Some cues for syllable juncture perception in English

William M. Christie Jr.

Departmentof English, Universityof Arizona, Tucson,Arizona 85721

(Received 1 November 1973; revised 20 December 1973)

Most previousacousticresearchon syllablejuncture phenomenahas used as stimuli recordingsof

natural speech.From this researchit has been possibleto suggestthat certain differencescbservedin
spectrogramsof the recordingsmight cue the differencesin the perceivedlocation of the syllable
boundary, but confirmatorytests with syntheticstimuli have been lacking. This experimentuses
syntheticstimuli to examineintervocalie/st/ clustersto determinethe effectsof formant transitions
onto the/s/, silencebetweenthe end of the/s/noise and the/t/burst, andaspirationon the/t/in
determiningthe location of syllableboundariesin English. Formant transitionsappear to have little
or no effect on the boundary,but silenceand aspirationboth affect perceptionof the boundary
location. The fact is noted that the aspirationon the/t/is a feature of allophonicalternationin
English. A proposalmade earlier by Lehiste that allophonicalternationscan carry structural
information is thus confirmedby this experiment.Some suggestions for further researchare
appended.

Subject Classification:70.30, 70.70.

INTRODUCTION tions and no cutback, no transitions and cutback, and no

This is a report on an experiment to determine some
of the acoustic cues for the perception of syllable junc-
ture in English.' Previous research in this area, such
as that described in Lehiste (1960), has used as stimuli
recordings of natural speech. Spectrograms of these
recordings were examined to determine what differences
might have cued the perceived differences in the syllable
boundary. By the nature of the procedure used, the ex-
perimenter could make no stronger claim than that the
differences seen in the spectrograms might have cued
the perceived boundary differences. It is possible that
the correct cues were missed, or even that they did not
appear in the spectrograms. By contrast, the present
experiment was conducted with synthetic speech that
varied only the particular features under consideration.
The purpose of this research is to determine whether
these features, and these alone, are sufficient to cue
perceived differences in the location of the syllable
boundary in the sequences that were used as stimuli.
!. PROCEDURE
transitions and no cutback.
In the test each stimulus was given twice in succession
with a 1-sec interval between. The pairs were random-
ized with 3.5 sec between pairs. The 100 pairs were
given at a single session in two groups of 50 pairs each,
with a 5-min rest period in the middle. The test was
of the forced choice type, the subjects being asked to
indicate on their test sheets whether they perceived the
stimuli as /a Ista/or as /as Ita/. No other response
was allowed, and no other questions concerning the per-
ception of the stimuli were asked.
The subjects for the experiment were 44 phonetically
naive first-year students in linguistics at Yale Univer-
sity. The test was administered in the middle of the fall
semester, before the subjects had any training or prac-
tice in phonetics. Of the 44 subjects, 11 were excluded
for various reasons. One was a native speaker of French,
a few had difficulty perceiving the stimuli as speech, and
several perceived all stimuli in the same way, all as
/a Ista/or all as /as Ita/.

Stimuli for this experiment were nonsensesequences

synthesized on the computer driven synthesizer system IOO

at Haskins Laboratories. The sequences were all of the 90

form/asta/, with basic parameter values adaptedfrom
80
those given in Ingemann (1957). Three possible cues
were examined: the presence or absence of formant 70

transitionsfrom the initial/a/onto the /s/, the F1 cut-

•60-
back on the /t/ ("aspiration"), andthe lengthof the si-
lence interval between the end of the /s/noise and the
/t/burst. Formant transitionswere either present or 40-
absent (flat). The F1 cutbackwas likewise either pres-
30-
ent (50 msec ) or absent, with no intermediate values.
The silence interval was varied from 15 to 135 msec 20

in steps of 5 msec. These short intervals were used

over this range of variation so that if changes in per-
ception turned out to be gradual rather than abrupt (as ,b ' 2'0' fo'4'o' 5'0 ' 6'0' 7b 'sb ' 9'0 ' ,60' ,io' ,•0' ,•0'
actually ocburred), a fairly precise idea of the shapeof msec silence
the curve could be obtained. There were thus a total of
100stimuli, 25 eachof transitionsandcutback,transi- FIG. 1. No aspiration on /t/.

