Questions tagged [acoustic-analysis]

Models and methodology for analysing raw speech signals. Whereas articulation serves as the qualitative foundation of phonetics, acoustic analysis serves as the quantitative foundation.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
4 votes
2 answers
80 views

Voice Onset Time, Onsets, Codas, and Pre- & Post-Aspiration

Whilst we're all familiar with voicing on an intuitive and/or phonological level, the actual acoustic phonetics are somewhat less intuitive to many of us. The main way of formalising this intuitive ...
Tristan's user avatar
  • 6,547
0 votes
1 answer
60 views

Evidence for segmental phonology in the acoustic speech signal

What evidence for segmental phonology could be found in the acoustic speech signal? I think the parameters of acoustic speech signals include f0, amplitude, duration, wave form, etc., which are ...
Leslie's user avatar
  • 1
1 vote
2 answers
244 views

Why does /zd-/ require more effort even though both the consonants have the same voicing?

In most language, the rule for combining consonants is that they should have the same voice. For example: in English, a word can never start with /zt-/ but can start with /st-/. It's not that /zt-/ ...
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
77 views

Unmoving F1 / formant below F1?

I'm trying to understand some basics, hope this is an ok question. Here's a recording of me producing /i/, /ɛ/, /a/: https://namakajiri.net/misc/i%c9%9ba.webm nevermind the transition between the ...
melissa_boiko's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

How to read a spectrogram?

I read some materials online How to Read a Spectrogram, Reading Spectrograms: Consonants, Reading Spectrograms: Vowels. I still have no idea how to analyze a spectrogram. Could anyone explain with the ...
user8314628's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
63 views

The reason for a partly voiced hold in I’d

In I’d take ’d t can be pronounced as [t] with the first part of the hold voiced (the second one and the plosion with aspiration are voiceless). How is it better explained: is it because of [ai] (...
Aer's user avatar
  • 510
0 votes
2 answers
328 views

Distinguishing between [s] and [ʪ] in spectrogram

Is there is a way to differentiate between [s] and [ʪ] using spectral analysis (Pratt or spectrum view or any other software)? Is there is any particular pattern that only appears with the [ʪ]? [ʪ] ...
Kernel's user avatar
  • 137
1 vote
0 answers
40 views

How to compare the F2 values of the vowels statistically?

How can we compare the F2 values of the vowels produced by ten speakers? There are only two vowels to be investigated. Therefore, 20 vowels are produced in total. I believe paired t-test is the way to ...
Geralt of Rivia's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
80 views

Praat: How does pitch floor affect number of frames?

With reference to the documentation for the ToPitch function, http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/manual/Sound__To_Pitch___.html pitch floor will determine the length of the analysis window, and always ...
pythonuser's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
45 views

Praat: Interpretation of row number when inspecting sound file

When I inspect a sound file in Praat, I see the following picture: I understand that Praat creates a ny x nx matrix using these values, and that 'nx' refers to the number of frames in the WAV file. ...
pythonuser's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
68 views

How does Praat map quantized values to frequency statistics?

I'm working with 16-bit WAV files. As far as I understand, amplitude is measured at a sampling rate of 44100 samples/second (i.e. Hertz), with each sample being represented as binary data through ...
pythonuser's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
439 views

How to measure auditory distances between vowels

(Followup to this question, also related to this answer.) The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (1999: 11–2) defines the values of cardinal vowels as follows: [T]wo fully front ...
Nardog's user avatar
  • 4,922
3 votes
1 answer
440 views

Is it possible to recognize place of articulation of consonants through spectrograms?

I am trying to undestand how PRAAT works and to recognize consonants through spectrograms. I Know that it's possible to distinguish fricative consonants from nasal ones (for example) but is it ...
MichaelA's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
277 views

Why were the formants of high and back vowels difficult to obtain? And why not anymore?

I was reading the second chapter of Three Areas of Experimental Phonetics by Peter Ladefoged (1967), in which he summarizes the studies he conducted in the 1950s and 1960s which demonstrated practical ...
Nardog's user avatar
  • 4,922
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

What's the relationship between harmonics and formants?

