TY - JOUR

T1 - Developmental and cross-linguistic variation in the infant vowel space : the case of Canadian English and Canadian French.

AU - Rvachew, Susan

AU - Mattock, Karen

AU - Polka, Linda

AU - Menard, Lucie

N1 - ©2006 Acoustical Society of America This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America. The following article appeared in (citation of published article) and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2266460

PY - 2006/10

Y1 - 2006/10

N2 - This article describes the results of two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-sectional study designed to explore developmental and cross-linguistic variation in the vowel space of 10- to 18-month-old infants, exposed to either Canadian English or Canadian French. Acoustic parameters of the infant vowel space were described !specifically the mean and standard deviation of the first and second formant frequencies" and then used to derive the grave, acute, compact, and diffuse features of the vowel space across age. A decline in mean F1 with age for French-learning infants and a decline in mean F2 with age for English-learning infants was observed. A developmental expansion of the vowel space into the high-front and high-back regions was also evident. In experiment 2, the Variable Linear Articulatory Model was used to model the infant vowel space taking into consideration vocal tract size and morphology. Two simulations were performed, one with full range of movement for all articulatory paramenters, and the other for movement of jaw and lip parameters only. These simulated vowel spaces were used to aid in the interpretation of the developmental changes and cross-linguistic influences on vowel production in experiment 1.

AB - This article describes the results of two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-sectional study designed to explore developmental and cross-linguistic variation in the vowel space of 10- to 18-month-old infants, exposed to either Canadian English or Canadian French. Acoustic parameters of the infant vowel space were described !specifically the mean and standard deviation of the first and second formant frequencies" and then used to derive the grave, acute, compact, and diffuse features of the vowel space across age. A decline in mean F1 with age for French-learning infants and a decline in mean F2 with age for English-learning infants was observed. A developmental expansion of the vowel space into the high-front and high-back regions was also evident. In experiment 2, the Variable Linear Articulatory Model was used to model the infant vowel space taking into consideration vocal tract size and morphology. Two simulations were performed, one with full range of movement for all articulatory paramenters, and the other for movement of jaw and lip parameters only. These simulated vowel spaces were used to aid in the interpretation of the developmental changes and cross-linguistic influences on vowel production in experiment 1.

KW - natural languages

KW - speech processing

KW - speech

U2 - 10.1121/1.2266460

DO - 10.1121/1.2266460

M3 - Journal article

VL - 120

SP - 2250

EP - 2259

JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

SN - 0001-4966

IS - 4

ER -