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The Gestural Structure of Speech

Phonetic theory

• a theory of structure of the human speech system = what the parts, how they work together
  • how they function in communication = structures that regulate, the listeners are aware of these structures, the speech system is part of communication
  • how it is cognitively represented and its role in the grammar = how speech system is represented in movement
  • theory of cogntive and physical sctrucutre of speech
• Satisfying these aims require characterizing: • the continuous properties of speech articulation, acoustics, aerodynamics (air flow in the vocal tract), audition, etc. = continuous and discrete = how to characterize, fouries analysis, speech signal change over time • AND their communicative, informational and cognitive properties • This leads to a classic theoretical problem.

Apparently incompatible of different descriptions of speech

• phonology = must be true if it’s a discrete symbol = traditional phonological represention of utterances, sequances of discrete symbols
• phsycial properities
  • continous, context-dependent varation, but the symbols are not context-dependent

Problem how to related phonology and phsycial measturments

• incompatibility

Articulatory Phonology (Browman & Goldstein, 1989): Key components of resolution

• Articulatory Synergy representation

Information and the dance

• All the information in our messages (thoughts, ideas, etc.) of arbitrary complexity must ultimately be associated with unique simple dances.
• • What are the discrete units of the dance??
  • underly hypothesis = decomposed to actions (dancesteps)
• A gesture is defined as
  • a constriction action of one of the distinct vocal tract organs. = causeing the vocal track to be narrow
  • closure gesture = upper and lower lip all come together

  

• window = create discrete units

words and contrast

• Words (or, morphemes) are elements of a language that have distinct meanings and which are also associated (arbitrarily) with distinct “dances” of the vocal tract organs.
• differences between and across individual speakers
• how do individuals perforam the same gestures differently?
  • motor task = skill of motor actions, involves corporation of articulators (more than one articulatiors)
  • redundancy = if you use it properly same task, it needs to be preformed in the same way
  • we learned to perform a task, pattern of dependency among the articulators specific to teh task
  • synergy / corridnative strucutre

Speech Tasks: Constriction Goals and Synergies

Function of Synergies in Speech • Different people learn to tune the synergy differently: They employ different relative contributions of these articulators. • Relative contributions differ when some perturbing event occur in the world. • Relative contributions differ when the task is produced in the context of other tasks.

• children learning stragties for something too big or small for their hard strucutre

Speaker differences in Lip Closure synergies

• lip closure in back and been
• consontant + vowels start at the same point of time
• jaw is lower in the context of low vowel, and high for high vowel
• more upper lip lowering emerges in back than in been

coarticulation = change with vowels

The Listener’s Task

• Listener must be able to tell what actions are being performed in a talker’s mouth, even they are hidden from sight
• Speech as audible gesture = think about gestures like sign languages
• gestures in signs that communicated optically to the visual system of the receiver
• perception = give information about the envitorment, production are communciated acousticsly to the auditoary system, the speech sounds you can hear the purely sound, certain gestures do not have any sounds, but /s/ has a sound, perception of sound, then you have the ability to hear the differences
• sound has multiple representations
• the auditory properties of sound can be coded differently
• we can hear the talker’s producing is our perception system is able to extract information from the eviroment
• voices involve the musale movement
• geastures = are simple constractions, gestures for different sounds, may have different auditory outcomes
• gestures can have goals that is not articulatory

Two functions of sound production need to be distinguished: • Sound generation = causing air to vibrate at audible frequencies • Sound shaping decive generate the sound = sound source

sound sources in speech

• vibration of the larynx
• turbulent noise of air rushing through narrow slit
• pop when built-up pressure is released

Sound shaping

• lenthgh of the tube = specturm of the sound that the tube vibrates
• • Filter functions in speech: constrictions of different organs produce effective lengths of vocal tract tubes
• affect the tones and sources in different ways
• constructions are present in the acosutics signal in changes over time

Gestures of functionally distinct constricting organs can distinguish words

• Larynx (generates sound source)
  • voiceless consonants, in order to viabrate, the air pulls the vocal folders apart
  • voiced = vocal folds need to be narrowed
• Velum (shapes sound generated at larynx)
• oral constrictors: (shapes sound generated at larynx)