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Segmental Duration in Utterance-Initial Environment: Evidence from Finnish Speech Corpora

Tuomo Saarni, Jussi Hakokari, Jouni Isoaho, Olli Aaltonen, Tapio Salakoski, Segmental Duration in Utterance-Initial Environment: Evidence from Finnish Speech Corpora. In: Filip Ginter Sampo Pyysalo Tapio Salakoski, Tapio Pahikkala (Eds.), Advances in Natural Language Processing, 5th International Conference on NLP, FinTAL 2006 Turku, Finland, August 23-25, 2006 Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4139, 576–584, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2006.

Abstract:

This study examines segmental durations produced by Finnish
speakers in utterance-initial environments. We have established a method to statistically examine segmental duration on the phone level in speech corpora. The two corpora represented in this study consist mainly of television news broadcasts and short texts read aloud by professional speakers. Previous studies conducted have been contradictory; there are reports of initial shortening in certain languages and lengthening in others. Our results are conclusive in neither way, but suggest a qualitatively differentiated behavior. We have observed lengthening
of all utterance-initial vowels, diphthongs included, and shortening of phonologically long plosive (stop) consonants. No other speech sounds are significantly affected. These findings hold in both corpora, in despite of different speakers and annotators.

BibTeX entry:

@INPROCEEDINGS{inpSaHaIsAaSa06a,
  title = {Segmental Duration in Utterance-Initial Environment: Evidence from Finnish Speech Corpora},
  booktitle = {Advances in Natural Language Processing, 5th International Conference on NLP, FinTAL 2006 Turku, Finland, August 23-25, 2006 Proceedings},
  author = {Saarni, Tuomo and Hakokari, Jussi and Isoaho, Jouni and Aaltonen, Olli and Salakoski, Tapio},
  volume = {4139},
  series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  editor = {Tapio Salakoski, Filip Ginter Sampo Pyysalo and Tapio Pahikkala},
  publisher = {Springer Berlin / Heidelberg},
  pages = {576–584},
  year = {2006},
}

Belongs to TUCS Research Unit(s): Turku BioNLP Group, Computational Biomodeling Laboratory (Combio Lab)

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