Extracting dynamic parameters from speech movement data

A quantitative characterization of articulatory movements, using the parameter values of a linear second-order dynamical system, was developed in order to compare classes of movements, in particular, classes defined by linguistic factors such as syllable position, stress, and vowel quality. Movements of the lower lip in utterances such as ['bibebib] and [babe'bab] were partitioned into sections ("windows") in two ways: at successive displacement peaks and valleys, and at the right edge of plateau regions around such extreme values. The linguistic factors affected natural frequency in similar ways regardless of whether damping ratio was permitted to vary or held fixed at one of several different values. Damping ratio was generally unaffected by the linguistic factors. For the most part, the type of partition or window did not affect the patterns of the results, with the exception of the closing gesture out of the reduced syllable.