Vowel acoustics (Sept 25/27)

Question 1

what are the 3 measures in vowels

Answer 1

• formants
  -duration
• phonation

Question 2

What are formants?

Answer 2

Our supra laryngeal systems boosts and dampens certain sounds, the Frequencies that are boosted are formants. In phonetics we usually need the first 2 and 3.

Question 3

What do the x and y axis stand for?

Answer 3

y axis is what the frequency is x axis is which frequency is it?

Question 4

A front high vowel will have a ____ F1 and a _____ F2

Answer 4

high front

Question 5

What is the difference between narrow band and wideband

Answer 5

• Narrow Band (window length 0.030)
  zoomed in so we can see the harmonics
  each peak indicates the location of a Harmonic (=sine waves that made up this complex wave)
• Wideband
  zoomed out to see general shape.
  locate each formant.

Question 6

What is F0?

Answer 6

Fundamental frequency, H1 (harmonic 1, and pitch

Question 7

What are component frequencies?

Answer 7

harmonics

Question 8

Can you find pitch from wideband spectrum?

Answer 8

no!

Question 9

What is vowel normalization?

Answer 9

Some techniques developed to address physiological differences in speakers (mouth size) that affect formant resonances.

Question 10

Why normalize vowels?

Answer 10

• Variability among speakers: Individuals produce vowels differently due to physiology and dialects
• Normalization aims to make vowels comparisons consistent and reliable.

Question 11

What are the goals of vowel Normalization?

Answer 11

• Eliminate Physiological variation cause by mouth size
• Preserve sociolinguistic differences in vowel quality.
• preserve phonological distinctions among vowels
• Model cognitive processes in vowel normalization.

Question 12

Vowel Normalization: Vowel Intrinsic Method. What is it and an example?

Answer 12

Use information from a single vowel token (eg. F1, F2)
Example: Formant Frequency Adjustments: Adjusting formant values based on average values for similar speakers.

Question 13

Vowel Normalization: Vowel Extrinsic Methods:

Answer 13

Compare formant values across different vowels by the same individual.
Example: Grand mean Normalization: Normalizating vowels using a grand mean calculated from all vowels spoken by the individual.

Question 14

Speaker-Intrinsic Methods vs Speaker- Extrinsic Methods

Answer 14

Speaker-Intrinsic Methods: Normalize based in data from a single speakers vowels.
Example: Individual Speaker Baseline: Establishing a baseline formant frequencies specific to an individual speaker.

Speaker- Extrinsic Methods: Utilize data from multiple speakers.
Example: Mean Adjustment method: Normalizing using mean values derived from a group of speakers.