LINGUIST List 19.849: Phonetics/Phonology/Psycholing: McMillan: 'Articulatory Evide...'

LINGUIST List 19.849

Thu Mar 13 2008

Diss: Phonetics/Phonology/Psycholing: McMillan: 'Articulatory Evide...'

Editor for this issue: Evelyn Richter <evelynlinguistlist.org>

1. Corey McMillan, Articulatory Evidence for Interactivity in Speech Production

Message 1: Articulatory Evidence for Interactivity in Speech Production
Date: 13-Mar-2008
From: Corey McMillan <Corey.McMillaned.ac.uk>
Subject: Articulatory Evidence for Interactivity in Speech Production
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Institution: University of Edinburgh Program: School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2008

Author: Corey T. McMillan

Dissertation Title: Articulatory Evidence for Interactivity in Speech Production

Dissertation URL: http://edgwiki.pbwiki.com/f/mcmillan_phd2008.pdf

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics Phonology Psycholinguistics

Dissertation Director(s): Robin Lickley Martin Corley

Dissertation Abstract:

Traditionally, psychologists and linguists have assumed that phonological speech errors result from the substitution of well-formed segments. However, there is growing evidence from acoustic and articulatory analyses of these errors which suggests activation from competing phonological representations can cascade to articulation. This thesis assumes a cascading model, and investigates further constraints for psycholinguistic models of speech production. Two major questions are addressed: whether such a cascading model should include feedback; and whether phonological representations are still required if articulation is not well-formed. In order to investigate these questions a new method is introduced for the analysis of articulatory data, and its application for analysing EPG and ultrasound recordings is demonstrated.

A speech error elicitation experiment is presented in which acoustic and electropalatography (EPG) signals were recorded. A transcription analysis of both data sets tentatively supports a feedback account for the lexical bias effect. Crucially, however, the EPG data in conjunction with a perceptual experiment highlight that categorising speech errors is problematic for a cascaded view of production. Therefore, the new analysis technique is used for a reanalysis of the EPG data. This allows us to abandon a view in which each utterance is an error or not. We demonstrate that articulation is more similar to a competing phonological representation when the competitor yields a real word. This pattern firmly establishes evidence for feedback in speech production.

Two additional experiments investigate whether phonological representations, in addition to lower-level representations (e.g., features), are required to account for ill-formed speech. In two tongue-twister experiments we demonstrate with both EPG and ultrasound, that articulation is most variable when there is one competing feature, but not when there are two competing features. This pattern is best accounted for in a feedback framework in which feature representations feedback to reinforce phonological representations.

Analysing articulation using a technique which does not require the categorisation of responses allows us to investigate the consequences of cascading. It demonstrates that a cascading model of speech production requires feedback between levels of representation and that phonemes should still be represented even if articulation is malformed.

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