been a recent debate on the main cues to gemination. While some studies deem closure duration (CD) to be the main cue to CyGr plosive gemination (as is the case with most other languages), others argue for the primacy of aspiration as a correlate of CyGr plosive gemination.
Most of those studies were acoustic ones, therefore the cues to which they referred were acoustic cues; if one is to make any claims about the perception of those cues, this should only be done based on a perceptual study. There have been a couple of perceptual studies on CyGr plosive gemination, but they were somewhat limited in scope.
In order for a study to compare the perceptual weight of closure duration vs. aspiration, a perceptual study on the relative perceptual importance of the various cues to CyGr stop gemination was designed and conducted.
The results of the study showed that both CD and aspiration are important perceptual cues to gemination, with aspiration exhibiting marginally more perceptual weight than CD. Interestingly, at a purely temporal level, the duration of aspiration per se (i.e. without considering the other cues related to aspiration, such as its intensity) is substantially of less importance than the duration of the closure. However, since aspiration influences perception not only by its duration, but also by the other cues related to it, the finding regarding aspiration as a combination of cues (i.e. that aspiration is slightly a better predictor for gemination than CD) should be of more relevance to the debate. Regardless of which of the two elements of the stop is more important for the perception of gemination, what this study demonstrates about CD is that it cannot be denied that CD is an important perceptual cue to gemination in CyGr—nearly as important as aspiration. This finding can serve as a further indication towards analysing the plosive system of CyGr as one contrasting (unaspirated) singletons with (aspirated) geminates, rather than merely unaspirated with aspirated plosives. If the latter had been the case, as some researches have argued, then CD would not have exhibited such a perceptual weight.
Consequently, the perception of plosive gemination in Cypriot Greek is partly determined by CD, i.e. the universally main cue to gemination; however, in Cypriot Greek aspiration serves as a marginally more important cue than CD.

Fricative and sonorant super-geminates in Cypriot Greek: a perceptual study

by Spyros Armosti

Armosti, Spyros (2011) Fricative and sonorant super-geminates in Cypriot Greek: a perceptual study. In M. Janse, B. Joseph, P. Pavlou, A. Ralli, & S. Armosti (eds.), Studies in Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistic Theory. Nicosia: Research Centre of Kykkos Monastery, 97–112.

In Cypriot Greek word-final /n/ assimilates to word-initial continuants producing post-lexical geminates, e.g. /ˈipɐn... more In Cypriot Greek word-final /n/ assimilates to word-initial continuants producing post-lexical geminates, e.g. /ˈipɐn ˈliɐ/ → [ˈipɐˈlːiɐ], i.e. ‘they said Lia’ (proper name). Before word-initial geminates, word-final /n/ does not fully disappear, but rather makes the following geminate even longer acoustically, thus creating a kind of ‘super-geminate’; e.g. /ˈipɐn ˈlliɐ/ → [ˈipɐˈlːˑiɐ], i.e. ‘they said few’. Thus, at word boundaries there can appear four kinds of continuants: word-initial lexical singletons, word-initial lexical geminates, word-boundary post-lexical geminates, and word-boundary post-lexical super-geminates.
The aim of this study was to investigate whether these four categories are perceptually distinguished from one another in the case of the lateral [l] and the sibilant [ʃ]. The results of the study indicated that the contrast between word-initial singletons and word-initial geminates (i.e. the lexical categories) was more marked than any differences involving the post-lexical categories, which were not readily identified by the subjects. These findings suggest that, even though the four categories under investigation are durationally distinct from one another, perceptually only the lexical categories (i.e. word-initial singletons and word-initial geminates) are linguistically functional.

The perception of Cypriot Greek ‘Super Geminates’ (MPhil Thesis)

by Spyros Armosti

Armosti, S. (2006) The perception of Cypriot Greek ‘Super Geminates’. Unpublished M.Phil. dissertation, University of Cambridge.

Cypriot Greek has plosive, fricative, affricate and sonorant geminates, most of which can appear in word-medial and... more Cypriot Greek has plosive, fricative, affricate and sonorant geminates, most of which can appear in word-medial and word-initial position.
Post-lexically, word-final /n/ assimilates to word-initial fricatives and sonorants producing geminates. It was commonly believed that word-final /n/ deletes before word-initial geminates and (most of the) consonant clusters, but recently it was statistically proven  by Payne & Eftychiou (2006) that word-final /n/ does not fully disappear, but makes the following geminate even longer, thus creating a kind of ‘super-geminate’.
The aim of this study was to go a step further, and try to investigate whether super-geminates are perceived by native speakers of Cypriot Greek to be different from word-initial geminates and/or post-lexical geminates. To broaden the picture, four categories (with the addition of word-initial singleton) were examined for two segments, namely the lateral [l] and the sibilant [ʃ], to test whether they are all distinguishable from one another.
The results of the perceptual study indicated that the main contrast is that between word-initial singletons and word-initial geminates, while the post-lexical categories were not very readily identified by the subjects. Super-geminates exhibited similarities to word-initial geminates (i.e. the category they derived from). Additional spectral cues resulted in enhancing the difference between singleton and word-initial geminate (instead of favouring the post-lexical categories against the lexical). These findings suggest that, even though the four categories under investigation are durationally distinct from one another, perceptually only the lexical categories (i.e. word-initial singletons and word-initial geminates) are linguistically functional.

