The acoustic character of fricated /t/ in Australian English: A comparison with /s/ and /ʃ/

Abstract

Australian English /t/ has a fricative realisation in some contexts. The presence of an additional surface fricative in the language raises questions about potential merger and the maintenance of contrasts. An orthographic representation of fricated /t/ as sh suggests a similarity to the existing fricative /S/. This paper compares the acoustic characteristics of fricated realisations of /t/ in Australian English with those of /S/ and /s/, the fricatives judged most likely to be acoustically similar. The findings suggest a great degree of similarity to /S/ in terms of spectral measures, with duration being the most likely perceptual means of distinguishing fricated /t/ from /S/.

The acoustic and articulatory characteristics of Cape Breton fricative /t/

“…The above measurements allow for the comparison of the different coronal sounds, as well as the comparison of this study's data with the results reported by Pandeli et al (1996), Sangster (2001), Jones and Llamas (2008) and Jones and McDougall (2009).…”

“…The finding is consistent with Pandeli et al's (1997) observation that fricated /t/ is articulatorily more similar to /ʃ/ than /s/ in Irish English. Jones and McDougall (2009) compare the frication of /t/, /s/ and /ʃ/. For each of the sounds in their sample, the authors took several measurements: the relative duration of the frication of all four sounds expressed as a percentage of the utterance duration; the frequency location and amplitude of the two major spectral peaks from Fast Fourrier Tansformed (FFT) spectra of 50ms of frication centered over the frication midpoint; the frequency range of energy falling within 12 dB of the major spectral peak; the amplitude of 50 ms of frication, normalized against the amplitude of modal voicing in the preceding word; and the four spectral moments for the frication.…”

“…The fricative realization of /t/ -and often /d/ or other plosives -is a (often variable) feature of many Irish/Scots Gaelic or (historically) Irish/Scots Gaelic-influenced varieties of English including the dialects of southern Ireland (Hickey 1984(Hickey , 1986(Hickey , 1996(Hickey , 1999(Hickey , 2004Jones & Llamas 2008;Pandeli et al 1997; Ó Baoill 1990Ó Baoill , 1997Wells 1982b), Liverpool, Newcastle, Tyneside, and Middlesbrough, U.K. (Docherty & Foulkes 1996;Honeybone 2001;Jones & Llamas 2008;Marotta & Barth 2005;Sangster 2001;Watt & Allen 2003); the Shetland Islands off northern Scotland (Melchers & Sundkvist 2010); Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra and Melbourne, Australia (Haslerud 1995;Jones & McDougall 2009;Loakes & McDougall Gardner 4 2010; Tollfree 1996Tollfree , 2001 and communities in southeastern Newfoundland and in Nova Scotia, Canada (Clarke 1986(Clarke , 2010Kiefte & Kay-Raining Bird 2010;Parris 2009;Power 2010;Seary, Story & Kirwin 1968). Research on this sound has occurred in both the domains of sociolinguistics (examining the linguistic and social distribution of the sound) and phonetics (examining the acoustic or articulatory characteristics of the sound).…”

The influence of the assimilation operator, speech rate and linguistic boundary on the production of /z/ in Croatian

“…The text reading was recorded under laboratory conditions that enabled a quality acoustic analysis. The analysis of six acoustic variables in all occurrences of the articulatory joints, namely of the duration, spectrum centre of gravity, standard deviation of the centre of gravity, spectral skewness, spectral kurtosis and harmonic to noise ratio (Kent/Read 2002;Jones/Nolan 2007;Jones/McDougall 2009), was done using the Praat software (Boersma/Weenink 2015). The acoustic variables were measured after segmenting and annotation of the components of the articulatory joints (Figure 1).…”

Estimating the Acoustic Variation of s via Principal Component Analysis

“…Для количественной оценки амплитудно-частотного спектра чаще всего используются первые четыре спектральных момента: среднее, дисперсия, асимметрия и эксцесс [Forrest et al, 1988;Jongman et al, 2000]. Средняя частота спектра в герцах, взвешенная по амплитуде, или спектральный центр масс, -самая часто используемая статистическая мера [Gordon et al, 2002;Heffeman, 2004;Jones, McDougall, 2009;Haley, 2010].…”