The Timing of Utterances and Linguistic Boundaries

Lehiste, Ilse

doi:10.1121/1.1913062

Cited by 317 publications

(256 citation statements)

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“…Physical cues to word boundaries in continuous speech do exist; they include lengthening of onset syllables and segments (Gow and Gordon, 1995;Lehiste, 1972), lengthening of final syllables (Beckman & Edwards, 1990), and aspiration of word-initial stops (in English, Lehiste, 1960;Trager & Bloch, 1941). Phonotactic cues also exist; some sequences of segments (such as [mr] in many languages) cannot co-occur within a syllable, and therefore signal likely word-boundary locations.…”

Section: Segmentation Cues In the Inputmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, we cannot currently answer this question. Acousticphonetic studies (Lehiste, 1972;Nakatani & Dukes, 1977) suggest simply that some but not all onsets are marked. We have argued that silence and phonotac tics may provide unambiguous sources of information about word boundary locations.…”

Section: Norris Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the string [letas] embedded in continuous speech may be the word lettuce, but it could just as easily be the two words let and us, or it might form part of some longer sequence of words, such as his roulette astounds me. The central problem for continuous speech recognition lies in the fact that there are no fully reliable cues to word boundaries (Lehiste, 1972;Nakatani & Dukes, 1977), and thus recognition also necessitates a process whereby the input is segmented into individual words.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Possible-Word Constraint in the Segmentation of Continuous Speech

Norris

McQueen

Cutler

et al. 1997

Cognitive Psychology

225

280

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We propose that word recognition in continuous speech is subject to constraints on what may constitute a viable word of the language. This Possible-Word Constraint (PWC) reduces activation of candidate words if their recognition would imply word status for adjacent input which coultl not be a word -for instance, a single consonant. In two word-spotting experiments, listeners found it much harder to detect apple, for example, in fapple (where [f] alone would be an impossible word), than in vujfapple (where vuff could be a word of English). We demonstrate that the PWC can readily be implemented in a competition-based model of continuous speech recognition, as a constraint on the process of competition between candidate words; where a stretch of speech between a candidate word and a (known or likely) word boundary is not a possible word, activation of the candidate word is reduced. This implementation accu rately simulates both the present results and data from a range of earlier studies of speech segmentation. © 1997 Academic Press INTRODUCTIONWhen we listen to continuous speech, we apprehend a sequence of discrete words. The effortlessness with which we understand speech might suggest that recognition of spoken words is a rather simple task; but in fact it is a complex process, in which a very variable and largely continuous speech signal has to be mapped onto a lexicon of tens of thousands of words. TheWe thank the Longman Group, U.K. Inc. for allowing us to use a machine-readable version of the Longman Dictionary o f Contemporary English (Procter, 1975 Owned by Academic Press, 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495 Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount o f bonds, mortgages, and other securities None Paragraphs 2 and 3 include, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books o f the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name o f the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting, also the statements in the two paragraphs show the affiant's full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books o f the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that o f a bona fide owner Names and addresses of individuals who are stockholders o f a corporation which itself is a stockholder or holder of bonds, mortgages, or other securities of the publishing corporation have been included in paragraphs 2 and 3 when the interests o f such individuals are equivalent to I percent or more of the total amount of the stock or securities of the publishing corporation Total no copies printed average no copies each issue during preceding 12 months 2249, single issue nearest to filing date 2247 Paid circulation (a) to term subscribers by mail, carrier delivery, or by other means average no copies each issue during preceding 12 months 1054, single issue nearest to filing date 1050 (b) Sal...

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Section: Segmentation Cues In the Inputmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Norris Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Possible-Word Constraint in the Segmentation of Continuous Speech

Norris

McQueen

Cutler

et al. 1997

Cognitive Psychology

225

280

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“…The duration differences they reported (and, to some extent, the F0 differences), however, lead us to believe that a prosodic boundary was present, even though its acoustic realization did not involve a silent pause. Segments, especially vowels, tend to be longer in preboundary positions (Klatt, 1976;Lehiste, 1972;Martin, 1970;Oller, 1973, for English;Cambier-Langeveld, 2000;Nooteboom & Doodeman, 1980, for Dutch). Segmental lengthening is strong before an utterance boundary (as in words in isolation), but can also be found at more minor phrase boundaries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of prosodic boundaries in the resolution of lexical embedding in speech comprehension

2003

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Participants' eye movements were monitored as they heard sentences and saw four pictured objects on a computer screen. Participants were instructed to click on the object mentioned in the sentence. There were more transitory fixations to pictures representing monosyllabic words (e.g. ham) when the first syllable of the target word (e.g. hamster) had been replaced by a recording of the monosyllabic word than when it came from a different recording of the target word. This demonstrates that a phonemically identical sequence can contain cues that modulate its lexical interpretation. This effect was governed by the duration of the sequence, rather than by its origin (i.e. which type of word it came from). The longer the sequence, the more monosyllabic-word interpretations it generated. We argue that cues to lexical-embedding disambiguation, such as segmental lengthening, result from the realization of a prosodic boundary that often but not always follows monosyllabic words, and that lexical candidates whose word boundaries are aligned with prosodic boundaries are favored in the word-recognition process. q

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“…However, the continuous nature of fluent speech poses potentially serious problems for identifying words in the acoustic signal. Fluent speech contains no analogue of the little white spaces between written words in text (Cole & Jakimik, 1980;Lehiste, 1972). Instead, the production of each spoken word blends into the next, obscuring the boundary where one word ends and another begins.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lexical viability constraints on speech segmentation by infants

Johnson

Jusczyk

Cutler

et al. 2003

Cognitive Psychology

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The Possible Word Constraint limits the number of lexical candidates considered in speech recognition by stipulating that input should be parsed into a string of lexically viable chunks. For instance, an isolated single consonant is not a feasible word candidate. Any segmentation containing such a chunk is disfavored. Five experiments using the head-turn preference procedure investigated whether, like adults, 12-month-olds observe this constraint in word recognition. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants were familiarized with target words (e.g., rush), then tested on lists of non-

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The Timing of Utterances and Linguistic Boundaries

Cited by 317 publications

References 0 publications

The Possible-Word Constraint in the Segmentation of Continuous Speech

The Possible-Word Constraint in the Segmentation of Continuous Speech

The role of prosodic boundaries in the resolution of lexical embedding in speech comprehension

Lexical viability constraints on speech segmentation by infants

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