Consonantal F0 perturbation in American English involves multiple mechanisms.

Abstract

In this study, we revisit consonantal perturbation of F0 in English, taking into particular consideration the effect of alignment of F0 contours to segments and the F0 extraction method in the acoustic analysis. We recorded words differing in consonant voicing, manner of articulation, and position in syllable, spoken by native speakers of American English in both statements and questions. In the analysis, we compared methods of F0 alignment and found that the highest F0 consistency occurred when F0 contours were time-normalized to the entire syllable. Applying this method, along with using syllables with nasal consonants as the baseline and a fine-detailed F0 extraction procedure, we identified three distinct consonantal effects: a large but brief (10-40 ms) F0 raising at voice onset regardless of consonant voicing, a smaller but longer-lasting F0 raising effect by voiceless consonants throughout a large proportion of the following vowels, and a small lowering effect of around 6 Hz by voiced consonants, which was not found in previous studies. Additionally, a brief anticipatory effect was observed before a coda consonant. These effects are imposed on a continuously changing F0 curve that is either rising-falling or falling-rising, depending on whether the carrier sentence is a statement or a question.