Performance of articulatory parameters to express formant frequencies.

Abstract

The present study provides the result of an attempt to analyze statistically the performance of articulatory parameters to express formant frequencies. A quadratic curve is computationally fitted to the sampled points on the cineradiographic trace of the tongue profile to express the tongue position either on the coordinates relative to the mandible or relative to the maxilla. The tongue position is defined by the specific point in the quadratic curve on its axis just R0 apart from the vertex, where R0 is the mean radius of curvature at the vertex. The protrusions and aperture of the lips are reduced into a single parameter by the principal component analysis and used as an articulatory parameter. The mandible opening and the larynx height are also adopted as articulatory parameters. The first three formant frequencies are extracted by the LPC analysis from synchronously recorded speech sounds. Stepwise regression analysis of the formant frequencies is conducted on the various subsets of those articulatory parameters and the performances of the polynomial functions of those parameters to express the formant frequencies are examined. The result shows that the four polynomials of the articulatory parameters are effective to express the formant frequencies.