Acoustic Phonetics
VowelsReading Spectrograms: Words 1 |
ConsonantsReading Spectrograms: Words 2 |
- Lips, teeth, tongue, vocal chords, larynx and pharynx are key manipulators
- The epiglottis covers the airway so food doesn't get into your lungs
- The vocal tract: the vocal chords through the mouth and tongue influences the different sounds that you can make
- air is forced from your lungs through the vocal chords
- air is forced from your lungs through the vocal chords
- vowel sounds have unique signatures in that they have a different formant structure
- formant - each of several prominent bands of frequency that determine the phonetic quality of a vowel
- there is a lot of speech perception related to formants
- formants are where the frequencies are enhanced
- there is a lot of speech perception related to formants
- plosive - there is closure and then a build up and release
- frcatives - air is constantly passing through, create friction
- affricate - combination sound, e.g. d going into s is the "ja" sound
- the different tongue positions give rise to a different spectra of formant
- patterns are the same but vary from individual to individual
- the vocal tract changes shape by changing the shape of the tonge
- vowel sounds are smooth
- tongue height, high, medium, low tongue position, front, mid back, lip rounding close, open
- consonant sounds have to make a constriction in your vocal tract which will allow you to stop your air flow for a brief period creating turbulence with that process
- consonants can be distinguished in terms of
- voicing - whether or not vocal folds are vibrating in the larynx
- place - site of constriction or closure in the vocal tract
- bilatial, alveolar, dental, palatal
- manner - type of constriction (plosive, fricative, affricate, nasal approximates)
- plosive, fricative, affricate, continuants (narrower of that as a vowel but not as much as a consonaant)
- the vocal tract changes as a function
- speech pattern consists of various complex processes, vowel sounds, consonant sounds
- the difference between male and female vocal chords is between 100Hz, have a different fundamental frequency, vocal fold stays the same but the shape changes it
- phonemes - english contains about 40 phonemes
- spectrogram - representation of the frequency and intensity of the speech signal over time
- harmonic and a formant - harmonics are related to fundamental frequency of vocal chord vibration
- you have a fundamental and then next harmonic
- formant is representative of where in the vocal tract the sound is resonated, not the fundamental frequency
- some of the darker areas of the spectrograms are the formants