Person:
Lahoz Bengoechea, José María

First Name

José María

Last Name

Lahoz Bengoechea

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/78073

Affiliation

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Faculty / Institute

Filología

Department

Lengua Española y Teoría Literaria

Area

Lengua Española

Identifiers

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Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 15

Durational cues to resyllabification in Spanish
(Loquens, 2023) Jiménez Bravo-Bonilla, Miguel; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
Word-final consonants in Spanish are post-lexically resyllabified when followed by an onsetless syllable, e.g. venden aves (‘they sell birds’) is traditionally syllabified as ven.de.na.ves and is considered homophonous with vende naves (‘he sells ships’). This study analyzes such two-word minimal pairs inserted in prosodically equivalent sentences read from a list and provides measurements of the acoustic duration of resyllabified /s/, /n/, and /l/, and of their flanking vowels. A mixed-model analysis showed that, when resyllabified as derived onsets, all three consonants pattern together and show a shorter duration (venden aves) in comparison with canonical onsets (vende naves). This is consistent with the coda position that they occupy in the lexical representation, given the weak nature of codas. However, vowel duration varies according to consonant identity. These results are discussed in terms of the articulatory gestures making up the target consonants and allow to interpret that the resyllabified consonant actually becomes the onset of the following syllable. Therefore, we offer converging evidence of resyllabified consonants acting both as codas and onsets, and consequently we propose they can be analyzed as ambisyllabic.
Automatic SignWriting Recognition: Combining Machine Learning and Expert Knowledge to Solve a Novel Problem
(IEEE Access, 2023) García Sevilla, Antonio Fernando; Díaz Esteban, Alberto; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
Sign languages are viso-gestual languages, using space and movement to convey meaning. To be able to transcribe them, SignWriting uses an iconic system of symbols meaningfully arranged in the page. This two-dimensional system, however, is very different to traditional writing systems, so its automatic processing poses a novel challenge for computational linguistics. In this article, we present a novel problem for the state of the art in artificial intelligence: automatic SignWriting recognition. We examine the problem, model the underlying data domain, and present a first solution in the form of an expert system that exploits the domain knowledge encoded in the data modelization. This system uses an adaptable pipeline of neural networks and deterministic processing, overcoming the challenges posed by the novelty and originality of the problem. Thanks to our data modelization, it improves the accuracy compared to a straight-forward deep learning approach by 17%. All of our data and code are publicly available, and our approach may be useful not only for SignWriting processing but also for other similar graphical data.
Building the VisSE Corpus of Spanish SignWriting
(Language Resources and Evaluation, ) Díaz Esteban, Alberto; García Sevilla, Antonio Fernando; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
SignWriting is a system for transcribing sign languages, using iconic depictions of the hands and other body parts, as well as exploiting the possibilities of the page as a two dimensional medium to capture the three-dimensional nature of signs. This goes beyond the usual line-oriented nature of oral writing systems, and thus requires a different approach to its processing. In this article we present a corpus of handwritten SignWriting, a collection of images which transcribe signs from Spanish Sign Language. We explain the annotation schema we have devised, and the decisions which have been necessary to deal with the challenges that both sign language and SignWriting present. These challenges include the transformational nature of symbols in SignWriting, which can rotate and otherwise transform to convey meaning, as well as how to properly codify location, a fundamental part of SignWriting which is completely different to oral writing systems. The data in the corpus is fully annotated, and can serve as a tool for computational training and evaluation of algorithms, as well as provide a window into the nature of SignWriting and the distribution of its features across a real vocabulary. The corpus is freely available online at https://zenodo.org/record/6337885.
Anticipatory coarticulation of the Spanish alveolar fricative /s/ in adults with apraxia versus dysarthria
(Revista de Investigación en Logopedia, 2024) Melle Hernández, Natalia; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María; Gallego López, Carlos; Nieva Ramos, Silvia
