Analysis of breathiness as an acoustic correlate of nasality in Hindi

Abstract

This project investigates the perceived breathiness of nasal segments than non-nasal sonorants like [l] in Hindi. Shared acoustic correlates between nasality and breathiness (like wider F1 bandwidth, appearance of additional poles and zeros in the acoustic spectrum) lead to perceptual consequences that both allow erroneous perception of breathiness as nasality (Ohala and Busa, 1995) or enhanced perception of nasality (Arai, 2006). Breathiness has been observed to co-occur with nasality in French (Styler, 2017) and some Yi languages (Garellek et al., 2016). Effects of breathiness on perception of nasality have also been reported in Hindi (Ohala and Ohala, 1993)—vowels that were produced with a relatively open glottis were perceived to be more nasal than their non-breathy counterparts. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that Hindi speakers use breathiness for enhanced perception of nasality. This was tested using the following acoustic parameters of breathiness: Difference between 1st and 2nd harmonic (H1-H2), Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP), Spectral tilt and Harmonic to Noise Ratio (HNR). The results demonstrated that the nasals were significantly breathier than the non-nasal sonorants, suggesting that breathiness might be used as a cue to enhance the perception of nasality in Hindi.This project investigates the perceived breathiness of nasal segments than non-nasal sonorants like [l] in Hindi. Shared acoustic correlates between nasality and breathiness (like wider F1 bandwidth, appearance of additional poles and zeros in the acoustic spectrum) lead to perceptual consequences that both allow erroneous perception of breathiness as nasality (Ohala and Busa, 1995) or enhanced perception of nasality (Arai, 2006). Breathiness has been observed to co-occur with nasality in French (Styler, 2017) and some Yi languages (Garellek et al., 2016). Effects of breathiness on perception of nasality have also been reported in Hindi (Ohala and Ohala, 1993)—vowels that were produced with a relatively open glottis were perceived to be more nasal than their non-breathy counterparts. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that Hindi speakers use breathiness for enhanced perception of nasality. This was tested using the following acoustic parameters of breathiness: Difference between 1st and 2nd harmonic...