Language effects on acoustic voice variation within and between talkers

Abstract

Acoustic voice spaces for English speakers are characterized mainly by variability in F0, the balance between higher harmonic amplitudes and inharmonic energy, and higher formant frequencies [JASA 146(4), 3011 (2019)]. We extended this investigation to another language to test the hypothesis that a few biologically relevant measures will emerge commonly across languages, while remaining variance will depend on the structure of the language. This hypothesis was tested against sentence productions from 5 female and 5 male speakers of Seoul Korean. Like English, Korean does not have tone or phonation contrasts, but Seoul Korean exhibits specific phrase intonation patterns. PCAs were performed on scaled values of F0, formant frequencies, spectral noise, source spectral shape, and their variability, measured from vowels and approximants. Results revealed striking similarities between the acoustic voice spaces derived from Korean speakers and those for English speakers. For Korean voices, F0 and variability in lower formant frequencies (i.e., vowel quality) accounted for the most acoustic variance within and across talkers, presumably due to Seoul speakers' systematic use of these measures for phrasal/accentual information. These measures were insignificant for English voices. Our findings suggest that acoustic voice spaces are shaped by both biologically and phonologically relevant factors. [Work supported by NIH/NSF.]