Human palate and related structures: their articulatory consequences

Do Speakers' Vocal Tract Geometries Shape their Articulatory Vowel Space?

This study investigates the relation between para¬meters describing differences between speaker-speci¬fic vocal tract geometries and articulatory distances between the corner vowels based on MRI data of 9 French speakers. Results provide evidence that speaker with a longer pharynx produce larger displacements between low back and high front vowels. Preliminary modeling results are also presented with the aim to study the relation between motor commands, articulation and acoustics

Vowel and consonant contributions to vocal tract shape

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2009

The purpose of this study was to develop a method by which a vowel-consonant-vowel ͑VCV͒ utterance based on x-ray microbeam articulatory data could be separated into a vowel-to-vowel transition and a consonant superposition function. The result is a model that represents a vowel sequence as a time-dependent perturbation of the neutral vocal tract shape governed by coefficients of canonical deformation patterns. Consonants were modeled as superposition functions that can force specific portions of the vocal tract shape to be constricted or expanded, over a specific time course. The three VCVs ͓.pÄ͔, ͓.tÄ͔, and ͓.kÄ͔, produced by one female speaker, were analyzed and reconstructed with the developed model. They were shown to be reasonable approximations of the original VCVs, as assessed qualitatively by visual inspection and quantitatively by calculating rms error and correlation coefficients. This establishes a method for future modeling of other speech material.

Vowel Category Dependence of the Relationship Between Palate Height, Tongue Height, and Oral Area

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2003

This article evaluates intertalker variance of oral area, logarithm of the oral area, tongue height, and formant frequencies as a function of vowel category. The data consist of coronal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences and acoustic recordings of 5 talkers, each producing 11 different vowels. Tongue height (leh, right, and midsagittal), palate height, and oral area were measured in 3 coronal sections anterior to the oropharyngeal bend and were subjected to multivariate analysis of variance, variance ratio analysis, and regression analysis. The primary finding of this article is that oral area (between palate and tongue) showed less intertalker variance during production of vowels with an oral place of articulation (palatal and velar vowels) than during production of vowels with a uvular or pharyngeal place of articulation. Although oral area variance is place dependent, percentage variance (log area variance) is not place dependent. Midsagittal tongue height in the molar region was positively correlated with palate height during production of palatal vowels, but not during production of nonpalatal vowels. Taken together, these results suggest that small oral areas are characterized by relatively talker-independent vowel targets and that meeting these talkerindependent targets is important enough that each talker adjusts his or her own tongue height to compensate for talker-dependent differences in constriction anatomy. Computer simulation results are presented to demonstrate that these results may be explained by an acoustic control strategy: When talkers with very different anatomical characteristics try to match talker-independent formant targets, the resulting area variances are minimized near the primary vocal tract constriction. The speech production model of proposed that speech can be synthesized with good quality using a threeparameter model that controls the position and cross-sectional area of the primary vocal tract constriction and the cross-sectional area of the lips; cross-sectional areas at all other positions in the vocal tract are passively interpolated based on position and area of the primary constriction. Perkell and his colleagues have demonstrated that the Stevens-House model is also a plausible model of human speech motor control, in that variability among repeated productions of the same vowel is minimized near a vocal tract constriction. In this article, we seek to demonstrate that variability among multiple talkers also obeys the constraints suggested by the Stevens-House model.

The influence of the palate shape on articulatory token-to-token variability

2005

Articulatory token-to-token variability not only depends on linguistic aspects like the phoneme inventory of a given language but also on speaker specific morphologi- cal and motor constraints. As has been noted previously (Perkell (1997), Moosham- mer et al. (2004)) , speakers with coronally high "domeshaped" palates exhibit more articulatory variability than speakers with coronally low "flat" palates. One expla- nation

