Time

Speech events take place in intervals of time, and have the property of consisting of varying combinations of different frequencies.

Use Praat, and the examples you have been working with so far, to investigate the following questions:

1. How long are syllables in English?
2. Do all syllables have the same length?
3. If not, can you find systematic differences between types of syllables?

Formulate the results in a table in your MS-Word document, for example (these numbers are fictitious):

Syllable Duration

the 0.24

home 0.35

se 0.29

cre 0.22

ta 0.27

ry 0.31

jack 0.29

straw 0.37

Average: ??

A number of problems will arise with this task, for example:

• What is a syllable?
• What are the criteria for identifying the boundaries of a syllable?
• Which syllable boundaries are the easiest to identify?
• Which syllable boundaries are the hardest to identify?

Now answer the following questions, using the table calculation operations of MS-Excel:

• What is the average length of the syllables in your examples?

In order to do this, follow this procedure:

1. Start MS-Excel with a new table (in principle the same procedure as starting MS-Word with a new document).
2. Focus your MS-Word document, mark the column containing syllables, and COPY it.
3. Focus your MS-Excel table, focus the top left hand cell, and PASTE (Einfügen) the contents of the column.
4. Do the same with the contents of the Durations column.
5. Then calculate the AVERAGE (MITTELWERT) of the Durations column:
   2. Double-click the cell below the last Duration value.
   3. Enter: =MITTELWERT()
   4. Place the cursor between the parentheses, thus: =MITTELWERT(|)
   5. Mark the cells of the Duration column.
   6. Click on the green Tick (Häkchen) icon in the menu bar.
   7. The average value should appear in the cell which you double-clicked.

If you have found that syllables are clearly different in length, separate them into a SHORT group and a LONG group, and calculate the averages for each group.

Example:

Syllable Duration

the 0.24 SHORT

cre 0.22 LONG

se 0.29 SHORT

ta 0.27 SHORT

jack 0.29 SHORT

Average: ??

Syllable Duration

home 0.35 LONG

ry 0.31 LONG

straw 0.37 LONG

Average: ??

Now go back to your original list, and see if there is a pattern in the occurrences of SHORT and LONG syllables.

The next stage is to complete the table with phonetic transcriptions, in the IPA alphabet, both in the SAMPA alphabet (easy!) and the ASAP SIL Doulos font (a bit of a hassle, but pretty).

To do this you will need to take note of the following:

1. Look at the IPA chart on the web: International Phonetic Association.
2. Look for the SAMPA alphabet for English on the web.
3. Check the ASAP SIL Doulos font in the MS-Word "Insert/Character" menu. Only use this font; the others are incompatible with it.

Example:

Syllable Duration Type IPA SAMPA

the 0.24 SHORT D@

se 0.29 SHORT

ta 0.27 SHORT

jack 0.29 SHORT

Average: ??

Continue the task with the following queries:

1. How long are consonants in English?
2. Can you find differences between
   • plosives and fricatives,
   • voiceless and voiced fricatives,
   • fricatives located at the beginnings, middles and ends of words
   in terms of length?
3. Develop a series of questions of your own for
   • vowels,
   • liquids,
   • nasals.

HOMEWORK

Look at Chapter 2 of the textbook:

Clark, J. & C. Yallop (1995, 2nd edn). An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell.

Summarise in your own words all the information you can find about the duration (length) of speech segments of different kinds. You can also check this in the other chapters of the textbook.