Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-kwdml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T03:08:01.074Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enhancement and Overlap in the Speech Chain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Samuel Jay Keyser and
Kenneth Noble Stevens
Samuel Jay Keyser*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kenneth Noble Stevens*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*
Keyser, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32-D770, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, [keyser@mit.edu]
Stevens, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 36-517, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, [stevens@speech.mit.edu]
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A model of speech production is proposed in which the input is a planning stage at which lexical items are arrayed, accompanied by the full panoply of phonological representations from distinctive features to their attendant tree structures. A set of instructions for control of the vocal tract is calculated leading to a sound output. Two parallel processes are involved in the calculation of these instructions, both of which replace the planning-stage representation by the appropriate motoric instructions. One of these processes is universal and involves replacing each distinctive feature with an appropriate set of motoric instructions, either unmodified or modified by the process of overlap. We postulate a parallel language-specific process that is sensitive to those features in danger of losing their perceptual saliency as a consequence of the environment in which they appear. This process, referred to as enhancement, adds additional motoric instructions to enhance the saliency of the jeopardized features. We provide a number of examples to illustrate how enhancement works. We conclude from these examples that whereas defining gestures related to distinctive features are, in many instances, weakened or even absented from the speech stream, enhancement gestures, once added to the set of motoric instructions, appear never to be subject to obliteration by overlap.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , March 2006, pp. 33 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bell-Berti, Fredericka. 1975. Control of pharyngeal cavity size for English voiced and voiceless stops. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 57. 456–61.Google ScholarPubMed
Browman, Catherine, and Goldstein, Louis. 1986. Towards an articulatory phonology. Phonology Yearbook 3. 219–52.Google Scholar
Browman, Catherine, and Goldstein, Louis. 1990. Tiers in articulatory phonology with some implications for casual speech. Papers in laboratory phonology 1, ed. by Kingston, John and Beckman, Mary, 341–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Browman, Catherine, and Goldstein, Louis. 1992. Articulatory phonology: An overview. Phonetica 49. 155–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, Marilyn Y. 1997. Acoustic correlates of English and French nasalized vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 10. 2360–70.Google Scholar
Dang, Jianwu, Honda, Kiyoshi; and Suzuki, Hisayoshi. 1994. Morphological and acoustical analysis of the nasal and the paranasal cavities. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 96. 2088–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diehl, Randy L. 1991. The role of phonetics within the study of language. Phonetica 48. 120–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 1970. Olgolo syllable structure and what they are doing about it. Linguistic Inquiry 1.2.273–76.Google Scholar
Ellis, Lucy, and Hardcastle, William J.. 2002. Categorical and gradient properties of assimilation in alveolar to velar sequences: Evidence from EPG and EMA data. Journal of Phonetics 30. 373–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erickson, Donna. 1993. Laryngeal muscle activity in connection with Thai tones. Research Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics Annual Bulletin 27. 135–49.Google Scholar
Fox, Robert A., and Terbeek, Dale. 1977. Dental flaps, vowel duration and rule ordering in American English. Journal of Phonetics 5. 27–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisch, Stephan, and Wright, Richard. 2002. The phonetics of phonological speech errors: An acoustic analysis of slips of the tongue. Journal of Phonetics 30. 139–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. (ed.) 1973. Speech errors as linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton & Co.Google Scholar
Gow, David W. jr., 2002. Does English coronal place assimilation create lexical ambiguity? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 28. 163–79.Google Scholar
Gow, David W. Jr., ; Melvold, Janice; and Manuel, Sharon. 1996. How word onsets drive lexical access and segmentation: Evidence from acoustics, phonology and processing. International Conference on Speech and Language Processing 1. 66–69.Google Scholar
Grierson, George A. 1922. Spontaneous nasalization in the Indo-Aryan languages. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society July.381-88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gussmann, Edmund. 2002. Phonology: Analysis and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halle, Morris, and Stevens, Kenneth N.. 1971. A note on laryngeal features. MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics Quarterly Progress Report 101. 198–213.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris, and Stevens, Kenneth N.. 1996. The post alveolar fricatives of Polish. Speech production and language: In honor of Osamu Fujimura, ed. by Kiritani, Shigeru, Hirose, Hajime, and Fujisaki, Hiroya, 177–93. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hanson, Helen M. 1997. Glottal characteristics of female speakers: Acoustic correlates. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101. 455–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, Katherine S. 1958. Cues for the discrimination of American English fricatives in spoken syllables. Language and Speech 1. 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hattori, Shiro, Yamamoto, Kengo; and Fujimura, Osamu. 1958. Nasalization of vowels in relation to nasals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 30. 267–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hercus, Luise. 1972. The pre-stopped nasal and lateral consonants of Arabana-WaNga-Nguru. Anthropological Linguistics 14. 293–305.Google Scholar
Honda, Kyoshi, Hirai, Hiroyuki; and Kusakawa, Naoki. 1993. Modeling vocal tract organs based on MRI and EMG observations and its implication on brain function. Research Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics Annual Bulletin 27. 37–49.Google Scholar
