Syllables and Stress

October 24, 2011

Practicalities
Review session on Wednesday.

Mid-term on Friday.
Note: well deal with the outstanding transcription homeworks on Wednesday

(reference transcriptions will be posted to the course web page)

On Wednesday, well also take a listen to the accents of English samples (Scottish + Boston)

Review: Suprasegmentals
Last time, we learned that there were three kinds of languages: 1. Tone languages (Chinese, Navajo, Igbo) lexically determined tone on every syllable or word

2. Accentual languages (Japanese, Swedish)

the location of an accent is lexically marked. its complicated

3. Stress languages (English, Russian)

What is Stress?
Examples of stress in English: (V) vs. (N)

(V)

vs.

(N)

Phonetically, stress is hard to define I.e., it is hard to measure. It seems to depend on an interaction of three quantifiable variables: Pitch Duration Loudness And also: quality

Loudness
How do we measure how loud a sound is?

Recall: one parameter of a sinewave is its amplitude.

peak-to-peak amplitude

Peak amplitude (for sound) is the highest sound pressure reached during a particular wave cycle.

Amplitude/Loudness Examples
The higher the peak amplitude of a sinusoidal sound, the louder the sound seems to be.

RMS amplitude
Peak-to-peak amplitude is sufficient for characterizing the loudness of sinewaves, but speech sounds are more complex. Another method of measuring loudness: root-mean-square (RMS) amplitude To calculate RMS amplitude: 1. Square the pressure value of the waveform at each point (sample) in the sound file 2. Average all the squared values 3. Take the square root of the average

RMS example
A small sampling of a sinewave has the following pressure values:
pressure sample 1 1 0.707 2 0 3 -0.707 4 -1 5 -0.707 6 0 7 0.707 8 1 9

It looks like this (in Excel):

RMS calculations
pressure sample 1 1 0.707 2 0 3 -0.707 4 -1 5 -0.707 6 0 7 0.707 8 1 9

To calculate RMS amplitude for this sound, first square the values of each sample:
square sample 1 1 0.5 2 0 3 0.5 4 1 5 0.5 6 0 7 0.5 8 1 9

Then average all the squared values (1 + .5 + 0 + .5 + 1 + .5 + 0 + .5 + 1) / 9 = 5/9 = .555

Then take the square root of the average

RMS amplitude = .745

Another example
What about the RMS amplitude of this sound wave?
pressure sample 1 1 1 2 1 3 -1 4 -1 5 -1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9

It looks like this (in Excel):

More Complex Waveforms

The following waveforms all have the same peak-to-peak amplitude:

Intensity
Two related concepts are acoustic power and intensity.

Power is just the square of amplitude.

P = A2 The intensity of a sound is its power relative to the power of some reference sound. Intensity is usually measured in decibels (dB). Decibels is a measure of intensity with reference to the quietest sound human ears can hear.

Some Numbers
The intensity of a sound x can be measured in bels, where a bel is defined as: = log10 (x2 / r2) r2 is the power of the reference sound x2 is the power of sound x.

A decibel is a tenth of a bel.

Some typical decibel values: 30 dB Quiet library, soft whispers

40 dB Living room, refrigerator

50 dB Light traffic, quiet office 60 dB Normal conversation

Numbers, continued
Some typical decibel values: 70 dB 80 dB 90 dB Vacuum cleaner, hair dryer City traffic, garbage disposal Subway, motorcycle, lawn mower

100 dB Chain saw, pneumatic drill

120 dB Rock concert in front of speakers, thunderclap 130 dB Pain threshold 140 dB Gunshot blast, jet plane 180 dB Rocket launching

Intensity Interactions
Perceived loudness depends on frequency, as well as amplitude.

Mid-range frequencies sound louder than low or extremely high frequencies.

100 Hz

250 Hz
440 Hz 1000 Hz 4000 Hz 10000 Hz

An Interesting Fact
Some vowels are louder than others dB of different vowels relative to : [e] : [o] : [i] : 0.0 -3.6 -7.2 -9.7 (Fonagy, 1966):

[u] :
Why?

-12.3

Another Interesting Fact

Some vowels are inherently longer than others. Data from Swedish (Elert, 1964): long high mid low Why? [i y u] 140 msec 155 164 short 95 103 111

Sonority
Loudness is also a highly context-dependent measure. Can vary wildly within speaker, from speaker to speaker, from room to room, and across speaking contexts.

However, all things being equal, some speech sounds are louder than others.
Course in Phonetics:

The sonority of a sound is its loudness relative to that of other sounds with the same length, stress and pitch.

From Ladefoged

A Sonority Scale
low vowels high vowels high sonority

glides
liquids nasals

fricatives
stops low sonority

Sonority and Syllables

An old idea (e.g., Pike, 1943): syllables are organized around peaks in sonority. This is the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP). Example: [bd] is a well-formed syllable in English.

[]
high sonority

[b]

[d] low sonority

Sonority and Syllables

An old idea (e.g., Pike, 1943): syllables are organized around peaks in sonority. This is the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP). Example: [blnd] works well, too.

[]
high sonority [l] [n]

[b]

[d] low sonority

Technical Terms
sonority peak

[]
high sonority [l] [n]

[b]

[d] low sonority

Technical Terms
The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. nucleus

[]
high sonority [l] [n]

[b]

[d] low sonority

Technical Terms
The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset.

onset

[]
high sonority [l] [n]

[b]

[d] low sonority

Technical Terms
The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset. The sounds that follow the nucleus form the syllable coda.

coda []
high sonority [l] [n]

[b]

[d] low sonority

Technical Terms
The sonority peak forms the nucleus of the syllable. The sounds that precede the nucleus form the syllable onset.

The sounds that follow the nucleus form the syllable coda.
Together, the nucleus and coda form the syllable rhyme.

rhyme
[] high sonority [n]

[l]

[b]

[d]

low sonority

Some basic principles

Onsets must rise in sonority towards the syllable peak.

Examples:
stop - {liquid/glide} play quick fricative - {liquid/glide} fling thwack [s] - {liquid/nasal/glide} slide snow sweet What onset clusters should be ruled out?

Can you think of any English examples where this principle might not work?

Some basic principles

Codas must drop in sonority away from the syllable peak.

Examples:
nasal - {fricative/stop} liquid - {fricative/nasal/stop} fricative - stop tenth hand help helm heart test

What coda clusters should be ruled out?

Can you think of any English examples where this principle might not work?

Other Problems
The Sonority Sequencing Principle doesnt always work.

How can we define a syllable?

An alternative idea: each syllable is a chest pulse (Stetson, 1951)

It turns out this doesnt work, either.

Chest muscles dont necessarily contract for each syllable (Ladefoged, 1967)

Any better ideas?