I'm new in speech-processing and there are some notions confused me. Through Fourier Transform, we can get spectra of specific sound signals, the harmonic frequencies can be shown as the peaks in the ...
C.K.'s user avatar
  • 301
2 votes
1 answer
62 views

Should I include this piece in the vowel? [spectrogram]

I'm trying to measure vowel length in 'beat", utterance-final. Should I place the marker where it is now or further to the right, as there is some activity there?
Grzegorz's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
99 views

Voicing Into Closure? [segmentation, waveform and spectrogram form Praat]

I'm wondering for how long the voicing persists into closure here, if at all. At about 50% into the closure I would say it's noise only from there on, nevermind F1. But what about the oscillations ...
Grzegorz's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
3k views

Formant frequencies of consonants

In the old days, phones were defined by the requisite articulation, both consonants and vowels. As time wore on and science and technology advanced, vowels became better defined by their acoustic ...
No Name's user avatar
  • 269
2 votes
3 answers
399 views

Why do retroflex and postalveolar fricatives sound so similar despite the quite different positions of the tongue?

If they sound so similar, does it mean that they have a larger chance to be free variants of a phoneme and even become the other in a sound change. Do they play different or similar role in sound ...
wodemingzi's user avatar
  • 1,057
2 votes
0 answers
161 views

Is it appropriate to say that [ɕ] is an intermediate form of [ʃ ç]?

The description is found in a paper about the German fricatives https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/labphon.2014.5.issue-1/lp-2014-0005/lp-2014-0005.xml How do the three sound differ from each other in ...
wodemingzi's user avatar
  • 1,057
1 vote
2 answers
101 views

How do people discern different plosives without formant transition?

People can discern wether a plosive is /p t k/ by formant transition of a vowel. While how do people discern them, if it is a consonant cluster of few plosives without any voicing, as [pt] or even ...
wodemingzi's user avatar
  • 1,057
6 votes
1 answer
427 views

What are the features that distinguish a velar /k/ from an uvular /q/ in a spectrogram?

I am trying to annotate a recording of a language that has both velar k and uvular q. It’s tricky because I can’t always distinguish the two phonemes by ear. What features may I see in a spectrogram ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Sentence stress detection

I was looking for APIs for the detection of sentence stress, also known as prosodic stress, based on input audio. (Ideally, I was hoping for a library able to assess the level of prominence of a ...
Fabien Snauwaert's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
140 views

Measuring phonetic correlates of stress (intensity in particular)

It's normal enough for people to say that we can attribute the percept of 'stress accent' to certain acoustic correlates – usually higher relative fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration of ...
Peter Nyhuis Torres's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
279 views

How harmonic is speech?

I have read that voiced sounds are harmonic, e.g. the frequency spectrum consists of integer multiples of F0. If these are precise integer multiples, the human voice would be considered a perfect ...
Jack G.'s user avatar
  • 31
1 vote
1 answer
66 views

Why can increasing the speed of closing the vocal folds increases the loudness?

In Henning Reetz and Allard Jongman's Phonetics, they mentioned a way to increase the loudness is to increase the speed of closing the vocal folds. The points are summarized below: The the most ...
chaoh's user avatar
  • 99
1 vote
1 answer
78 views

Acoustic parameters for phonation

does anyone know what the acoustic parameter of phonation is in a sound wave? I mean, how can we recognize if a sound is voiced or voiceless (and devoiced, of course) based on its wave? I've been ...
Sara Shahmohamadi's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
445 views

What is the unit of the amplitude on the y-axis in a sound waveform?

I just learned that the difference in dB is 20 times the log of the voltage ratio of two sounds. But, it just occurred to me, what is the unit of the amplitude on the y-axis in a waveform? Is that "...
chaoh's user avatar
  • 99
1 vote
2 answers
97 views

Acoustic signal to phones?

I am currently trying to understand speech perception, and are at the moment a bit stuck.. I seem to understand how the ear process incoming sound, but i don't understand the concept of phones. Why ...
Carlton Banks's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
354 views

What's the acoustic difference between laterals and nasals

I have a hard time distinguishing nasals and laterals on the spectrogram. They both seem to exhibit lower amplitude, and I think on average nasals have lower F1. Are there any sources on the acoustic ...
Annie Ito's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
63 views

Speech signal analysis: What can be seen in the signal?

I know that the only speech phenomena one can see in a speech signal are those that arise from articulator movement and which have features that aid perception (like energy as particular freqs+times ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
1 vote
0 answers
164 views

Praat: CPP from modified .Manipulation file

I am working with dysphonic speech and Praat's automated pulse detection algorithm is inadequate, so I manually correct the placement of pulses using .Manipulation files. My ultimate goal is to ...
krs's user avatar
  • 11
3 votes
1 answer
660 views

Rare diphthongs

One would think that as long as one of the two vowels are closed, then a diphthong could be formed. However, if a diphthong consists of two closed vowels with the same roundness, like the following 8 ...
Kenny Lau's user avatar
  • 661
3 votes
2 answers
261 views

What are the advantages of using ToBI for prosodic analysis?