House, Arthur S., and Fairbanks, Grant. 1953. The influence of consonantal environments upon the secondary acoustical characteristics of vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 25. 105–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iverson, Gregory K., and Salmons, Joseph C.. 1996. Mixtec prenasalization as hypervoicing. International Journal of Anthropological Linguistics 62.2.165–75.Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith. 2001. Spoken language variability: Implications for modeling speech perception. Proceedings of the Workshop on Speech Recognition as Pattern Classification (SPRAAC). Online: http://corpus.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~kjohnson/JohnsonSpraac.pdf.Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith. 2003. Acoustic & auditory phonetics. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Joos, Martin. 1942. A phonological dilemma in Canadian English. Language 18. 141–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenstowicz, Michael. 1993. Phonology in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Keyser, Samuel J., and Stevens, Kenneth N.. 2001. Enhancement revisited. Ken Hale: A life in language, ed. by Kenstowicz, Michael, 271–91. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kingston, John. 1992. The phonetics and phonology of perceptually motivated articulatory covariation. Language and Speech 35. 99–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kingston, John, and Diehl, Randy. 1995. Intermediate properties in the perception of distinctive feature values. Papers in laboratory phonology 4, ed. by Connell, Bruce and Arvaniti, Amalia, 7–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kingston, John, Macmillan, Neil A., Dickey, Laura W., Thorburn, Rachel; and Bartels, Christine. 1997. Integrality in the perception of tongue root position and voice quality in vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101. 1696–709.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klatt, Dennis H., and Klatt, Laura. 1990. Analysis, synthesis, and perception of voice quality variations among female and male talkers. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 87. 820–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kluender, Keith R., Lotto, Andrew J.; and Holt, Lori L.. 1995. Effect of voice quality on the tense/lax distinction for English vowels. Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 4. 164–67.Google Scholar
Kohler, Klaus J. 1984. Phonetic explanation in phonology: The feature fortis/lenis. Phonetica 41. 150–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kwong, Katherine, and Stevens, Kenneth N.. 1999. On the voiced-voiceless distinction for writer/rider. Speech Communication Group Working Papers—MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics 11. 1–20.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter, and Maddieson, Ian. 1996. The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Levelt, Wim, Roelofs, R. D.; and Myer, Antje S.. 1999. A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22. 1–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lindau, Mona. 1979. The feature expanded. Journal of Phonetics 7. 163–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, Bjorn. 1990. Explaining phonetic variation: A sketch of the H&H theory. Speech production and speech modeling, ed. by Hardcastle, William J. and Marchal, Alain, 403–39. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Manuel, Sharon Y. 1995. Speakers nasalize /ð/ after /n/ but listeners still hear /ð/. Journal of Phonetics 43. 453–76.Google Scholar
McClelland, James L., and Elman, Jeffrey L.. 1986. The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology 18. 1–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, George A., and Nicely, Patricia. 1955. An analysis of perceptual confusions among some English consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 27. 338–53.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. 1982. The phonological end justifies any means. International Congress of Linguistics 13. 232–43.Google Scholar
Perkell, Joseph, Boyce, Suzanne E.; and Stevens, Kenneth N.. 1979. Articulatory and acoustic correlates of the [s-sh] distinction. Speech communication papers: 97th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, ed. by Wolf, J. J. and Klatt, Dennis H., 109–13. Melville, NY: Acoustical Society of America.Google Scholar
Perkell, Joseph S., Guenther, Frank H., Lane, Harlan, Matthies, Melanie L., Perrier, Pascal, Vick, Jennell, Wilhelms-Tricarico, Reiner; and Zandipour, Majid. 2000. A theory of speech motor control and supporting data from speakers with normal hearing and with profound hearing loss. Journal of Phonetics 28. 233–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pouplier, Marianne. 2003. Units of phonological encoding: Empirical evidence. New Haven: Yale University dissertation.Google Scholar
Repp, Bruno H., and Svastikula, Katyanee. 1988. Perception of the /m/-/n/ distinction in VC syllables. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 83. 237–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saltzman, Elliot, and Munhall, Kevin G.. 1989. A dynamic approach to gestural patterning in speech production. Ecological Psychology 1. 333–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shattuck-Hufnagel, Stefanie. 1986. The representation of phonological information during speech production planning: Evidence from vowel errors in spontaneous speech. Phonology Yearbook 3. 117–49.Google Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth N. 1977. Physics of laryngeal behavior and larynx modes. Phonetica 34. 264–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stevens, Kenneth N. 1989. On the quantal nature of speech. Journal of Phonetics 17. 3–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth N. 1998. Acoustic phonetics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth N., Keyser, Samuel J.; and Kawasaki, Haruko. 1986. Toward a phonetic and phonological theory of redundant features. Invariance and variability in speech processes, ed. by Perkell, Joseph S. and Klatt, Dennis H., 426–47. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth N., and Keyser, Samuel J.. 1989. Primary features and their enhancement in consonants. Language 65. 81–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, Kenneth N., Li, Zhiqiang, Lee, Chao-Yang; and Keyser, Samuel J.. 2004. A note on Mandarin fricatives and enhancement. From traditional phonology to modern speech processing, ed. by Fant, Gunnar, Fujisaki, Hiroya, Cao, Jianfen, and Xi, Yu, 393–403. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. 1967. Tongue root position in Akan vowel harmony. Phonetica 16. 185–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svirsky, Mario A., Stevens, Kenneth N., Matthies, Melanie L., Manzella, Joyce, Perkell, Joseph S.; and Wilhelms-Tricarico, Reiner. 1997. Tongue surface displacement during bilabial stops. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 102. 562–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vaux, Bert. 1998. The laryngeal specifications of fricatives. Linguistic Inquiry 29.3.497–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westbury, John R. 1983. Enlargement of the supraglottal cavity and its relation to stop consonant voicing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 73. 1322–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Westbury, John R. 1994. X-ray microbeam speech production database user's handbook. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Whalen, Douglas H., and Beddor, Patrice S.. 1989. Connections between nasality and vowel duration and height: Elucidation of the Eastern Algonquian intrusive nasal. Language 65. 457–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zsiga, Elizabeth C. 1994. Acoustic evidence for gestural overlap in consonant sequences. Journal of Phonetics 22. 121–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar