LING3060-HW_Lab-VOT

LING 3060 Phonetics & Phonology Homework and Lab: Voice Onset Time Name: Goal: Learn to measure Voice Onset Time (VOT) by practicing with data from three languages Basics of working with Praat If you need a reminder about how to work with Praat, a video is uploaded to eLC with a walkthrough of opening Praat, setting boundaries, and measuring VOT, captured from a previous iteration of the course. The video is under course content > phonetics Now, you try! 1. Practice with Hindi - Load the files Hindi-VOT.wav and Hindi-VOT.TextGrid into Praat. - In the Objects window, select both items and click View & Edit. - Practice zooming in and out, selecting and playing portions of the sound file. - Observe how the VOT of six different consonants has been labeled and measured. - Unaspirated voiceless stops [p, t] have small VOT (close to zero) - Voiceless aspirated stops [p , t ] have large, positive VOT (noise after burst) ʰ ʰ - Voiced unaspirated stops [b, d] have large, negative VOT (voicing during closure) 2. Measure VOT in Thai - Load the files Thai-VOT.wav and Thai-VOT.TextGrid into Praat. - In the Objects window, select both items and click View & Edit. - Listen to the audio. Notice that the stops are similar to those of Hindi. Label - For each of the six utterances, insert points on Tier 1 (called “burst”). o For each stop, mark the burst with the label “B”. o For all voiceless stops, mark the start of the vowel with the label “V”. Don’t forget that aspirated stops have NOISE between the burst and the vowel! o For truly voiced stops, mark the start of voicing with the label “voicing”. - If you get stuck, re-watch the video! Measure - Mark the VOT of each of the six Thai stops, placing boundaries on Tier 2 (“VOT”). o For each stop, place a boundary on Tier 2 that corresponds to the “B” in Tier 1. o For all voiceless stops, place a boundary on Tier 2 corresponding to the “V” in Tier 1. o For truly voiced stops, place a boundary on Tier 2 matching “voicing” in Tier 1. - Measure VOT by selecting each interval you created on the VOT tier, and noting the duration displayed above or below the waveform. If you cannot see a duration there, try zooming in until the numbers can be displayed. - Report the VOT measures in Table 1, below.

Table 1. VOT in Thai [ba ] ː [pa ] ː [p a ] ʰ ː [da ] ː [ta ] ː [t a ] ʰ ː VOT (ms) -59ms 15ms 90ms -63ms 11ms 73ms 3. Measure VOT in English - Load the files English-VOT.wav and English-VOT.TextGrid into Praat. - In the Objects window, select both items and click View & Edit. - Listen to the audio. Note that it contains a sentence, with several stops in it! - Look at the stops. Do you think there is voicing in the closure for /b/? Is it identical to Hindi and Thai? If not, how is it different? Label - Label each of the labial stops in the utterance, similar to what you did for Thai. o First, place labels on Tier 1. o For /b/, you’ll have to decide whether VOT is positive or negative. If you’re not sure, read about Voice Onset Time in the excerpt from Ladefoged & Johnson. Remember the patterns we’ve seen in class for English VOT! Measure - Mark the VOT of all the labial stops, placing boundaries on the VOT tier. - Measure each VOT’s duration, like you did for Thai, and report it in Table 2. Table 2. VOT in English labial stops spit pit bit bid bill VOT (ms) 21 ms 93 ms -115ms -105ms -91ms 4. Record and measure your own speech Record your own speech in the Linguistics Lab (120A Gilbert Hall) - First, sign up for a 15-minute time slot to do your recording (link on eLC, under the “Homeworks” Tab) - Review the guide for recording, under the “Phonetics” tab, before going to your scheduled recording session - Either bring a flash drive or expect to receive the recording via email - With the help of a lab assistant, prepare to record in a soundproof booth - Record yourself reading the following sentence: “He took a spit, a pit, a bit, a bid, and a bill.” - Check the recording together with the lab assistant

between. This was the same for the unaspirated p in "spit," where the speaker VOT was 21ms, but mine was 10 ms.