Phonetics and Phonology of Speaking Styles: Reduction and Elaboration in Speech Communication

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
September 30 - October 2, 1991

         

Segment Reduction and Expansion in Finnish: A Comparison of Read and Spontaneous Speech

Kate Moore

Department of Linguistics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; Visiting Scholar at the Departments of Phonetics & Linguistics, University of Helsinki, Finland

This study is an investigation of how Finnish speakers adapt the articulation of their phonemes to the task of producing abnormally fast speech. In advance of the study, it was anticipated that the following questions would be relevant to the investigation:

  1. Do some sounds (phonemes) consistently speed up more than do others in an attempt at fast speech, and does any such speedup correlate with the articulatory characteristics of the sounds?
  2. Is there variation in the rate of phonation from speaker to speaker?
  3. Is there a difference between spontaneous speech and reading when speakers attempt to speak faster?

With the collection of observations, the following points were established:

  1. The attempt at speedup produced not only faster phonation rates, but also slower phonation rates, with oscillation between the two during the production of the text.
  2. No individual phonemes showed consistently greater speedup than other phonemes, nor did any articulatory type consistently show greater speedup. Expected points of greater speedup, such as the superior adroitness of the apex over the dorsum, did not emerge in the actual observations.
  3. However, mean phonation rates, both in normal speech and fast speech, were consistently higher when excitation of the cavity was produced by the glottis rather than by a supra-glottal articulator.
  4. Speakers varied in the success of their attempt at speedup.

Because of the constraints of space and time in this report, the spontaneous speech data and its comparison with the read material provided here will be saved for presentation at the conference.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Moore, Kate (1991): "Segment reduction and expansion in Finnish: a comparison of read and spontaneous speech", In PPoSpSt-1991, paper 042.