Terminal analog synthesis of French

Abstract

Tables for the synthesis of French segmental phonemes were successfully created using the Mattingly-Holmes algorithm. While some of the phonemes, such as the fricatives, were borrowings from the General American Tables (developed by I.G. Mattingly, G. Kuhn, and others), with Might modifications, most other phonemes represent considerable modifications. A combination of spectrographic data and data from the literature on acoustic correlates to spoken French was used. Among the interesting facts which surfaced were two. The French /r/, traditionally classified as a liquid, sounded most natural if synthesized similarly to a velar fricative. The synthesis of nasal vowels, hindered by the absence of nasal formant generators, was made effective by a cutback of first ferment amplitude and considerable modifications in the second and third formant frequencies relative to their so-called “hemorganic” counterparts.