Acoustic cues for a fricative-affricate contrast in word-final position

Abstract

The experiments reported here were designed to identify some of the acoustic cues to the fricative-affricate contrast in word-final position (as in “dish” vs. “ditch”). Listening tests prepared from computer-edited natural speech tokens of “dish” and “ditch” reveal that each of the following variables can influence the identification of fricatives and affricates: the temporal and/or spectral characteristics of the vocalic interval; duration of a silent interval; presence or absence of a release burst; rise-time of the fricative noise and the duration of the fricative noise. These results indicate that aspects of qualitatively different acoustic information are integrated over a relatively long period of time when listeners identify fricatives and affricates in word-final position. This outcome suggests that neither a single acoustic property detector nor a single natural category can satisfactorily account for the perception of fricatives and affricates.