Using principal component analysis to explore co-variation of vowels

Joshua Wilson Black*, James Brand, Jen Hay, Lynn Clark

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
12 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for exploring systematic co-variation of vowels using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). As a case study, we examine and build on Brand et al.'s (2021) study of systematic co-variation amongst the monophthongs of New Zealand English (NZE) across speakers born over a 118-year time period. We present PCA as a methodology, with information aimed at readers who may themselves want to use it in a related context. We consider tests for the appropriateness of PCA, how to select Principal Components, and how to interpret them once they have been found. At each stage, we provide code in the R programing language to enable readers to both follow our analysis and apply the same methods to their own data.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere12479
Pages (from-to)1-17
Number of pages17
JournalLanguage and Linguistics Compass
Volume17
Issue number1
Early online date17 Dec 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2023

Keywords

  • Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
  • Co-variation
  • Vowel Analysis
  • Phonetics
  • Linguistics
  • Acoustic Phonetics
  • Speech Analysis
  • Vowel Space
  • Multivariate Analysis
  • Statistical Methods in Phonetics
  • Speech Patterns
  • Formant Frequencies
  • Language Variation
  • Speech Research
  • Acoustic Data Analysis

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