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SUMMARY:Speech as object data: exploring cross-linguistic changes in Roman
 ce languages - Davide Pigoli (King's College London)
DTSTART:20180320T113000Z
DTEND:20180320T123000Z
UID:TALK102661@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:INI IT
DESCRIPTION:Exploring phonetic change between languages is of particular i
 mportance in the understanding of the history and geographical spread of l
 anguages. While many studies have considered differences in textual form o
 r in phonetic transcription\, it is somewhat more difficult to analyse spe
 ech recordings in this manner\, although this is usually the dominant mode
  of transmission.   Here\, we propose a novel approach to explore phonetic
  changes\, using log-spectrograms of speech recordings. After pre-processi
 ng the data to remove inherent individual differences\, we identify time a
 nd frequency covariance functions as a feature of the language\; in contra
 st\, the mean depends mostly on the word that has been uttered. We use the
 se means and covariances to postulate paths between languages\, and we ill
 ustrate some preliminary results obtained when the model is applied to rec
 ordings of speakers of a few Romance languages.  This is part of a joint w
 ork with P.Z. Hadjipantelis\, J.S. Coleman and J.A.D. Aston.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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