The phonetics of plosive and affricate gemination in Cypriot Greek (PhD Thesis)

by Spyros Armosti

Armosti, S. (2011) The phonetics of plosive and affricate gemination in Cypriot Greek. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.

The aim of this dissertation is to contribute as much as possible to the limited knowledge about the phonetics and... more The aim of this dissertation is to contribute as much as possible to the limited knowledge about the phonetics and phonology of Cypriot Greek (CyGr) geminates by examining the acoustics, articulation, and perception of CyGr plosive and affricate gemination. CyGr plosives and affricates were selected in particular, because their gemination is realised rather unusually, i.e. by means of both the closure and release. The investigation of CyGr stop and affricate gemination has also theoretical implications, such as which theoretical framework (moraic or timing-based theory) would best accommodate CyGr geminates, how CyGr geminates should be syllabified, the moraicity of geminates and its phonetic implementation, the existence of moraic onsets, and the correlation between gemination and aspiration.
The first chapter of the thesis introduces CyGr providing a brief description of its phonetic inventory with a focus on geminates.
Chapter 2 comprises an acoustic study of lexical and post-lexical gemination of CyGr stops and affricates, both at the segmental and suprasegmental level.
Chapter 3 is a limited articulatory study of lexical alveolar stops, which supplemented the evidence from Chapter 2.
Chapter 4 reports the results of a perceptual study on lexical alveolar stops, aiming to identify the cues that play a role in the perception of geminates by speakers of CyGr.
Chapter 5 presents the second perceptual experiment of the thesis, which tests if and how speakers of CyGr differentiate perceptually between word-initial singleton, word-initial geminate, word-boundary geminate, and word-boundary super-geminate stops.
Chapter 6 consists of four perceptual experiments, each one testing the perception of stimuli from six languages (namely CyGr, Turkish, Italian, Polish, English, and Korean) by native speakers of one of four languages: CyGr, Cypriot Turkish, Polish, and Italian.
Finally, Chapter 7 discusses the phonological and phonetic status of CyGr geminate stops and affricates and suggests theoretical implications of the collective results.

The acoustics of Cypriot Greek post-lexical gemination: the case of plosives and affricates.

by Spyros Armosti

Armosti, Spyros (2012/to appear) The acoustics of Cypriot Greek post-lexical gemination: the case of plosives and affricates. To appear in G. Georgrakopoulos, A. Frangaki, C. Themistocleous (eds), Current Trends in Greek Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This study aims to investigate the acoustic correlates of post-lexical gemination of plosives and affricates in... more This study aims to investigate the acoustic correlates of post-lexical gemination of plosives and affricates in Cypriot Greek (CyGr), something that has not been previously explored. CyGr plosive and affricate lexical geminates are rather unusual, as they are distinguished from singletons by both longer closure and longer release. As for plosive and affricate post-lexical gemination, it is impressionistically reported by Davy and Panayotou (2004) to differ from lexical gemination with regard to its phonetic realisation, something though that awaits empirical confirmation.
In order to formally investigate this unexplored area of CyGr phonetics, an acoustic experiment on the process of post-lexical gemination of CyGr plosives and affricates of all places of articulation was designed and conducted.
The results of the experiment indicate that while CyGr plosive and affricate geminates are longer than their singleton counterparts by means of CD and ACT (i.e. frication and/or aspiration), post-lexical gemination (or super-gemination) is achieved by elongation of CD. Thus, longer CD can be considered the main cue to geminates (be they lexical or post-lexical), while ACT functions as an enhancing correlate for the lexical contrast between singleton and geminate non-continuants.

Language as a factor in the identification of ordinary words and number words.

by Jyotsna Vaid

Acceptability and processing of long-distance dependencies in Danish

by Mads Poulsen

Most Meanings are Superlative

by Hadas Kotek

In: Experiments at the Interfaces
Syntax and Semantics, Volume 37
ISSN: 0092-4563/doi:10.1108/S0092-4563(2011)0000037008

Recent research on the semantics of quantificational expressions has taken on the task of relating the... more Recent research on the semantics of quantificational expressions has taken on the task of relating the truth-conditional import of quantifiers with their impact on verification procedures. In particular, the semantic analysis and verification procedures associated with the proportional quantifier most have been studied in a variety of ways in an effort to reveal the correct semantic analysis of most. This chapter presents new experimental evidence in favor of a treatment that analyzes most uniformly as a superlative construction built in the syntax, rather than a quantificational determiner with rich internal semantics that does not, however, interface with syntax any more than other lexical determiners do. The evidence comes in the form of a latent superlative reading of sentences with most in subject position, like most of the dots are blue. We show, using three different experiments involving verification tasks, that most is ambiguous in this environment between a dominant proportional reading and a latent superlative reading.

