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Previously, we demonstrated a strong correlation between the amplitude of human speech and the emission rate of micron-scale expiratory aerosol particles, which are believed to play a role in respiratory disease transmission. To further those findings, here we systematically investigate the effect of different 'phones' (the basic sound units of speech) on the emission of particles from the human respiratory tract during speech. We measured the respiratory particle emission rates of 56 healthy human volunteers voicing specific phones, both in isolation and in the context of a standard spoken text. We found that certain phones are associated with significantly higher particle production; for example, the vowel /i/ (\"need,\" \"sea\") produces more particles than /ɑ/ (\"saw,\" \"hot\") or /u/ (\"blue,\" \"mood\"), while disyllabic words including voiced plosive consonants (e.g., /d/, /b/, /g/) yield more particles than words with voiceless fricatives (e.g., /s/, /h/, /f/). These trends for discrete phones and words were corroborated by the time-resolved particle emission rates as volunteers read aloud from a standard text passage that incorporates a broad range of the phones present in spoken English. Our measurements showed that particle emission rates were positively correlated with the vowel content of a phrase; conversely, particle emission decreased during phrases with a high fraction of voiceless fricatives. Our particle emission data is broadly consistent with prior measurements of the egressive airflow rate associated with the vocalization of various phones that differ in voicing and articulation. These results suggest that airborne transmission of respiratory pathogens via speech aerosol particles could be modulated by specific phonetic characteristics of the language spoken by a given human population, along with other, more frequently considered epidemiological variables.

O schimbare de mod muzical, spunea Platon într-una dintre cele mai uimitoare pagini ale sale, era periculoasă, pentru că putea provoca o răsturnare a sistemului social. El nu vorbeşte doar cu cuvintele sale, pentru semenii săi, ci şi cu enigmaticele palatale şi fricative ale vocii de dincolo. El nu este persecutat şi ucis doar ca un contestatar al oricărei ordini şi-al oricărui sistem social, ci şi ca un glas al incognoscibilului şi-al neîmblânzibilului de care filistinul, burghezul, omul lumilor materialiste se teme mai mult decât de orice. De asemenea, poeţii nu pot să tacă, nici măcar când se află sub ameninţarea foamei, a sărăciei, a dispreţului public sau a puterii discreţionare.

The aim of this study was to provide a cross-linguistic review of acquisition of consonant phonemes to inform speech-language pathologists' expectations of children's developmental capacity by (a) identifying characteristics of studies of consonant acquisition, (b) describing general principles of consonant acquisition, and (c) providing case studies for English, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. A cross-linguistic review was undertaken of 60 articles describing 64 studies of consonant acquisition by 26,007 children from 31 countries in 27 languages: Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Jamaican Creole, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Maltese, Mandarin (Putonghua), Portuguese, Setswana (Tswana), Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish, and Xhosa. Most studies were cross-sectional and examined single word production. Combining data from 27 languages, most of the world's consonants were acquired by 5;0 years;months old. By 5;0, children produced at least 93% of consonants correctly. Plosives, nasals, and nonpulmonic consonants (e.g., clicks) were acquired earlier than trills, flaps, fricatives, and affricates. Most labial, pharyngeal, and posterior lingual consonants were acquired earlier than consonants with anterior tongue placement. However, there was an interaction between place and manner where plosives and nasals produced with anterior tongue placement were acquired earlier than anterior trills, fricatives, and affricates. Children across the world acquire consonants at a young age. Five-year-old children have acquired most consonants within their ambient language; however, individual variability should be considered. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.6972857.

Ultrasound and center of gravity frequency data for the sequences /ʃ#s/ and /s#ʃ/ produced by Central Catalan speakers reveal that the former sequence is implemented through continuous articulatory and spectral trajectories which, depending on speaker, may be: intermediate between /ʃ/ and /s/ all throughout, thus supporting a dynamic blending mechanism; /ʃ/-like at onset and intermediate between the two fricatives at offset, which is indicative of C1-to-C2 carryover coarticulation. The sequence /s#ʃ/, on the other hand, undergoes regressive assimilation into [ʃ(ʃ)] according to the acoustic signal but less clearly so in the light of the articulatory data. This discrepancy appears to be due to the fact that, while C1=/s/ assimilates indeed to C2=/ʃ/ at constriction location, coarticulation-induced changes in tongue body configuration behind the primary articulator may occur as long as they do not jeopardize the front-cavity dependent frequency characteristics of the [ʃ] frication noise. Differences in articulatory complexity between /ʃ#s/ and /s#ʃ/ appear to result from the production mechanisms involved, i.e., tongue dorsum raising behind the /s/ constriction for /s#ʃ/ and tongue body repositioning for /ʃ#s/. In agreement with this interpretation, /ʃ#s/ but not /s#ʃ/ turned out to be longer than /s#s/ and /ʃ#ʃ/.