I am a grad student who wants to compare the prosody of two of my classmates from different regions who speak different dialects of English. The obvious tool to use is ToBI, of course because it ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
1 vote
3 answers
1k views

What are "Slices" of a spectrogram?

Reading over my class notes, I see that you can consider a spectrogram is being comprised of many "slices" (static spectra? Whatever that means) horizontally, making it so "time appears continuous". ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
1 vote
2 answers
441 views

Amplitude as the y-axis on a waveform

I just noticed, perhaps naively, that the representation of amplitude on the y-axis of a waveform is somewhat paradoxical. Although the space between each value on the y-axis is identical, the units ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
2 votes
1 answer
149 views

Acoustic difference in breathing in and breathing out

Many people can distinguish whether a person is inhaling or exhaling only by audio, even when the tongue and the lip position (=formants) is the same. That must mean there is a difference in the ...
MujjinGun's user avatar
  • 527
2 votes
2 answers
165 views

Evidence of connections between f0 and a physiological parameter?

I have the impression that physiological parameters like e.g. the size of neck will alter their f0. It's just an impression but it seems to hold - I can usually guess someone's neck size over the ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
2 votes
1 answer
731 views

Praat's y-axis in spectrum graph

We have a tone in notched noise in Praat. We want the noise to be 23 dB less than the tone, so we created a noise coefficient using SNR, applied this to the noise file, and combined it with the tone ...
5823574's user avatar
  • 93
0 votes
1 answer
495 views

What is the difference between cepstral and temporal domains?

Some parameters of speech analysis occur in the temporal domain (those are the ones I typically understand: f0, formants, etc.) - but others occur in the so-called cepstral domain. If I google "...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
1 vote
2 answers
173 views

How was the acoustic theory of speech production informed by electrical circuit theory?

The acoustic theory of speech production as worked out by Gunnar Fant depends on a correspondence between the vocal tract and elementary electrical circuits. But the quote below perplexes me. In what ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
0 votes
1 answer
118 views

What's the difference between the output of an oscilloscope and the waveform I get when I record on Praat?

I know it's probably a dumb question, but is this the same thing? Thanks!
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
2 votes
1 answer
127 views

In what way did the invention of the telephone shape the development of phonetic theory?

According to my rudimentary understanding of electronics, the telephone transforms sounds to an electric medium transmitted to a receiver over wires. You don't really need phonetics to make that work, ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
1 vote
1 answer
107 views

How was phonetics performed with a phonograph?

How was phonetics performed with a phonograph? From the Wikipedia excerpt below, I guess it went something like this: A segment was recorded on a phonograph. That segment was Filtered each time with ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
2 votes
2 answers
290 views

Spectrograms from bandpass filters

According to Wikipedia, bandpass filters were used before the digital era began. Can anyone explain to me how they appeared or were analyzed? Spectrograms are usually created in one of two ways: ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
1 vote
2 answers
3k views

How do I draw just one channel of a waveform in Praat?

I have a nice 2-channel recording in Praat. I want to illustrate the waveform for an article, but when I select file>draw visible sound, the result is both channels. Is there any way to adjust this so ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
-1 votes
1 answer
301 views

acoustic features for english phonems

in this following paper , if we go to page no- 126 we will find a table with all acoustic features of all german Phonemes. http://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=...
BSNAYAK's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
474 views

How are "spectral properties" distinct from "linguistic properties"?

As a linguist, I have a good idea of what linguistic properties of a sound can be: be they describable in terms of distinctive features or whatever. But what, then, are spectral properties? It's not ...
Teusz's user avatar
  • 2,701
2 votes
2 answers
667 views

Acoustic description of Polish vowels

Using formants, it is possible to produce an acoustic description of vowel quality. Basically, the first formant (F1) corresponds to vowel height, and the second formant (F2) to vowel backness, as ...
robert's user avatar
  • 4,279
2 votes
0 answers
156 views

What phonetic features are commonly used in forensic speaker identification and verification?

Speaker verification is the task of estimating how likely it is that two speech recordings come from the same speaker, while speaker identification tries to match a speech recording with one of a ...
robert's user avatar
  • 4,279