Context-independent properties for place of articulation in stop consonants

Abstract

Previous studies investigating the role of bursts and formant transitions as cues for stop consonants have emphasized the lack of acoustic invariance for a given place of articulation in different vowel contexts. A series of perception experiments was conducted to determine whether there are more general properties of the acoustic signal that uniquely specify a particular place of articulation. In the first series, several synthetic continua representing the phonetic dimensions [ba da ga], [bi di gi], and [bu du gu] were presented to listeners for identification. These continua consisted of stimuli in which (a) only the direction and extent of the F2 and F3 transitions varied and (b) both the spectrum of an initial burst and the direction and extent of F2 and F3 varied. In a second series of experiments, [di gi] and [bu du gu] stimuli with various combinations of bursts and transitions were identified and rated by listeners. Results indicated that the phonetic dimensions [b], [d], and [g] exhibit general acoustic properties independent of the particular vowel context. These properties can be defined in terms of location and diffuseness of spectral energy at stimulus onset. [Work supported by NINCDS.]