1Ling. 696B: Phonology/phonetics seminarFall 2008Reduced SpeechTime: Monday 2-4:30Place: Douglass 206, and possibly sometimes the Douglass Phonetics Lab (Rm. 316)Class website: d2l.arizona.eduProfessor: Natasha WarnerOffice hours: 9:30-11:30 Tu., Douglass 320Phone: 626-5591Email: [email protected] (DO NOT USE d2l email to reach me, I don't read it.)Readings/Materials:Recent research articles to be located and chosen by the class, plus also:Barry, W. & Andreeva, B. (2001). Cross-language similarities and differences in spontaneousspeech patterns. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31: 51-66.Greenberg, S. (1999). Speaking in shorthand - A syllable-centric perspective for understandingpronunciation variation. Speech Communication, 29: 159-176.Johnson, K. (2004). Massive reduction in conversational American English. In SpontaneousSpeech: Data and Analysis. Proceedings of the 1st Session of the 10th InternationalSymposium, ed. Yoneyama, K. & Maekawa, K. Tokyo, Japan: The National InternationalInstitute for Japanese Language. pp. 29-54.Pluymaekers, M., Ernestus, M., & Baayen, R.H. (2005a). Lexical frequency and acousticreduction in spoken Dutch. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118: 2561–2569.We can also use the narrative portion of my recently submitted grant proposal on reducedspeech as a place to start. The program of the First Nijmegen Speech ReductionWorkshop (June, 2008), which Mirjam Ernestus (U. Nijmegen) and I co-organized, willalso serve as a starting point.The articles above, as well as the grant proposal and its references section and theworkshop program, are on the course d2l site.General organization of the course:• Add to list of questions/topics about reduced speech• Read articles, present them, and discuss• Show-and-tell of recorded examples of reduction (can also serve as super-pilotperception experiments!)• Make recordings in class and see what surprising realizations we can find• Other demos? (E.g. test an ASR system on reduced vs. careful speech, ...)• Other thoughts on activities other than read-and-discuss?Course requirements:• Wakeful, interested, participatory attendance and evidence of keeping up withreadings, except for medical reasons, family emergencies, conferences at whichyou are presenting,... (20%)2• Leading discussion on at least one article (20%)• Contribution of articles as possible readings (Week 3 (2nd week of class)), speechfiles of reduced speech (various weeks), and possibly other items we decide tobring in (20%)• Topic and methods proposal, orally in class plus short written version (Oct. 13)(10%)• Presentation on your research near end of semester (10%)• Term paper (20%) (FRIDAY DEC. 12, NOON). The term paper need not bespecifically on reduced speech if you've got ongoing phonetic work on somethingelse and would like to adapt your prelim/dissertation chapter to this class for thesake of progress toward degree. In this case, you should add a paragraph, or evenjust staple on a separate sheet for me, discussing how your topic might possiblyrelate to reduced speech, or give an example of reduced speech related to it. Ifyour term paper for this class is going to be turned in (or substantially the samework will be) for some other requirement, do let me and the otherinstructor/committee know.Some topics and questions:• What is reduced speech? What should we do with terms like connected,conversational, casual, sloppy, spontaneous; clear, careful; plain, normal speech?What does "natural speech" mean (to who)?• What phenomena get referred to as "reduction," and which ones are weparticularly interested in?• How much of our time as listeners do we spend listening to what kinds of speech,and how much reduction do they have in them?• Does reduction work the same way in various languages? (Barry article)• L2/cross-dialect issues• Reduced speech and special populations (dysarthria, elderly listeners with high-frequency hearing loss)• The lexicon and speech reduction (word frequency; does the lexicon includereduced forms)• Discourse and reduction• Reduced speech and phonological theory: to what extent should formalphonology attempt to model reduced productions? Can it?• Reduced speech and exemplar models of speech perception• Reduced speech and Articulatory Phonology• Reduced speech and speech technologies: synthesis of reduction?; ASR onreduced vs. clear speech• L1 acquisition and reduction• Historical sound change vs. reduced speech (e.g. is French just reduced Latin orDanish reduced German? Why not?)• Methods for studying speech reduction (production and perception)• Tools for using large connected speech corpora• Other questions/topics you add....3Schedule, as partially filled in by the class (in progress, most article choices TBA):Week, dateDiscussion leader, preferred topicRequirements or special items1, 8/25Introduction, terminology2, 9/1No class: holiday3, 9/8Choose articles as class, augmenttopic list and fill out scheduleBring in possible articles,read/skim grant narrative andworkshop program4, 9/15Overview of "massive" reduction,big corpus studies of productionGreenberg (1999), Johnson (2004)readings5, 9/22Lindblom H&H theoryStart bringing in sample recordingsby herereadings TBA6, 9/29Lexical issues, word frequency,etc.Ernestus et al., Lennes et al.,Pluymaekers et al.7, 10/6Topic and methods proposalpresentations8, 10/13Speech Tech, with ASR demoreadings TBA9, 10/20Dysarthria and other specialpopulationsLiss article(s)10, 10/27accommodation to interlocutorand familiarityarticles TBA11, 11/3crosslinguistic and L2 issuesBarry & Andreeva article, others?12, 11/10Formal phonology andArticulatory Phonologyarticles TBA13, 11/1714, 11/2415, 12/1Student presentations on your work16, 12/8Student presentations on your work12/12 (Friday)Papers due, 12:00, to Ling. Dep't.Various statements (semi-required):Students with Disabilities:4If you anticipate issues related to the format or requirements of this course, please meetwith me. I would like us to discuss ways to ensure your full participation in the course.If you determine that formal, disability-related accommodations are necessary, it is veryimportant that you be registered with Disability Resources (621-3268; drc.arizona.edu)and notify me of your eligibility for reasonable accommodations. We can then plan howbest