Acoustic Characteristics of Speech Sounds Flashcards
vowels acoustic signal is relatively ______
loud (strong)
what has higher amplitude vowel or consonant
vowel
what is least constricted vowel
/a/
Primary acoustic characteristics are the formants _______, _______ and __________
- changes in articulator positions
- modification of vocal tract
- location of formant frequencies
Main characteristics of vowels
- characteristics formant bars in the spectrogram
- always voiced
- show no interruption or noise portion throughout their entire duration
Formant 1
tongue height
Formant 2
front/back dimension
as tongue height increases F__ _____
F1 lowers
as tongue moves forward F__ ______
F2 increases
F3
does not provide much articulatory information in English or other languages
EXCEPT
for round vs. unrounded front vowels, the rounding lowers all formants (tube lengthening) and moves F2 closer to F3
F4 and F5
speaker-specific -> may provide information about speaker identity rather than vowel quality
Diphthongs formants
- a change in formant pattern over time
- involves primarily the first two formants and is very noticeable on spectrograms
what is most similar consonant to vowels
approximants
what is most different consonant to vowels
plosives
Main acoustic cues for plosives
- gap in spectrogram/oscillogram
- “closure portion of the consistent” and contains no energy for voiceless
