Abstract:

The English alveolar and palatal fricatives have, as part of their realization, high-frequency noises that are shaped both by the rounding and protrusion of the lips and the position of the tongue on the hard palate. The acoustic effects are of two main types, influence on the main spectral resonance of the noise, and the frequency and intensity of a second formant resonance within the noise. However, the exact contribution of each of these articulatory factors to the two acoustic effects is not known. The present study used electromagnetometer measures of tongue and lip location and video-based measures of lip aperture, area, and protrusion. Initial data indicate that area of the lip opening correlates significantly with F2 resonance, while tongue position correlates with fricative pole. Surprisingly, upper lip protrusion correlates with both the F2 resonance and the fricative poles. These preliminary results suggest that both lip and tongue configuration contribute to the shape of the fricative poles, while the F2 resonance is primarily dependent on the lip configuration. Implications for perceptual parsing will be discussed. [Work supported by NIH grant DC-02717.]