Gender-based variation in the phonetic representation of boundary tones in Persian declarative and interrogative utterances

Abstract

This study investigated the phonetic representation of boundary tones in Persian declarative and interrogative utterances. Speech samples of the study were selected from Persian speech database, i.e., FARSDAT. These samples were produced by adult Persian speakers ranged in age from 20 to 45 years. PRAAT software was used for measuring the variation of F0 per millisecond at boundary tones. For investigating the phonetic representation of declarative sentences, a group of ten men and ten women were selected and each speaker produced 10 declarative utterances. Another group of ten men and ten women were selected for the investigation of phonetic representation of boundary tones in interrogative utterances. Each participant produced a yes-no question and a wh-question. Statistical analysis revealed significant difference (p< 0.05) between men and women regarding the variation of F0 at the boundary tones of declarative sentences and wh-questions. F0 was observed to fall faster at the boundary tones of declarative sentences and wh-questions produced by women. However, there was no statistically significant difference between men and women for variation of F0 at the boundary tones of yes-no questions. Results could be applied in speech recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, and other areas of speech processing.