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Place cues for nasal consonants with special reference to Catalan
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|April 1, 1983
Summary
This study shows that formant transitions and nasal murmurs are crucial for identifying Catalan nasal consonants. Transitions are primary cues, but murmurs significantly aid in distinguishing specific nasal sounds.
Area of Science:
- Phonetics
- Auditory Perception
- Speech Science
Background:
- Unreleased nasal consonants in Catalan, specifically /n/, /ɲ/, and /ŋ/ after /a/, are phonetically complex.
- Understanding the perceptual cues for these sounds is vital for speech synthesis and language acquisition research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the perceptual roles of formant transitions and nasal murmurs in identifying Catalan unreleased nasal consonants /n/, /ɲ/, and /ŋ/.
- To determine how these acoustic cues interact and contribute to the distinction between different places of articulation.
Main Methods:
- Synthesized speech stimuli by systematically varying formant transitions and nasal murmur patterns.
- Interpolated between optimal values derived from spectrographic analysis of natural Catalan speech.
- Conducted identification tests with Catalan speakers using the synthetic stimuli.
Main Results:
- Formant transitions were found to be more effective cues for place of articulation than nasal murmurs.
- Nasal murmurs significantly contributed to the distinction between /n/ and /ɲ/.
- An inverse relationship was observed between the cue value of transitions and murmurs for different nasal sounds.
Conclusions:
- Static and dynamic place cues for nasal consonants in an /aC#/ context are perceptually integrated.
- This integration is referenced against the typical production patterns of these Catalan consonants.
- The findings offer insights into the complex interplay of acoustic features in speech perception.