Articulatory studies in Hungary – past, present and future

Journal of Phonetics, 2007

Using a combination of magnetometry and ultrasound, we examined the articulatory characteristics of the so-called 'transparent' vowels [iː], [i], and [eː] in Hungarian vowel harmony. Phonologically, transparent vowels are front, but they can be followed by either front or back suffixes. However, a finer look reveals an underlying phonetic coherence in two respects. First, transparent vowels in back harmony contexts show a less advanced (more retracted) tongue body posture than phonemically identical vowels in front harmony contexts: e.g. [i] in buli-val is less advanced than [i] in bili-vel. Second, transparent vowels in monosyllabic stems selecting back suffixes are also less advanced than phonemically identical vowels in stems selecting front suffixes: e.g. [iː] in ír, taking back suffixes, compared to [iː] of hír, taking front suffixes, is less advanced when these stems are produced in bare form (no suffixes). We thus argue that the phonetic degree of tongue body horizontal position correlates with the phonological alternation in suffixes. A hypothesis that emerges from this work is that a plausible phonetic basis for transparency can be found in quantal characteristics of the relation between articulation and acoustics of transparent vowels. More broadly, the proposal is that the phonology of transparent vowels is better understood when their phonological patterning is studied together with their articulatory and acoustic characteristics.

2019

In the present study, utterance-initial vowels in preverbal focus vs. pre-focal topic positions were compared with respect to their acoustic and articulatory parameters. Parallel acoustic, and ultrasound recordings were made, and vowel duration; maximum f0, F1 and F2 (measured at the midpoint of the vowel); tongue contours (and their variability measured by the NND method) were compared with respect to the prominence level. We predicted higher prominence in the case of focus compared to the topic. Accordingly, longer vowel durations and earlier f0-peaks were found in the focus condition, on the other hand, neither the maximum f0 values nor the articulatory measures of vowel quality showed differences between the conditions. Although on Euclidean distance data we found no effect of condition, the variance of F2 values differed significantly across the conditions, which might be attributed to better reach of the articulatory target. Therefore this parameter needs further analysis.

2019

It is traditionally assumed that geminates undergo degemination when being flanked by another consonant in Hungarian. Since in Hungarian duration is considered to be the main acoustic cue to the singleton-geminate opposition, it appears valid to study phonetic implementation of this process in the acoustic domain. However, previous acoustic analyses lead to inconclusive results on the status of the "degeminated" consonant, while articulatory data on Japanese singletons and geminates imply that it is revealing to study degemination on the level of gestural timing. The present study compared gestural organization of geminates, and degeminated, and singleton consonants in heterorganic C-clusters, and in intervocalic positions. We obtained EMA data from 10 female speakers of Hungarian (aged 27.7). Consonant duration, plateau durations and tongue rise showed that degemination does not yield realizations equivalent to intervocalic singletons, and geminates and singletons in clusters showed equally slower tongue rise than that observed in intervocalic singletons.

2021

In the present study we searched for an answer to the question if in Hungarian, similarly to the so far investigated Germanic languages, accent results in sonority expansion and/or localized hyperarticulation. The analysis was performed by EMA, with the participation of 9 speakers. Four vowels /i, u, , a / were tested in nonsense pV1pV1pV1pV1 sequences uttered as sentences. Accented (first) and unaccented (second) syllables were compared. In terms of lip aperture index and duration, sonority expansion was detected in general, but post hoc tests did not show the same effect for each vowel as a function of accent. Tongue positions did not show differences, however the Euclidean distance from the acoustic vowel space centroid differed in accented and unaccented vowels, which might be traced back to the F1 differences, probably due to the lip aperture enhancement in /a /. All considered, effects of sonority expansion were observed, however, data did not show localized hyperarticulation patterns.

2020

The simultaneous articulation of the turbulent noise of fricatives and vocal fold vibration poses difficulties due to their conflicting pressure requirements. Previous studies found advanced tongue root and narrower obstacle in voiced fricatives than in voiceless ones. The first helps to maintain vocal fold vibration, while the latter helps to achieve the appropriate amount of turbulence. In our study 12 subjects produced /izi/ and /isi/ sequences in pre-focal position. Headset microphone-, EGGand tongue ultrasound (US)-signals were recorded. Cessation and restart points of voicing, and the voiceless part ratio (VR) were measured in the EGG-signal. CoG, SD, skewness and kurtosis were measured in the acoustic signal at 11 equally distanced time points in the fricatives. The midsagittal tongue contours were analyzed in the US signal in the closest image to the 0%, 50% and 100% points of the fricatives’ total duration. Voicing characteristics of /z/ and /s/ were compared by LMM, the fu...

Science, Technology and Innovation, 2017

The electromagnetic articulography (EMA) is a relatively exact and efficient method used in study on speech production physiology. It allows to precisely estimate movement trajectories of speech articulators like tongue, lips, jaw etc. by tracking position of sensors fixed to the articulators. This paper presents results of EMA research on Polish oral and nasalised vowels in orthography represented by the graphemes <e>, <o>, <ę>, <ą>. Inter-individual variability of tongue and lips position in X-axis direction during realization of the same phoneme has been estimated. Differences between oral and nasalised vowels in terms of movement of articulators in X-axis direction have been assessed too.

Interspeech 2019

The aim of our study is to analyse the articulatory characteristics of /iː/ occurring in Hungarian monosyllabic harmonic and antiharmonic stems. In their frequently cited work, based on 3 speakers' data, Beňuš and Gafos (2007) [1] claimed that the tongue position in transparent vowels of antiharmonic Hungarian stems is less advanced than that of the phonemically identical vowels in harmonic stems. In their study, the authors compared different harmonic and antiharmonic stems (even if the consonantal context was more or less controlled).

Hungarian phoneticians were often among the first to do high quality research of certain types or to adopt the most advanced methods of their time. The first objective method in the investigation of the articulation of speech sounds, called ‘stomatoscopy’, was used about ten years earlier than Rousselot’s famous work was first published. More than a hundred years ago various tools were developed for the measurement of the air flow, voicing, articulation, lip movements, and the amount of energy necessary for articulation. At the beginning of the 20th century, research on the artificial recognition of vowels started. These early methods and their results are discussed here.

Singing at a very high pitch is associated with vocal tract adjustments in professional western operatic singing. However, as of yet there is an inadequate amount of data available on the extent of the acoustic transformation the Hungarian vowels undergo during singing. The author’s purpose is to evaluate the acoustic and articulatory changes of Hungarian vowel qualities, and examine the effect of these changes on the intelligibility of sounds, which has not yet been done for Hungarian. The paper contains a brief summary of formerly described tendencies for other languages and data for Hungarian from pilot studies carried out by the author with an adult soprano’s and a child’s sung vowels.

Govor, 2000

This paper aims at investigating the acoustic properties ofVOTs of the three Hungarian voice/ess stops (using the (\SL50 device) when appearing in isolation (in syllahles and in words) but a/so when occurring in spontaneous speech (5 female teachers served as subjeets). The results of the acoustic analysis show a clear dijference between careful and spontaneous speech. Bilabials and velars are signijicantly shorter in fluent speech vvhile dentals seem to be unehanged. Therefore, the actual duration ofVOTis characteristic of the place of the articulation of stops in spontaneous speech while VOTs of bilabials and dentals do not differ from each other in careful speech. Vo\vels following the stops influence the tri more in careful than in spontaneous speech, which can also be explained by the experimentally confirmed phenomenon of the ehanging quality of the present-dav Hungarian vowels into the neutral vowel. Voice onset time is a specific feature of the Hungarian plosive consonants and its values significantly differ from those of most languages in the world.