Abstract

Word frequency and lexical class distinction between function and content words have been shown to significantly influence word production. In this paper, we use real-time magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the effect of word frequency and lexical class on articulatory characteristics (the articulator speed) as well as acoustic characteristics (F0 and short-term energy) in word production. Multiple regression analyses showed that word frequency exhibits significantly higher correlation with articulatory and acoustic factors for content words compared to function words. A Granger causality analysis uncovered a causal relationship from articulatory speed to F0/energy for low-frequency content words. We further observed, using functional canonical correlation analysis, a tight coupling of articulatory and acoustic characteristics for low-frequency content words. These results support the view that word frequency …

Date

2013

Authors

Zhaojun Yang, Vikram Ramanarayanan, Dani Byrd, Shrikanth S Narayanan

Conference

INTERSPEECH

Pages

973-977