Asymmetries in vowel perception align with focalization patterns, not peripherality: Acoustic evidence from Canadian French /e/ and /Ø

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2023-03, Vol.153 (3_supplement), p.A340-A340
• Main Authors: Polka, Linda, Masapollo, Matthew, Menard, Lucie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/10.0019079

The question of whether asymmetries in vowel perception stem from peripherality (location in F1/F2 vowel space) or focalization patterns (formant convergence) was examined. Prior studies with Danish and Dutch listeners reported asymmetric perception of /e-Ø/ such that discriminating a change from /e/ to /Ø/ was easier compared to the reverse direction (/Ø/ to /e/). Acoustic analyses of test stimuli suggest that focalization patterns predict this asymmetry whereas a peripherality-based prediction fails. Although this interpretation is compelling, it is based on analyses of several vowel tokens produced by a single talker. To confirm the reliability of these patterns we obtained acoustic and electromagnetic articulography recordings of Canadian French /e/ and /Ø/ productions from a broader sample of talkers (n = 20): 400 vowels/10 productions per vowel. Acoustic analyses revealed a robust pattern for all talkers: F1 and F2 (also F1 and F3) were spectrally closer for /Ø/ compared to /e/, and /e/ was also more peripheral than /Ø/ in F1/F2 space. These data align with the earlier (single-talker) analyses and confirm that /Ø/ is a more focal vowel than /e/. We will also discuss articulatory analyses of these French vowel productions that focus on how vocal-tract constrictions relate to focalization and peripherality.