A simple hybrid acoustic/morphologically-constrained technique for the synthesis of stop consonants in various vocalic contexts

Abstract

The predominant way to synthesize stop consonants is currently to use an articulatory model controlled by vocal tract parameters. We propose a new method to make this synthesis in various vocalic contexts. To generate the formant transitions, the basic principle is to apply an opening function on the (equal-length section) area function derived from the linear predictive (LP) model of speech signals. The definition of this opening function is empirically based on morphological considerations, and the main parameter is the place of articulation. Syllabic sounds with /b d g/ in /a i u/ vowel contexts are generated using LP synthesis with reflections coefficients corresponding to the interpolated area function. We show that the general structure of the formant transitions can be well represented using this model, and provide intelligible sound examples.