Two cross‐linguistic factors underlying tongue shapes for vowels

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1996

Desirable characteristics of a vocal-tract parametrization include accuracy, low dimensionality, and generalizability across speakers and languages. A low-dimensional, speaker-independent linear parametrization of vowel tongue shapes can be obtained using the PARAFAC three-mode factor analysis procedure ͓Harshman et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 62, 693-707 ͑1977͔͒. Harshman et al. applied PARAFAC to midsagittal x-ray vowel data from five English speakers, reporting that two speaker-independent factors are required to accurately represent the tongue shape measured along anatomically normalized vocal-tract diameter grid lines. Subsequently, the cross-linguistic generality of this parametrization was brought into question by the application of PARAFAC to Icelandic vowel data, where three nonorthogonal factors were reported ͓Jackson, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 84, 124-143 ͑1988͔͒. This solution is shown to be degenerate; a reanalysis of Jackson's Icelandic data produces two factors that match Harshman et al.'s factors for English vowels, contradicting Jackson's distinction between English and Icelandic language-specific ''articulatory primes.'' To obtain vowel factors not constrained by artificial measurement grid lines, x-ray tongue shape traces of six English speakers were marked with 13 equally spaced points. PARAFAC analysis of this unconstrained (x,y) coordinate data results in two factors that are clearly interpretable in terms of the traditional vowel quality dimensions front/back, high/low.

Acoustic-articulatory correlations in a four-region model of the vocal tract: Experimental evidence for blade features

In the first part of this report, the formant frequencies F1–F4 and the quality (or gain) factors Q1–Q4 are correlated with the positions, areas, or area ratios formed by the four active articulators: tongue root, tongue body, blade, lips. Vowel area functions of ten speakers were taken from seven X-ray and MRI studies and fit to 27 equal-length tubes by means of cubic spline interpolation. Among the findings it was determined that (1) when the blade position (location of smallest constriction) moves toward the lips, F3 frequency shifts higher; (2) blade aperture (blade area normalized by lip area) is directly correlated with Q3. In the second part of the report, evidence for these two blade relations is provided using acoustic recordings of actual coronal speech sounds. To this end an auditorily-based estimator of Q3 is developed: the peak energy factor PE3. The asymptotic ERB (equivalent rectangular bandwidth) of the auditory filter is about one-sixth octave wide. Hence one-sixth octave is adopted as the unit of formant frequency resolution. Measured F3 frequencies are observed to span six one-sixth octaves (one octave). The six F3 distinctions are classified by the primary and secondary features of blade position [anterior posterior] and [AB RB], where AB and RB are advanced blade and retracted blade. Dentalveolars are [+anterior –posterior]; postalveolars are [–anterior +posterior]. Blade aperture is captured by the feature pair [elevated depressed]. Laminals are [+elevated –depressed]; apicals are [–elevated –depressed]. When the blade aperture increases from a small value (laminal) through a medium value (apical) to a large value (depressed), PE3 also increases. The coronal fricatives of American English, Toda, and Ubykh are examined as well as the coronal stops, nasals, and liquids of Central Arrernte. Both the palatographic evidence and the PE3 measures consistently show the laminality of [s̪ s] and the apicality of [ʃ ʂ]. Furthermore, the [s ʃ] sounds are both found to be [+anterior]. In American English, for example, there is no statistically significant difference in F3 frequency between laminal [s] and apical [ʃ], which indicates very similar blade positions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *This paper is an abridged and updated version of a two-part report that had previously appeared in Vol. 11 of the IULC Working Papers. I wish to thank Jennifer Cole for suggesting a more thorough introduction to the concept of the distinctive feature than was presented earlier. Geoffrey Stewart Morrison pointed out that the supraglottal excitation of obstruents may lead to results different from those obtained with the original vowel glottal-source model. He also called attention to the possible presence of a sublingual cavity during sibilant production. Both concerns are now addressed in Sections 2.7 and 3.1, respectively. In 2013 Mark Tiede completed his Yale dissertation " An MRI-based morphological approach to vocal tract area function estimation " in which he measured the vowel area functions of 12 speakers – on the same order as the 10 analyzed here. A future paper will examine the acoustic-articulatory correlations of the four articulator regions using his data set.

Influence of the Palate Shape on Articulatory Token-To-Token Variability

ZAS Papers in Linguistics

Articulatory token-to-token variability not only depends on linguistic aspects like the phoneme inventory of a given language but also on speaker specific morphological and motor constraints. As has been noted previously (Perkell (1997), Mooshammer et al. (2004)), speakers with coronally high "domeshaped" palates exhibit more articulatory variability than speakers with coronally low "flat" palates. One explanation for that is based on perception oriented control by the speaker. The influence of articulatory variation on the cross sectional area and consequently on the acoustics should be greater for flat palates than for domeshaped ones. This should force speakers with flat palates to place their tongue very precisely whereas speakers with domeshaped palates might tolerate a greater variability. A second explanation could be a greater amount of lateral linguo-palatal contact for flat palates holding the tongue in position. In this study both hypotheses were teste...