Acesta din urmă este însoţit de numeroase note de subsol, în care autorul prezintă unele grafii eronate sau dă explicaţii asupra unor situaţii problematice/speciale din textul de bază (contexte ilizibile, slove suprapuse etc.), pentru a căror lămurire sunt cooptate uneori inclusiv versiuni paralele ale textului analizat33, aşa cum apare, de exemplu, în nota 148: „Urmează secvenţa precum împărate, scrisă din greşeală, care nu se regăseşte în manuscrisele consultate\" (p. 235). Autorul realizează o descriere amănunţită a celor 102 file ale manuscrisului, dând detalii despre calitatea hârtiei şi inclusiv despre copertă: „iniţial din piele, îmbrăcată ulterior în carton, [...] mâncată parţial de carii\" (p. 17). în ceea ce priveşte datarea textului, aceasta este menţionată explicit chiar de către autorul copiei manuscrise: „Şi am scris-o eu, Ioan Crăciun, din ţinutul Dorohoiu ot Ştefaneşti, la veleat 1789, maiu în 1\" (ibidem). Studiul lingvistic reprezintă cea mai extinsă parte a demersului hermeneutic pe care autorul îl întreprinde asupra textului manuscris vizat, analiza derulându-se pe nu mai puţin de 92 de pagini (p. 27-118) din cele 120 ale primei părţi a volumului. În abordarea grafici textului, „ca punct dc referinţă s-a luat fonetica limbii române din secolul al XVIII-lea şi, în acelaşi timp, stadiul atins de graiurilc dacoromâne din perioada respectivă\" (p. 27). în urma analizei slovelor folosite în redarea textului, acestea au fost repartizate pe trei grupe, în funcţie de valoarea lor fonetică: a) o slovă - un sunet-tip; b) mai multe slove - un sunet-tip; c) o slovă - mai multe sunete-tip. Astfel, sunt identificate în text atât elemente de conservatorism (păstrarea lui [ă] netrecut la [a] în poziţie neaccentuată, în exemple precum bărbat, păcat, nădejde etc.; păstrarea vocalei etimologice [e] netrecute la [ă] în cuvinte precum Dumnezeu, lepăda etc.; păstrarea oclusivelor bilabiale şi a fricativelor labiodentale nepalatalizate, în exemple precum bine, pica, piciorul, fier etc.; păstrarea lui [h] etimologic în pohtă, cu numeroase ocurenţe etc.), cât şi unele aspecte ce atestă dinamica limbii în epoca respectivă (evoluţia lui [î] la [u] în cuvinte precum umblu, umplu etc.; trecerea lui [e] final la [i] în exemple precum bini, mari, vremi etc. - fenomen ce coexistă, totuşi, şi cu păstrarea nealterată a vocalei în discuţie: tine, stele, fire etc.). Numeralul, la rândul lui, „nu se deosebeşte, în linii generale, de cel folosit în limba română literară actuală\" (p. 49), situaţie constatată şi în cazul adjectivului - mai exact, cu referire la gradele de comparaţie ale acestuia -, sau al pronumelui, care „are, în general, aceeaşi structură ca în limba literară de astăzi\" (p. 50).

During speech perception, linguistic elements such as consonants and vowels are extracted from a complex acoustic speech signal. The superior temporal gyrus (STG) participates in high-order auditory processing of speech, but how it encodes phonetic information is poorly understood. We used high-density direct cortical surface recordings in humans while they listened to natural, continuous speech to reveal the STG representation of the entire English phonetic inventory. At single electrodes, we found response selectivity to distinct phonetic features. Encoding of acoustic properties was mediated by a distributed population response. Phonetic features could be directly related to tuning for spectrotemporal acoustic cues, some of which were encoded in a nonlinear fashion or by integration of multiple cues. These findings demonstrate the acoustic-phonetic representation of speech in human STG.

Cross-linguistically, vowel lowering/retraction are common strategies for resolving articulatory conflicts between high vowels and back consonants. Allophonic lowering of vowels /i/ and /u/ adjacent to uvulars has also been documented for several Southern Quechua dialects. For the Chanka dialect (Andahuaylas, Peru), traditional descriptions note similar allophony, but no studies have confirmed it. Unlike other Southern Quechua dialects, Chanka has only two dorsals, which contrast for both manner and place. Thus, Chanka may apply resolution processes differently, for reasons of production and/or perception. The current investigation considers to what extent articulatory conflict resolution between high vowels and the uvular consonant occurs in Chanka. Acoustic data from a controlled experiment include 3,827 Chanka vowels from 22 speakers, balanced for sex and location of residence. Despite an overall uvular effect found, intra- and interspeaker variation shows three different allophony patterns: categorical, null, and variable. A sex-based difference in patterns is also found for rural speakers, which hints at influence from Spanish on this process in Quechua given differing Spanish proficiencies. Results seem to indicate that consonant place adaptation may exist as an additional, innovative Chanka strategy, also with three variable patterns: stable uvular, stable velar, and homorganic with vowel. This flexibility in vowel and consonant place may partially relate to Chanka’s small phoneme inventory, which allows for a broader range of realizations without creating mergers. Speakers thus alternate between vowel lowering and consonant movement as solutions: sometimes the vowel place accommodates to the fricative like in many languages, and at other times the fricative follows the vowel.

