Abstract
A study is in progress to determine some acoustic correlates of the velarization associated with a group of consonants in modern Arabic. The problem is of interest in perception studies since it presents an opposition of a type unknown in the Indo-European languages, a set of consonants having a coarticulation of velarization in contrast with a set of nonvelarized “equivalent” consonants. Observation of spectrograms revealed rather sharp lowering of the second formant in the vicinity of the velarized phones. Synthetic speech was used to establish perceptual boundaries and optimum values for discrimination. Results to date show the second-formant transitions to be adequate cues for discrimination of velarized vs nonvelarized consonants by native speakers of Arabic. The data corroborate generalizations previously drawn concerning the role of second-formant transitions in English, while providing information on one more phonetic dimension. [This research was supported in party by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and in part by Lafayette College.]
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