Vowel Inherent Spectral Change in the Vowels of North American English

Abstract

Nearey and Assmann (1986) coined the term 'vowel inherent spectral change' (VISC) to refer to change in spectral properties inherent to the phonetic specification of vowels. Although such change includes the relatively large formant changes associated with acknowledged diphthongs, the term was explicitly intended to include reliable (but possibly more subtle) spectral change associated with vowel categories of North American English typically regarded as monophthongs. This chapter reviews statistical and graphical evidence of dynamic formant patterns in vowels of several CV and CVC syllable types in three regional dialects of English: Dallas, Texas (Assmann and Katz, 2000), Western Michigan (Hillenbrand et al., 1995) and Northern Alberta (Thomson 2007). Evidence is reviewed for the importance of VISC in vowel perception. While certain apparent VISC patterns show up across dialects, both dialect differences and differences in context make it clear that more sophisticated methods will be required to fully separate several factors affecting formant change in vowels. Promising preliminary results are presented using a new non-linear regression method that extends compositional models of Broad and Clermont

Stress-Induced Acoustic Variation in L2 and L1 Spanish Vowels

“…Phonetic research has shown that several vowels traditionally classified as monophthongs show systematic patterns of formant movement, apparently reflecting inherent properties of the vowels themselves (Nearey, 2013). The traditional opinion is that Spanish /a, e, o/ are monophthongs, i.e.…”

Static and dynamic spectral properties of the monophthong vowels in Seoul Korean: Implication on sound change

“…예를 들어, Yang(1996) (Hillenbrand et al, 1995;Nearey, 2013;Haddican, 2013). Hillenbrand et al(1995)는 영어 단모음 /ae, ε/의 안정구간 …”

A developmental study of vowels spoken in syllables and in sentence context

“…It is well established that formant movement inherent to the vowel (VISC) and the effects of coarticulation are key contributors to contextrelated effects (Nearey, 2013) and further study is required using additional talkers to model these effects for individual vowels.…”

“…While duration and temporal variability have been studied in a variety of contexts, the study of context effects on formant movement within the vowel (vowel inherent spectral change, or VISC; Nearey and Assmann, 1986;Nearey, 2013;Assmann et al, 2013) has received less attention. A limitation of existing research on VISC has been that most studies have examined patterns of formant movement in a limited number of talkers or exclusively in adults rather than in children.…”