Acoustic-articulatory correlations in a four-region model of the vocal tract: Theoretical bases and a comparison of two data sets

IULC Working Papers, 2022

A 27-tube frequency-domain vocal tract model (FDVT) was developed to calculate the formant frequencies F1-F4 and the quality or amplification factors Q1-Q4. The quality factors Q1-Q4 are the relative amplitudes of formants F1-F4. Four articulator regions are distinguished in the FDVT model: an 8-tube tongue root region, a 9-tube tongue body region (one quarter wavelength at the F2 formant frequency), a 6-tube blade region (one quarter wavelength at the F3 formant frequency), and a 4-tube lip region (one quarter wavelength at the F4 formant frequency). The vowel area functions of 10 speakers were previously investigated by the author (Pennington, 2011). More recently, Tiede (2013) gave the vowel area functions of another 12 speakers. To determine the degree of association between acoustic and articulatory parameters, correlation matrices are computed for the vowel system of each speaker. Then the correlation coefficients of the parameter pairs are averaged across the 10 speakers in the original data set and the 12 speakers in the Tiede data set. This study has two goals. The first is to compare the correlation results of the original and the Tiede vowel data sets. The second is to provide theoretical foundations for the observed acoustic-articulatory correlates. The following is a preview of the correlation results: (1) tongue root aperture (tongue root area divided by lip area) is inversely correlated with F1; (2) tongue body position (forebody area divided by hindbody area) is inversely correlated with F2; (3) tongue body aperture (tongue body area divided by lip area) is directly correlated with Q2; (4) blade position (foreblade area divided by hindblade area) is inversely correlated with F3; (5) blade aperture (blade area divided by lip area) is directly correlated with Q3; (6) lip length is inversely correlated with F4; (7) lip area is inversely correlated with Q4. ________________________________________________________________________ This paper is a completely revised and greatly expanded version of a 2011 article that appeared in volume 11 of the IULC Working Papers: Toward phonetically grounded distinctive features. Part I: Acoustic-articulatory correlations in a four-region model of the vocal tract.

Acoustic-articulatory correlations in a four-region model of the vocal tract: Theoretical bases and a comparison of two data sets Updated version with final Corrigendum

IULC Working Papers, 2022

Acoustical Consequences of Lip, Tongue, Jaw, and Larynx Movement

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1970

An articulatory model is presented. It defines a procedure for deriving a set of formant frequencies from information on the state of the lip muscles, the position of the jaw, the shape and position of the tongue body, and larynx height. The acoustic and auditory consequences of varying these parameters individually are reported. The introduction of the jaw as a separate parameter-a feature not used in previous articulatory modelsImakes it possible to explain why "openness" occurs as a universal phonetic feature of vowel production. According to the explanation proposed, the degree of opening of a vowel corresponds to a position of the jaw that is optimized in the sense that it cooperates with the tongue in producing the desired area function. Such cooperation prevents excessive tongue shape deformation. Our results suggest that, in order to reflect this principle of articulatory synergism, "tongue height," although primary with respect to its acoustic consequences, should be represented as a derived feature characteristic of the final vocaltract configuration. I. ARTICULATORY PROPERTIES OF THE MODEL The primary purpose of this stud)-is to document some measurements undertaken to ascertain the relation 166 Volume 50 Number 4 (Part 2) 1971 ACOUSTIC CONSEQUENCES OF ARTICULATOR MOVEMENT FIa. 2. Tongue contours for phonologically long Swedish vowels traced from lateral x-ray pictures and plotted in relation to the mandible. The four groups of vowels are: [i, e, e, a•] (top left), [y, u, 4] (bottom left), [u] (top right), and [•e, o, o3 (bottom right). will affect vocal-tract shape, too. The present discussion is limited to non-nasal sounds, however.) 1. Jaw Component

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