An acoustic analysis of French contrast-specific clear-speech productions

Clear speech provides insight into acoustic correlates speakers alter when attempting to increase intelligibility or enhance phonemic contrasts. The present study consists of an acoustic analysis of clearly spoken French voiced and voiceless stops, nasal and oral vowels, and front rounded and unrounded vowels. Productions were elicited using a simulated interaction between French-speaking participants and a computer program, in which participants produced casual tokens and the program ‘guessed’ with controlled responses. When the program incorrectly responded with “???” (indicating ‘What did you say?’) or a specific competitor (e.g., response reins ʁɛ̃ ‘kidney’ to target reine ʁɛn ‘queen’), participants reproduced the word more clearly. The program’s responses probed at differences in speakers’ productions when responding to specific competitors versus globally attempting to increase intelligibility. Preliminary results show a general increase in prevoicing for clearly produced voiced stops. Speakers also adjust coarticulatory nasality to disambiguate CVN targets from CṼ competitors. Finally, expansion is exhibited between front rounded and unrounded vowel pairs in the F2/F3 vowel space from casual to clear; however, it is largest when the program’s response is “???”. Overall, findings suggest that speakers modify their speech differently in response to a specific competitor versus the general “???” response.