Place cues for nasal consonants with special reference to Catalan.

Abstract

This study investigates the perceptual contributions of formant transitions and nasal murmurs to the identification of the unreleased Catalan nasal consonants [n], [n], [n] (alveolar, palatal, velar, respectively) after [a] in absolute final position. Transition and murmur patterns were synthesized and varied simultaneously and systematically by interpolating between optimal values obtained from spectrographic analysis of natural speech. Catalan subjects were asked to identify the synthetic stimuli as [n], [n], and [n]. The main findings were: (1) Although transitions provided more effective cues for place of articulation than murmurs, the murmurs did make a significant contribution to the [n]-[n] distinction. (2) The cue value of the transitions ([n] greater than [n], [n]) was inversely related to that of the murmurs ([n], [n] greater than [n]). It is concluded that static and dynamic place cues for nasals in an [aC#] context are perceptually integrated with reference to the typical pattern of production of these consonants.