A cross-linguistic acoustic study of fricatives

Abstract

This work presents results of an acoustic study of fricatives in 7 languages (Aleut, Chickasaw, Hupa, Montana Salish, Scottish Gaelic, Toda, and Western Apache), all of which contrast fricatives made at several places of articulation. Measurements of the frequency of spectral peaks and centroid frequencies indicate many similarities between the languages in the acoustic properties defining the fricatives. Some of the principal findings are the following. Alveolar sibilants typically have the highest spectral peak and centroid frequency. Lateral and palatoalveolar fricatives have spectral peaks and centroids intermediate in frequency between alveolar sibilants and backer fricatives. Among the back fricatives, peaks and centroids of uvulars are characteristically lower than those of velars. Rounding of back fricatives induces further lowering of peaks and/or centroids. Contrasts in backness and rounding among the back fricatives are also associated with differences in F2 of the following vowels: F2 values are lower following uvulars than velars, and lower following rounded than unrounded fricatives. Labiodental fricatives typically have flat spectra with poorly defined spectral peaks. Finally, the contrast between lateral fricatives and palatoalveolar sibilants is variably realized, depending on language and speaker, as a difference in the location of spectral peaks and/or centroid frequency.

Phonetic structures of Turkish Kabardian

“…Among the most robust findings were that the denti-alveolar /s/ has the highest center of gravity, while the posterior fricatives /xW, X, XW, ©/ have the lowest values for center of gravity. These patterns follow findings of other studies investigating different languages (see Gordon et al 2002 for an overview). Many pairs of fricatives were distinguished in Scheffe's posthoc tests, as shown in table 10, which contains check marks for all pairwise comparisons showing significance levels of p<.01 or better.…”

“…Energy is concentrated at the highest frequencies for /s/, followed by /S/, followed by the posterior fricatives. The palato-alveolar fricative in this study shows more energy at lower frequency, however, than certain of the languages analyzed in Gordon et al (2002), e.g. Chickasaw, Toda, and Western Apache.…”

“…The flat spectrum characterizing the labiodental in Kabardian is also found for labiodentals in other languages (see Gordon et al 2002 for typological discussion). Furthermore, the overall correlation in Kabardian between frontness of the constriction and the frequency at which energy is strongest matches findings from other studies, including Colarusso (1984) and Gordon et al (2002). Energy is concentrated at the highest frequencies for /s/, followed by /S/, followed by the posterior fricatives.…”

“…The center of gravity for each fricative was calculated by multiplying each frequency value in the numerical spectrum by its corresponding intensity value and then dividing the sum of these products by the sum of all the intensity values of the spectrum (Forrest et al 1988, Zsiga 1993, Jongman et al 2000, Gordon et al 2002. Results are shown graphically in figure 7 and then separated by speaker in table 9.…”

“…involve subapical contact (see Dart 1991on O'odham, Svantesson 1986 on Mandarin Chinese, Shalev et al 1994 andGordon et al 2002 on Toda). It should be noted, however, that non-anterior coronal fricatives in many languages have a slightly higher frequency distribution of noise (Gordon et al 2002), e.g. English palato-alveolars, which are produced with a domed tongue position (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996).…”