Quantifying Cue Production Profile differences using discrete acoustic cue distance

Systematic context-governed variation in the surface phonetic form of a phoneme can be captured in a Cue Production Profile (CPP; Chung et al. 2024, Torres et al. 2023). This study introduces a discrete acoustic cue distance for quantifying differences in the CPP for different contexts, speakers or populations, using the number of acoustic cue differences between them. CPPs are specified in terms of realizations, deletions, or insertions of 40 basic segmental acoustic cues compared to a set of predicted cues, including Landmark cues and cues to vowel/glide place, consonant place, nasalization, and glottal configuration, or any specified subset of these cues (Huilgol etal. 2019). For example, in intervocalic context, the difference between an aspirated /t/, produced with Stop closure, offset of glottal vibration, Stop release, onset of aspiration, offset of aspiration, onset of glottal vibration, and an asymmetrical variant of a flapped /t/, produced with Stop closure deletion, Glide Landmark insertion, Stop release, would be six cue modification units. The total discrete acoustic cue distance for a specified set of contexts (or for all contexts) may be used to more precisely characterize Cue Production Profile differences between contexts, between individual speakers and between populations of speakers.