Acoustics of Sonorant Consonants

Question 1

Give two reasons nasal sounds have a lower intensity than vowels

Answer 1

Energy loss
Small resonating space

Question 2

What is the nasal murmur?

Identify whether the nasal murmur consists of high- or low-frequency energy and relate this to the configuration of the vocal tract during nasal sound production.

Answer 2

Sound emitted through the nares during a nasal consonant

Low intensity and low frequency

Question 3

Describe acoustic characteristics of nasals

Answer 3

Anti-formants (appears as bands of white in spectrogram) - regions of unusually low intensity

Nasal murmur - loss intensity

Question 4

How does hypernasal voice quality appear in a spectrogram?

Answer 4

Appear as a continuous band of low-frequency energy on the spectrogram

Question 5

Name two ways the acoustic signal of a glide can be distinguished from that of a vowel.

Answer 5

Acoustically, the glide /w/ resembles the vowel - /u/

The glide /j/ resembles the vowel - /i/

Question 6

What is the distinguishing acoustic characteristic of a rhotic (r-like) sound?

Answer 6

Lowered F3