Perception of French, Belgian and Swiss accents by French and Belgian listeners

by Alice Bardiaux

co-authored with Philippe Boula de Mareüil
published in proceedings of 9th ISCA conference (2011)

Weak definite noun phrases: rich, but not strong, special, but not unique

by Natalie Klein

Spatial Frames of Reference in Sumu-Mayangna

by Alyson Eggleston

Co-authored with Elena Benedicto, Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna
To be published in Language Sciences, 2011

A linguistic spatial task, conducted with five dyads of Sumu-Mayangna speakers, provides evidence that while speakers... more A linguistic spatial task, conducted with five dyads of Sumu-Mayangna speakers, provides evidence that while speakers have diffuse access to spatial Frames of Reference (FoRs), the direct was most preferred. Further, the absolute FoR is found to be restricted to the lateral/ east–west axis, with older generations displaying a greater proportion of use than younger
ones. In addition, the possible exploitation of a meronymy system is discussed. A nonlinguistic spatial memory task indicates a bias toward an absolute solution type, and this
partly mirrors observed trends in the linguistic task, providing some evidence for alignment between language and cognition.

In the beginning there were the weird: A phonotactic novelty preference in adult word learning

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

First author Lamia Johnston

Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2011

It has been argued that words that contain difficult-
to-pronounce sound sequences may be avoided in more It has been argued that words that contain difficult-
to-pronounce sound sequences may be avoided in
production, causing words with difficult
phonotactics to drop out of the language at a
disproportionate rate. We argue that there is also
an opposing pressure favoring phonetically
unusual words. We show that, at least for adults,
word learning is more successful for words with
unfamiliar phonetic properties to the listener. After
a ten minute ambiguous training session where two
novel objects were presented with an audio
recording of nonce words, subjects were tested on
their memory of the creatures’ ―names‖. The
results show a preference for words that contain
illegal word-initial consonant clusters over words
that obey the subjects’ native language
phonotactics.

There is more to the story: First-mention lengthening in Thai interactive discourse

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

First author Prakaiwan Vajrabhaya

Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 2011

We investigate the effect of previous mention on
word duration in interactive Thai discourse. Words
that... more We investigate the effect of previous mention on
word duration in interactive Thai discourse. Words
that are mentioned for the first time are reliably
longer than words that have already been
mentioned, with no significant difference in
duration between second and subsequent mentions,
suggesting first-mention lengthening rather than
repetition-driven reduction. In addition, we find
that word duration is "reset" to its original value at
the beginning of a new story, even if the story
involves the same referents as the old story,
indicating that the effect is not driven by lexical
access difficulties. The observed robustness of
first-mention lengthening is thus inconsistent with
all current theories of the phenomenon and
suggests that localization of relevant processing
difficulties to lexical access is premature.

Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization

by Eve Danziger

Pederson, Eric, Eve Danziger, Stephen Levinson, Sotaro Kita, Gunter Senft and David Wilkins. 1998. Semantic Typology and Spatial Conceptualization. Language. 74(3):557-589.

This project collected linguistic data for spatial relations across a typologically and genetically varied set of... more This project collected linguistic data for spatial relations across a typologically and genetically varied set of languages. In the linguistic analysis, we focus on the ways in which propositions may be functionally equivalent across the linguistic communities while nonetheless representing semantically quite distinctive frames of reference. Running nonlinguistic experiments on subjects from these language communities, we find that a population's cognitive frame of reference correlates with the linguistic frame of reference within the same referential domain.

La variation inter-langues dans l'encodage sémantique et cognitif des relations spatiales: Quelques réflexions sur les données du maya mopan

by Eve Danziger

Danziger, E. 1997. La Variation Inter-Langues dans l’Encodage Sémantique et Cognitif des Relations Spatiales: Quelques Réflexions sur les Données du Maya Mopan. Diversité des Langues et Représentations Cognitives. Catherine Fuchs and Stéphane Robert (eds), pp. 58-80. Raymond Boyd (tr.). Editions Ophrys, Paris.

Getting Here from There: The Acquisition of Point of View in Mopan Maya. In -Ethos: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology-. 26(1):48-72.

by Eve Danziger

In -Ethos: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology-. 26(1):48-72.

A study of the Mopan Maya verb tal (coming) shows that ideal adult usage makes reference to the speaker's own... more A study of the Mopan Maya verb tal (coming) shows that ideal adult usage makes reference to the speaker's own location. Child acquisition, however, proceeds by a process of refinement toward rather than a process of extension from this ideal. The moment at which linguistically expressed "point of view" is understood to be ideally restricted to the speaker is critical in social interactionist developmental accounts. It is only after this moment (in the current data, perhaps around eight years of age) that children might be able to use language to see themselves "through the eyes of the Other."