Aerodynamic patterns as indicators of articulation and acoustic sources for fricatives produced by different speakers

Stromberg, K., Scully, C., Badin, P. and Shadle, C.H. (1994) Aerodynamic patterns as indicators of articulation and acoustic sources for fricatives produced by different speakers. Proc. Inst. of Acoustics.

Abstract

Acoustic patterns for fricatives are difficult to characterise in spectral terms. They show consistency within one speaker but much cross-speaker variation (Hughes and Halle [1]). For our two main speakers, analysis of anechoic recordings has shown this within-speaker consistency while it suggests that the lower front cavity resonance is associated with a different format number in the two cases (Shadle et al. [2]). The location in time of perceptual cues may vary for different fricatives, with /f/ and /theta/ for example distinguished more by transitions at the edges of the frication noise segments than by the spectra within this segment (Harris [3]). Aerodynamic processes are a crucial factor in the production of fricatives. Aerodynamic conditions and the configurations of the articulators at and near a vocal tract constriction combine to produce the acoustic output associated with that fricative. To gain more understanding of the mechanisms that are involved we need to have information about these aerodynamic processes and about the vocal tract constriction size, shape and location. At present it is extremely difficult to infer three-dimensional shapes. The articulatory data presented here derive from measures which are aerodynamic in nature and can therefore be said to be an approximation of the real constriction area. Aerodynamic conditions in the vocal tract reflect the totality of actions including those of the respiratory system and larynx.

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