819 J. Acoust.Soc.Am., Vol. 55, No. 4, April 1974 Copyright¸ 1974 by the AcousticalSocietyof America 819

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 820 W.M. Christie Jr.: Syllable juncture perception in English
II. RESULTS
The results of the experiment are shown in the three
graphs. Figures 1 and 2 show the effects of formant
transitions on the perception of syllable boundaries. In
each figure the vertical axis shows the percentage of in-
formants respondingwith/as Ita/. The horizontalaxis
shows the duration of the silence interval between
/s/and the /t/. The response curve for stimuli without
transitions is indicated by the solid line. The response
curve for stimuli with transitions is indicated by the
broken line. Figure 1 shows the curves for the stimuli
without aspiration, and Fig. 2 shows the curves for the
stimuli with aspiration. The results of this experiment
show no discernible effect on syllable boundary percep-
tion caused by the presence or absence of the formant
transitions. In the remaining figure, responses to stim-
uli with and without transitions are averaged together
for each quality of aspiration and interval of silence.
Figure 3 shows the averaged response curves for stim-
uli with (solid line) and without (broken line) aspiration.
The presence of aspiration appears to be a strong cue
for the perception of the syllable boundary between the
/s/and the /t/. In no case is the effect of the aspira-
tion less than 15 percentage points.
Figure 3 also shows that the length of the silence in-
terval has an effect on the perception of the syllable
boundary. Although the curve is not smoothe, in general
the greater the interval of silence betweenthe /s/and
the /t/, the greater is the likelihoodthat the subject
will perceive the boundary to fall there. One might sug-
gest here the following interpretation of the interaction
of aspiration and silence. The presence of aspiration
cues the presence of the syllable boundary between the
/s/and the /t/. Absenceof aspiration cuesthe pres-
ence of the syllable boundarybetweenthe /a/and the/s/.
But these perceptions will be affected by the length of
the silence interval. Either a very long silence interval
combined with an absence of aspiration or a very short
silence interval combined with the presence of aspira-
tion will yield random responses. It is worth noting
that the curves show gradual rather than abrupt shifts
in responses as the silence interval is varied.
IOO
9o
80
70
•60
40
2O
•b ' i0' :/0'4'0 ' 5b ' 6'0 ' ?b 'sb ' do ' 160' •io' •0'
msec silence
FIG. 2. Aspiration on /t/.
J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 55, No. 4, April 1974
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820
100'
90'
80
70
•60-
the
40-
:50-
20
I0 20 30 40 50 60" 7'0 '8'0'9'0 I00 II0 120 150
msec silence
'FIG. 3. Averaged responses.
III. INTERPRETATION
In evaluating
thesedata, linguists
willnotbesurprised
that aspiration on a voiceless stop in English serves as
a cue that that stop is in syllable initial position. Such
a result would be expected to follow from the fact that
in English aspirated stops appear only in initial position
in a stressed syllable. One would like to suggest that
allophones are more than excess baggage through which
a listener must work his way, and that they actually can
carry information about the structure of the message.
Such a suggestion was made and discussed in Lehiste
(1960). But, as notedin the introductionto this report,
because of the procedure used, it was not possible to be
sure that the features suggested by Lehiste were in fact
the actual cues. It was entirely possible that the experi-
menter noted the allophones because of familiarity with
the known phonologic alternation, but that other unno-
ticed or unrecorded features were the real cues. By
contrast, in the present experiment, since the stimuli
were synthesized, and only the possible cues under in-
vestigation were varied, it is possible to assert that at
least under the conditions created, the allophonic varia-
tion betweenaspiratedandunaspirated/t/ doesserve to
cue the distinctions perceived in the location of the syl-
lable boundary. Lehiste's suggestion that the allophones
can serve to carry information about the structure of the
message is thus confirmed.
IV. FURTHER RESEARCH
Since aspiration may also be a cue for syllable stress
in English, it will be useful as a preliminary to further
research to readminister the test, asking instead whether
either syllable was perceptibly louder or more heavily
stressed than the other. In all cases, the vowels are of
identical (objective) length and loudness, and it wouldbe
worthwhile to know whether the simple change of the as-
piration on the /t/is sufficient to effect a changein the
•' perception of the vowels. In addition it would be valu-
able to know more about the interaction of aspiration and
silence. Aspiration in the present test was simply a
 821 W.M. Christie Jr.: Syllable juncture perception in English 821

plus or minus matter. A test is currently in prepara- 1Theresearchdescribedhere was conducted

at HaskinsLabo-
tion that will vary not only the silence interval, but also ratories, New Haven, Connecticut. I wish to thank the staff
the degree of aspiration. Finally, tests should be made of the Laboratories, and especially Alvin Liberman, for the
to evaluate possible cues in other medial clusters. All support, criticism, and encouragement given me.
such clusters must also be allowable initial clusters in Ingemann,F. (1957). 'Rules for Synthesizing
American
English on the Pattern Playback," unpublishedpaper, Has-
English for the test to be workable. Currently under in- kins Laboratories, New York.
vestigationis the cluster /sn/, as in the minimal pair Lehiste, I. (1960). "An Acoustic-PhoneticStudyof Internal
"Helpusnail," "Help a snail." Open Juncture," Phonetica Suppl. 5.

J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 55, No. 4, April 1974

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