Purpose Speech-language pathologists' clinical decision making and consideration of eligibility for services rely on quality evidence, including information about consonant acquisition (developmental norms). The purpose of this review article is to describe the typical age and pattern of acquisition of English consonants by children in the United States. Method Data were identified from published journal articles and assessments reporting English consonant acquisition by typically developing children living in the United States. Sources were identified through searching 11 electronic databases, review articles, the Buros database, and contacting experts. Data describing studies, participants, methodology, and age of consonant acquisition were extracted. Results Fifteen studies (six articles and nine assessments) were included, reporting consonant acquisition of 18,907 children acquiring English in the United States. These cross-sectional studies primarily used single-word elicitation. Most consonants were acquired by 5;0 (years;months). The consonants /b, n, m, p, h, w, d/ were acquired by 2;0-2;11; /ɡ, k, f, t, ŋ, j/ were acquired by 3;0-3;11; /v, ʤ, s, ʧ, l, ʃ, z/ were acquired by 4;0-4;11; /ɹ, ð, ʒ/ were acquired by 5;0-5;11; and /θ/ was acquired by 6;0-6;11 (ordered by mean age of acquisition, 90% criterion). Variation was evident across studies resulting from different assessments, criteria, and cohorts of children. Conclusions These findings echo the cross-linguistic findings of McLeod and Crowe (2018) across 27 languages that children had acquired most consonants by 5;0. On average, all plosives, nasals, and glides were acquired by 3;11; all affricates were acquired by 4;11; all liquids were acquired by 5;11; and all fricatives were acquired by 6;11 (90% criterion). As speech-language pathologists apply this information to clinical decision making and eligibility decisions, synthesis of knowledge from multiple sources is recommended.

Variation in voicing is common among sounds of the world’s languages: sounds that are analyzed as voiceless can undergo voicing, and those analyzed as voiced can devoice. Among voiceless glottal sounds in particular, voicing is widespread: linguists often expect the voiceless glottal stop [ʔ] and fricative [h] to be fully voiced, especially between vowels. In this study, we use audio recordings from Illustrations of the International Phonetic Alphabet published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association to explore the extent to which glottal consonants and non-modal (breathy and creaky) vowels differ in terms of percentage voicing and voicing intensity in three phrasal positions. We find that voiceless [h] is only slightly less voiced than voiced [ɦ] in initial position. Between two vowels, both [h] and [ɦ] are as voiced as breathy vowels. Glottal stops and creaky vowels are both characterized by high percentages of voicing, but they differ in voicing intensity: in all phrasal positions, glottal stops generally have periods of strong and weak voicing, whereas creaky vowels are strongly voiced. In contrast, vowels described as ‘rearticulated’, ‘checked’, or ‘glottalized’ show similar drops in voicing intensity to glottal stops. We interpret these results through an articulatory lens: glottal consonants and non-modal vowels are both modulations in phonation resulting from laryngeal constriction and vocal fold spreading. We argue further that, because voicing during [ʔ] and [h] is largely predictable from respiratory and prosodic constraints, many cases of [ʔ] and [h] can be considered phonetically underspecified for voicing.

In three experiments, we examined selective adaptation of German /r/ depending on the positional and allophonic overlap between adaptors and targets. A previous study had shown that selective adaptation effects with /r/ in Dutch require allophonic overlap between adaptor and target. We aimed at replicating this finding in German, which also has many allophones of /r/. German post-vocalic /r/ is often vocalized, and pre-vocalic /r/ can occur in at least three forms: uvular fricative [к], uvular trill [r] and alveolar trill [r]. We tested selective adaptation between these variants. The critical questions were whether an allophonic overlap is necessary for adaptation or whether phonemic overlap is sufficient to generate an adaptation effect. Surprisingly, our results show that both assertations are wrong: Adaptation does not require an allophonic overlap between adaptors and target and neither is phonemic overlap sufficient. Even more surprisingly, trilled adaptors led to more adaptation for a uvular-fricative target than uvular-fricative adaptors themselves. We suggest that the perceptual salience of the adaptors may be a hitherto underestimated influence on selective adaptation.