Article published In:
Cognitive Linguistic StudiesVol. 1:2 (2014) ► pp.313–328
Formant frequency characteristics in Palestinian Arabic-speaking aphasics
The aim of this paper is to examine the acoustic characteristics of Arabic vowels as produced by Palestinian Arabic-speaking Broca’s aphasics compared to normal speakers. Five subjects diagnosed with Broca’s aphasia and five normal speakers residing in the West Bank participated in this study. The subjects produced 240 vowel tokens of the eight Arabic vowels (/i:/, /i/, /e:/, /a:/, /a/, /o:/, /u:/ and /u/,). The samples were analyzed using PRAAT and the formants F1 and F2 of the eight Arabic vowels were measured. F1 and F2 values were compared to the data in the literature. Comparisons among speakers of Palestinian Arabic indicated that Broca’s aphasics’ formant frequencies were significantly different to those of normal speakers, showing that formant frequencies of F1 and F2 are generally higher among Broca’s aphasics compared to the control group. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the acoustic vowel space of Broca’s aphasics is more centralized compared to the control subjects. The results also indicate that Broca’s aphasics were able to maintain the phonemic contrast between the long and short vowels. In general, the results may contribute to neurolinguistic research across different languages, especially given that Palestinian Arabic is studied significantly less than other Arabic dialects. Furthermore, the results may have clinical applications when evaluating and/or treating Palestinian Arabic-speaking Broca’s aphasics.
References
Abou Haidar, L
(1994) Norme linguistique et variabilité dialectale: Analyse formantique du système vocalique de la langue arabe. Revue de Phonétique Appliquée, 1101, 1–15.
Al-Ani, S
(1970) Arabic phonology: An acoustical and physiological investigation. The Hague: Mouton. 
Alotaibi, Y., & Hussain, A
(2009) Formant based analysis of spoken Arabic vowels. Lecture Notes Computer Science, 57071, 162–169.
Anani, M
(1999) Arabic vowel formant frequencies. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 191, 2117–2119.
Baum, S
(1990) Acoustic analysis of intra-word syllabic timing relations in anterior aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 51, 321–332.
Baum, S., & Boyczuk, J
(1999) Speech timing subsequent to brain damage: Effects of utterance length and complexity. Brain and Language, 671, 30–45.
Baum, S., & Pell, M
(1997) Production of affective and linguistic prosody by brain-damaged patients. Aphasiology, 111, 177–198.
Beland, R., Caplan, D., & Nespoulous, J
(1990) The role of abstract phonological representations in word production: Evidence from phonemic paraphasias. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 51, 125–164.
Belkaid, Y
(1984) Les voyelles de l’arabe littéraire moderne. Analyse spectrographique. Travaux de l’Institut de Phonétique de Strasbourg, 161, 217–240.
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D
(2010) Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (version 5.1.43) [computer program]. Retrieved from /[URL]
Buchwald, A., & Rapp, B
(2006) Consonants and vowels in orthographic representation. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 231, 308–337.
Caramazza, A., Chialant, D., Capasso, D., & Miceli, G
(2000) Separable processing of consonants and vowels. Nature, 4031, 428–430.
Ferreres, A., López, C.V., & China, N
(2003) Phonological alexia with vowel–consonant dissociation in non-word reading. Brain and Language, 841, 399–413.
Gandour, J., & Dardarananda, R
(1984) Prosodic disturbance in aphasia: Vowel length in Thai. Brain and Language, 231, 206–224.
Ghosh, S., Tourville, J., & Guenther, F
(2008) A neuroimaging study of premotor lateralization and cerebellar involvement in the production of phonemes and syllables. Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 511, 1183–1202.
Goodglass, H., & Kaplan, E
(1983) Boston diagnostic aphasia examination (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger.
Kempler, D. & Van Lancker, D
(2002) Effect of speech task on intelligibility in dysarthria: A case study of Parkinson’s disease. Brain and Language, 801, 449–464.
Ladefoged, P
(2001) A course in phonetics. 4th edition. Ft Worth: Harcourt College Publishers.
Laver, J
(1994) Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Metoui, M
(1995) Phono Lab: Computerprogramm zur Artikulatorisch-Akustischen Datenanalyse. Arbeitsberichte des Instituts für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Mainz, 11, 1–100.
(2005) Pharyngal — Epiglottal: Die sekundäre Artikulation. Aachen: Shaker.
Natur, Y., Basem, S., Mawada, A., & Yacoub, K
(2011) Formant frequency characteristics in normal Arabic-speaking Jordanians. Journal of Voice, 251, 75–84.
Newman, D., & Verhoeven, J
(2002) Frequency analysis of Arabic in connected speech. Antwerp papers in linguistics, 1001, 77–86.
Paradis, M
(1987) The assessment of bilingual aphasia. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Peterson, G., & Barney, H
(1952) Control methods used in a study of the vowels. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 241, 585–594.
Pickett, J
(1999) The acoustics of speech communication. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Ryalls, J
(1987) Vowel production in aphasia: Towards an account of the consonant–vowel dissociation. In J.H. Ryalls (Ed.), Phonetic approaches to speech production in aphasia and related disorders (pp. 23–43). Boston, MA: Little Brown.
Seddoh, S
(2008) Conceptualisation of deviations in intonation production in aphasia. Aphasiology, 221, 1294–1312.
Shriberg, L., & Kent, R
(2003) Clinical Phonetics. (3rd ed.). Madison: University of Wisconsin.
Stevens, K
(1999) Acoustic phonetics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Summers, W., & Leek, M
(1992) The role of spectral and temporal cues in vowel identification by listeners with impaired hearing. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 351, 1189–1199.
Turner, C., & Henn, C
(1989) The relation between vowel recognition and measures of frequency resolution. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 321, 49–58.
Williams, S., & Seaver, J
(1986) A comparison of speech sound durations in three syndromes of aphasia. Brain and Language, 291, 171–182.