Factor Analyses of Format Frequencies

Abstract

The exact relationship between the phonetic quality of a vowel and its formant frequencies has never been stated, because it has not been possible to account for the variations due to the personal quality of a speaker. We have analyzed the fundamental and first three formant frequencies of the eight primary cardinal vowels as spoken by 11 phoneticians using the PARAFAC procedure (Harshman, this meeting). The results were first interpreted as demonstrating three factors which corresponded to the three traditional phonetic (auditory) parameters “tongue height, tongue fronting, lip rounding.” In these vowels, “tongue fronting” and “lip rounding” co-vary. To separate these two factors, an analysis was conducted of a subset of Swedish vowels which included front rounded vowels. A factor corresponding to “tongue height” was still evident. The other two factors were not so easily interpretable. A possible interpretation of one of these two factors related it to to the Jakobsonian feature “compact.”