Quantifying Tongue-Tip to Upper Incisor Distance in an Ultrasound Tongue Imaging Study of Swedish /i/

Westerberg, F. E., Lawson, E. and Stuart-Smith, J. (2023) Quantifying Tongue-Tip to Upper Incisor Distance in an Ultrasound Tongue Imaging Study of Swedish /i/. In: 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), Prague, Czech Republic, 7-11 Aug 2023, pp. 1032-1036. ISBN 9788090811423

Abstract

The Swedish /iː/ variant ‘Viby-i’ has been described as ‘thick’, ‘damped’ and ‘buzzing’, implying the presence of frication. The articulatory basis for its unusual buzzing quality is unknown. We investigate the possibility that frication results from proximity of the tongue tip to the upper incisors during Viby-i production. Ultrasound tongue imaging recordings of word-list speech from 34 Central Swedish speakers was used to study articulatory-acoustic variation across six Swedish long vowels, including Viby-i. Measures of vertical distance between highest point of the tongue and tongue tip indicate that the /iː/ and /yː/ tongue shapes are more apical than the other vowels. /iː/ and /yː/ also have shorter distances between the tongue tip and upper incisors, and acoustic analysis showed greater levels of aperiodicity for /iː/ and /yː/ than for other vowels. However, a correlational analysis did not identify a significant negative relationship between tongue-tipto-incisor distance and levels of aperiodic noise.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Westerberg, Ms Fabienne Elina and Stuart-Smith, Professor Jane and Lawson, Dr Eleanor
• Authors: Westerberg, F. E., Lawson, E., and Stuart-Smith, J.
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies ; College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Language and Linguistics
• ISBN: 9788090811423
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 GUARANT International spol. s r. o.
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

Related URLs

• Organisation

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
166170		Seeing the Links in the Speaker-Hearer Chain: An investigation of the transmission of articulatory variation using Ultrasound Tongue Imaging	Jane Stuart-Smith	Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)	SLSRP01 1302RA50	Arts - English Language and Linguistics