The acoustics of vowels in Standard Dutch

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The acoustics of (v)ow(e)ls in Standard Dutch

• Sander van der Harst

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The acoustics of vowels in Standard Dutch
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Overview

• Research and research questions
• Speech material
• Acoustic measurements
• Normalization procedures
• Results
• Discussion

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1. Research and research questions
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Introduction

• Acoustics of vowels of Standard Dutch
• Part of a larger sociolinguistic project on
  pronunciation variation in NL and Flanders
• Sociolinguistic variation
• Within-speaker variation (stylistic variation)
• Between-speaker variation (e.g. regional
  variation)

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Research questions

• Sociolinguistic theory
• Increase in regional differences in a more
  informal register (within-phoneme variation)
• Decrease of the size of the vowel space in a more
  informal register
• Questions
• Does the size of the vowel space decrease in a
  more informal register?
• Is this decrease at the cost of the linguistic
  (i.e. phonemic) variation?

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Formal
Informal
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2. Speech material
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Speakers
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Material

• Word list
• For example uil owl, kaas cheese
• Carrier sentences (Adank 2003) In sVs en in
  sVsse zit de V
• Informal interview
• Selection of tokens (10 per vowel per speaker)
• In sum 72,000 tokens
• Word list 300 words, 160 speakers
• Spontaneous speech 150 tokens per speaker

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3. Acoustic measurements
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Segmentation

• Automatic segmentation
• Praat
• Checked manually

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Measurements

• Duration
• Fundamental frequency (F0)
• Number of vibrations of the vocal cords per
  second
• Formant frequencies or resonance frequencies
  (F1, F2,F3)
• Speech sound consists of complex waveforms
• Dependent on the form and size of the vocal tract

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Source Rietveld Van Heuven (2001125)
Source-filter theory
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Source Rietveld Van Heuven (2001122124)
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4. Normalization procedures
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Variation

• Different sources of variation
• Phonemic variation
• Sociolinguistic variation
• Anatomical/physiological variation
• A normalization procedure must
• Preserve 1 2
• Minimize 3

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5. Results
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Source Adank, van Hout Van de Velde
(20071135)
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Sources

• Adank, P. (2003). Vowel normalization A
  perceptual-acoustic study of Dutch vowels.
  Dissertation Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.
• Adank, P., Van Hout, R., Van de Velde, H. (2007).
  An acoustic Description of the Vowels of Northern
  and Southern Standard Dutch II regional
  Varieties. In Journal of the Acoustical Society
  of America, to appear.
• Rietveld, A. V. van Heuven (2001), Algemene
  Fonetiek. Bussum Coutinho.

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6. Discussion
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• Who is a speaker of Standard Dutch?
• or, less specific
• Who is a speaker of the standard language?