The Relative Amplitude of Vowel Formants for Vowels in Asymmetrical Consonant Contexts
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Date
2006-06
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
The objective of this research is to characterize the role of the relative intensity of speech segments in the auditory processing of vowels and consonants within larger prosodic domains such as words. This project focuses on vowels and investigates the relative amplitude of vowel formants as a possible cue when listeners make phonemic and sub phonemic distinctions. The specific goal of this project is to examine the acoustic
pattern of the relative amplitude of formants in the production of selected co-articulated vowels. A follow up study will examine the auditory effect of formant level variations on listeners' decision about vowel quality and the intelligibility of words. This honors thesis project supplements a much larger acoustic study, which is a partial replication and
extension of an early study by House and Fairbanks (1953) examining vowel intensity in different consonant contexts.
The present research question is how the distribution of intensity across vowel
spectra in asymmetric consonant contexts (CIVC2 where CI # C2) differs from that in
symmetrical contexts (CIVC I where C1 = C ]). Recordings of vowels in both symmetrical
and asymmetrical contexts were obtained from adult Midwestern American English
speakers who participated in the larger study. The acoustic data obtained includes
measurements of the vowel duration, vowel intensity peak (rms), relative location of the
rms intensity peak, overall vowel intensity, and the relative amplitude of formants 1-4.
This overall research project aims to provide comprehensive analysis of vowel intensity and its role in the processing of the speech signal. It is expected that the internal
distribution of intensity will differ among the vowels, depending on the frequency of the
formants. However, whether and how this distribution changes in the different
consonantal contexts is the question that will be addressed.