This acoustic study compares anticipatory coarticulation characteristics of the Spanish alveolar sibilant fricative /s/ when in utterance-initial position followed by a vowel in adults with dysarthria and apraxia of speech. Three groups of participants (28 individuals with no speech disorder, 20 with dysarthria, and 8 with apraxia of speech) produced 12 monosyllabic words that included the five vowel sounds of Central-Peninsular Spanish. The acoustic measurements compared within and between groups were frequency of the spectral intensity peak (FreqMid) in different zones of fricative execution, magnitude of the change in frequency of the spectral intensity peak (ΔFreq) in the end zone compared to the average of the initial and middle zones, first three spectral moments, and the difference in spectral center of gravity between the middle and end zones (DiffM-E CoG). Several of these measures were able to differentiate between dysarthric and healthy speech, especially when /s/ was followed by an unrounded vowel, and the same occurred for apraxia, but this time when the adjacent vowel was rounded. While both disorders showed similar spectral patterns, the two motor speech disorders differed in terms of the measures FreqMid and DiffM-E CoG. Possible explanations for these differences are here discussed within the framework of motor control models.
A different description of orientation in sign languages
(Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural, 2019) García Sevilla, Antonio Fernando; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
Sign languages are a very interesting object of linguistic study, posing challenges not present in oral languages. One of these challenges is describing and transcribing the internal structure of the language in a way that is adequate to its characteristics but also compatible with existing linguistic practice. The phonology of sign languages is of special interest. We focus on one phonological feature: that of hand orientation. We propose an interpretation and description system that better captures underlying meaning and structure, and that is more appropriate for its formal and computational treatment.
Métricas del ritmo aplicadas al estudio dialectológico del español
(Estudios de Fonética Experimental, 2022) Casado Mancebo, Mario; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
This paper reviews previous studies about dialectal variation of rhythm in Spanish and aims to analyse possible differences among Spanish spoken in Andalusia, Madrid, and Galicia. Four of the rhythm metrics present in the literature were used in the analysis. Spontaneous speech, by contrast with reading tasks, did allow us to discriminate among varieties, albeit only in the case of vowel duration measures. Drawing on the different effect of task on the results, two possible conceptions of rhythm are discussed: language rhythm (as a phonological property) and speech rhythm (as a phonetic property). It is argued that so-called rhythm metrics may be more related to the latter or may even reflect phonotactic rather than rhythmic properties.
Comparación de las secuencias fonotácticas biconsonánticas en inglés y español
(2013) Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
Unidad didáctica dirigida a hablantes nativos de inglés para enseñarles las diferencias en la estructura silábica del español con respecto a su propia lengua, y cómo ciertas secuencias de consonantes ayudan a reconocer las fronteras entre palabras. Incluye un plan de entrenamiento auditivo para mejorar la comprensión auditiva en español gracias a dicho reconocimiento y segmentación de palabras en el continuo sonoro.
Phonetic variation in Italian L2: An acoustic analysis of sibilant fricatives in the speech of L1 Spanish learners
(Estudios de Fonética Experimental, 2023) Rossi, Martina; Meluzzi, Chiara; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
The present study investigates the acoustic features of Italian sibilant fricatives (/s/, /z/ and /ʃ/) in the speech of L1 Spanish learners. Segmental duration, degree of voicing and place of articulation of learners’ productions are analysed alongside those of a control group of L1 Italian speakers to investigate the fine-grained phonetic differences between native and non-native pronunciation. Results from a quantitative analysis suggest that factors such as the degree of typological markedness of the phoneme and the influence of the L1 in perception and production affect L2 pronunciation to a different extent for each of the target sounds.
Fonodialectos del español: entonación
(2015) Lahoz Bengoechea, José María
Mapas del territorio hispanohablante con descripciones de los contornos entonativos para los distintos tipos de modalidades oracionales y con audios de ejemplo para comparar. La leyenda sigue una notación propia del modelo métrico autosegmental.
Obtaining Speech Samples for Research and Expertise in Forensic Phonetics
(Forensic Communication in Theory and Practice: A Study of Discourse Analysis and Transcription, 2017) Gil Fernández, Juana; Fernández Trinidad, Marianela; Infante Ríos, Patricia; Lahoz Bengoechea, José María; Orletti, Franca; Mariottini, Laura