Some Acoustic Analyses

Abstract. An acoustic analysis was carried out on a set of sentence stimulus materials varying in speech style (Reduced, Citation, and Hyperarticulated) that was elicited via a technique developed previously in our laboratory by Brink, Wright and Pisoni (1998) and Harnsberger and Pisoni (1999). Sentences recorded from twelve speakers were acoustically analyzed for sentence duration, keyword duration, and F1-F2 vowel space dispersion. The Reduced, Citation, and Hyperarticulated styles varied in terms of articulatory precision, in increasing order. Thus, the styles were predicted to differ significantly in keyword and sentence duration, with longer durations corresponding to more articulatorily precise styles. The styles were also predicted to differ significantly in the extent to which vowels in keywords were centralized, affecting the extent of vowel space dispersion. More disperse spaces were predicted for more articulatorily precise styles. Of the twelve participants, seven produced sentences with either the predicted keyword or sentence duration differences (or both) between all three styles. Eight of the twelve participants also showed the predicted vowel dispersion differences between styles, with greater dispersion corresponding to a larger vowel space. However, for som