Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Spectrographic characteristics of consonants and vowels have been studied extensively in the history of speech research (Fant, 1970; Joos, 1948; Potter, Kopp, & Green, 1947). Among the most recent publications, a concise account of American English characteristics can be found in the textbook by Kent & Read (1992), in conjunction with relevant background issues of speech signal analysis. Ladefoged's textbook (Ladefoged, 1993) discusses both British and American forms of English. A more comprehensive treatise by Laver (1994), including articulatory and acoustic details of speech sound characteristics with references to a variety of languages, is recommended for further study. Another textbook by Ladefoged, Elements of Acoustic Phonetics , deals with selected issues of acoustics and signal processing for experimental phoneticians and has been revised substantially in the new edition. In this chapter, only basic points of Spectrographic interpretation will be discussed along with some remarks on theoretical issues. First, in this section, principles of Spectrographic analysis of acoustic signals along with some basic concepts will be outlined. In Section 2, so-called segmental characteristics of individual consonants and vowels will be discussed. In Section 3, principles of speech organization will be discussed with a new perspective regarding syllables as the basic concatenative ... log in or subscribe to read full text