<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Automatic classification methods, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and self-organizing maps (SOMs), are applied to allophone analysis based on recorded speech. A list of 650 words was created for that purpose, containing positionally and/or contextually conditioned allophones. For each word, a group of 16 native and non-native speakers were audio-video recorded, from which seven native speakers’ and phonology experts’ speech was selected for analyses. For the purpose of the present study, a sub-list of 103 words containing the English alveolar lateral phoneme /l/ was compiled. The list includes ‘dark’ (velarized) allophonic realizations (which occur before a consonant or at the end of the word before silence) and 52 ‘clear’ allophonic realizations (which occur before a vowel), as well as voicing variants. The recorded signals were segmented into allophones and parametrized using a set of descriptors, originating from the MPEG 7 standard, plus dedicated time-based parameters as well as modified MFCC features proposed by the authors. Classification methods such as ANNs, the kNN and the SOM were employed to automatically detect the two types of allophones. Various sets of features were tested to achieve the best performance of the automatic methods. In the final experiment, a selected set of features was used for automatic evaluation of the pronunciation of dark /l/ by non-native speakers.</p></abstract>

Automatic classification methods, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and self-organizing maps (SOMs), are applied to allophone analysis based on recorded speech. A list of 650 words was created for that purpose, containing positionally and/or contextually conditioned allophones. For each word, a group of 16 native and non-native speakers were audio-video recorded, from which seven native speakers’ and phonology experts’ speech was selected for analyses. For the purpose of the present study, a sub-list of 103 words containing the English alveolar lateral phoneme /l/ was compiled. The list includes ‘dark’ (velarized) allophonic realizations (which occur before a consonant or at the end of the word before silence) and 52 ‘clear’ allophonic realizations (which occur before a vowel), as well as voicing variants. The recorded signals were segmented into allophones and parametrized using a set of descriptors, originating from the MPEG 7 standard, plus dedicated time-based parameters as well as modified MFCC features proposed by the authors. Classification methods such as ANNs, the kNN and the SOM were employed to automatically detect the two types of allophones. Various sets of features were tested to achieve the best performance of the automatic methods. In the final experiment, a selected set of features was used for automatic evaluation of the pronunciation of dark /l/ by non-native speakers.

Machine Learning–based Analysis of English Lateral Allophones

Institute of Data Science and Digital Technologies

International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"Machine Learning\u2013based Analysis of English Lateral Allophones"}

Automatic classification methods, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and self-organizing maps (SOMs), are applied to...

Machine Learning–based Analysis of English Lateral Allophones

Published Online: Jul 04, 2019

Page range: 393 - 405

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amcs-2019-0029

Keywords
allophones, audio features, artificial neural networks (ANNs), k-nearest neighbor (kNN), self-organizing map (SOM)

© 2019 Magdalena Piotrowska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Machine Learning–based Analysis of English Lateral Allophones

Published Online: Jul 04, 2019

Page range: 393 - 405

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amcs-2019-0029

Keywordsallophones, audio features, artificial neural networks (ANNs), k-nearest neighbor (kNN), self-organizing map (SOM)

© 2019 Magdalena Piotrowska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
allophones, audio features, artificial neural networks (ANNs), k-nearest neighbor (kNN), self-organizing map (SOM)