Models for voicing and aspiration in stop consonants

Abstract

A theoretical analysis of sound production for voiceless and voiced stop consonants has been carried out. The analysis includes the effects of active and passive (in response to intraoral pressure changes) expansion or contraction of the pharyngeal volume, active and passive changes in glottal configuration, the generation of periodic glottal vibration and aspiration noise, and the generation of transient and frication noise sources at the consonantal release. Both monopole and dipole components of the turbulence noise sources are considered. The model is used to calculate the absolute sound‐pressure levels and spectra for the various components of the radiated sound for labial, alveolar, and velar stops. The predictions of the model are in reasonable agreement (within a few dB) with data from spoken syllables. Procedures for estimating the characteristics of turbulence noise sources still need to be refined, particularly the distribution of the sources downstream from a glottal or supraglottal constriction. The model can be used to infer details of the time course of supraglottal and laryngeal constrictions based on data from fine‐grained acoustic analysis of utterances. [Research supported in part by NIH Grant DC00075.]