School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemA comparison of the acoustics of nonsense and real word stimuli: coronal stops in Bengali(International Phonetics Society, 2015)Research suggests that nonsense and real words often exhibit differences in their acoustic properties. Despite this, the use of nonsense stimuli is prevalent in acoustic analyses of a range of phenomena and in experimental studies of segmental perception. The present study examined stop duration and preceding vowel formant transitions for two Bengali coronal stops produced in real and nonsense word stimuli. Firstly, significant differences were observed based on the stimulus type. Nonsense word production showed more distinct dental-retroflex differentiation. Secondly, the results revealed that F3 was a more reliable cue to place of articulation than closure duration and voice onset time.
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ItemWubuy coronal stop perception by speakers of three dialects of Bangla.(International Speech Communication Association, 2015)We tested native speakers from three major dialect groups of Bangla, on their discrimination of a four-way coronal stop contrast from the Australian Indigenous language Wubuy. Bangla is generally assumed to have a two-way contrast in coronal stops, with an additional place distinction in affricates. The results show that Bangla speakers are able to discriminate the Wubuy contrasts, but also that certain contrasts are more difficult to discriminate than others. We discuss these results with respect to the Bangla coronal inventory, and importantly, with respect to the variation in the phonetic realisation of coronals between the dialects of Bangla. We argue that the phonetic realisation of what is regarded to be the 'same' phonemic inventory can have implications for the perceptual behaviour of speakers.