Detection and Recognition of Nasal Consonants in Continuous Speech — Preliminary Results

Abstract

The problem of the detection, recognition or perception of nasal consonants in continuous speech signals is not frequently treated in the literature. Among the most significant works on this subject should be mentioned the classical ones such as [5,9,4] or more recently [11,3,2], The principal reason that there are relatively few papers devoted to this subject is, perhaps, its complexity. In fact, from the acoustical point of view, the spectral structure of nasal consonants is rather complicated because their spectral envelope is formed not only by the resonants of the pharyngeal and nasal cavities but also by the anti-resonants of the oral cavity, which is closed during the articulation of nasals.