LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:12 December 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2014
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

Voice Onset Time across Gender and
Different Vowel Contexts in Telugu

Madhu Sudarshan Reddy. B., Mahendra Kumar.N., and Sreedevi. N

Abstract

This study was aimed at measuring voice onset time across vowel contexts and gender in Telugu (one of the south Indian languages) speaking young adults. Considering twelve participants, group I consisted of six adult males in the age range of 19–26 years and Group II consisted of six adult females in the age range of 19-25 years. A set of 18 CV syllables with plosives /p/,/t?/,/k/ and their voiced cognates /b/ /d?/,/g/ in different vowel contexts /a/,/i/,/u/ were considered. VOT measurements were made using PRAAT (version 5.3.17) software program. Considering vowel context, the current study results showed least VOT in the context of /a/ when compared to /i/ or /u/ vowel context. Another observation on comparison of VOT across gender revealed no significant difference. This finding augments our understanding on the physiology of speech production and also variation in sub phonemic features of plosives such as VOT with varying vowel contexts in Telugu.

Key words: Voice onset time (VOT), Vowel context, Gender, Telugu language, Voiced and voiceless plosives.

1. Introduction

Speech is a system of verbal communication and is distinct to human beings. Stetson (1928) believed that “speech is movement made audible”. Simple, audible sounds are produced by the effort of vocal folds which is further altered by the articulators (tongue, lips) to generate speech. The analysis of speech sounds in terms of temporal and spectral aspects is called acoustic analysis. It allows the speech pathologists to infer a great deal about the movement and placement of the articulators during the production of both normal and abnormal speech. Speech sounds comprise of vowels and consonants. Among consonants, Stops are abundantly represented in all the world’s languages and are produced by the complete occlusion of the oral cavity by articulators. Acoustic characteristics of stops include closure duration, voice onset time (VOT), release burst and formant transition. Voice onset time (VOT) is measured as the time interval between the release burst and the first quasi periodicity in the acoustic signal (Lisker & Abramson, 1964; Keating, 1984; Klatt, 1975). VOT is a strong cue to voicing differences between stops (Lisker & Abramson 1964, 1970).

Studies in English have revealed that voiceless plosives /p/, /t/, /k/ have longer positive VOT in the range of 30 to 100 milliseconds and voiced plosives /b/, /d/, /g/ showed shorter positive VOT in the range of 0-25 milliseconds or negative VOT in the range of -100 to 0 milliseconds (Docherty, 1992; Klatt, 1975; Lisker & Abramson, 1964, 1967). VOT values differ according to the place of articulation and voicing. For example, velar plosives show the longest VOT among the three primary (bilabial, alveolar, velar) places of articulation, and VOT is longer in a high vowel context than in a low vowel context (Smith, 1978). Docherty (1992) reported in the language of British English that, the VOTs of the voiceless plosives were shorter for the bilabial plosive /p/ than the alveolar plosive /t/ and velar plosive /k/, with no significant differences among /t/ and /k/ VOTs. He also found that /k/ had longer VOTs in the context of high vowel /i/ and /t/ in some of the back vowel contexts.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Madhu Sudarshan Reddy. B., M.Sc.
Speech Language Pathologist
All India Institute of Speech & Hearing
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India
Madhusudarshan@rocketmail.com

Mahendra Kumar. N. M.Sc.
Speech Language Pathologist
All India Institute of Speech & Hearing
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India
mahe15kn@gmail.com

Dr. Sreedevi. N
Reader & Head
Department of Speech Language Sciences
All India Institute of Speech & Hearing
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India
Sreedeviaiish@gmail.com

Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.