Phonetics and Phonology (eng507)
Topic-125: Acoustics of Consonants
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| Topic-125: Acoustics of Consonants The acoustic properties (structure) of consonantal sounds are usually more complicated than that of vowels. Usually, a consonant can be said to be a particular way of beginning or ending a vowel sound because during the production of a consonant there is no distinguishing feature prominently visible. There is virtually no difference in the sounds during the actual closures of voiced stops b, d, g, and absolutely none during the closures of voiceless stops pt, k, because there is only silence at these points. Each of the stop sounds conveys its quality by its effect on the adjacent vowel. We have seen that during a vowel such as u, there will be formants corresponding to the particular shape of the vocal tract. In the case of consonants, these changes are not really distinguishable (particularly for obstruents). Although there are some consonantal sounds which have vowel like structure therefore, their acoustic features are somehow similar to vowels (in the case of nasal consonants, approximants and glides) but most of the consonants have totally different acoustic features. These differences in the nature of consonant sounds give us a pretty easy opportunity to distinguish consonants from vowels (e.g., in the case of stops, the complete closure is easily visible as there is just a simple thin line on the spectrogram (explore some spectrogram of consonant sounds and confirm this feature. In order to analyze the acoustic features of consonants, use the instructions given in Chapter 8 of your coursebook as rough guides. Also remember that particular combinations (of various sounds) are important as neighboring vowels help a lot in guessing the exact consonant sounds. There is a list of hints and ideas given in the next topic to predict consonantal sounds on the basis of their acoustic features. Download 1.01 Mb. Share with your friends:
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