Acoustic Phonetics

Presenting by:
Lon MJ Aeronic S. Vargas
 INTRODUCTION
 Acoustic phonetics is the study of the acoustic characteristics of
speech including an analysis and description of speech in terms of
it’s physical properties such as frequency, intensity, and duration.

 Description of speech sounds in these terms date back as far as

1830 (Willis), but the invention of the sounds spectograph (1945)
was the major technological breaktrough that made the analysis and
visualization of the speech signal possible.

Acoustic phonetics
 INTRODUCTION
 Subsequent developments in digital signal processing, most notably then discrete fourier transform,

have made it possible to conduct all acoustic analyses with a basic microcomputer. Rousselot (b.

1846-d. 1924) is widely regarded as the “father of experimental phonetics” Rousselot applied the

kymograph to the study of speech. The Kymograph, invented in the 1840s by Ludwig, was originally

used for measuring blood pressure and other physiological processes.

 For speech, the kymograph consisted of a rotating drum covered with paper coated with soot; speaker

spoke into a rubber tube and the sound vibrations were captured by a stylus that registered the

variations in air pressure, from which duration,intensity, and pitch could be measured.

Rousselot
Kymograph
 INTRODUCTION
 Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877 was of crucial importance since it was the

first device that allowed the recording and reproduction of sound. This invention meant

that speech was no longer a fleeting event but could be repeatedly heard and analyzed.

A number of researchers developed additional devices to visualize and analyze the

sound wave forms, including Herman, Scripture, and Verner. Although the speech

waveform (oscillogram) is the basis of all acoustic speech research, t is rarely used as a

source. One important reason is that it is “too rich” since it contains information about

frequency, intensity, and phase of the signal components, while human perception

disregards the latter, Hence, the spectrogram provides a better representation.

Edison with his phonograph

PRACTICAL WORK
PRACTICAL WORK
 PRACTICAL WORK

Amplitude
The amplitude is simply a displacement of the vibrating
medium from its rest position
 PRACTICAL WORK
Amplitude
 The Amplitude of a wave refers to the maximum
amount of displacement of a particle on the medium
from its rest position. In a sense, the amplitude is the
distance from (positive Maximum) position. Similarly,
the amplitude can be measured from (negatives
Maximum) position.
 PRACTICAL WORK

FUNDAMENTAL FREQUENCY
 The term fundamental frequency stands for the course of the lowest

frequency in a harmonic vibration, therefore it is also called FO. Frequency is

a technical term for an acoustic property of a sound –namely the number of

complete repetions (cycles) of variations in air pressure occuring in a second

“(Ladefoged1975,162)

 The fundamental frequency is the lowest frequency of all other sinus

components in a spectrum therefore it is called FO. Its whole numbered

multiplies (2x,3x,4x,…) are the so-called harmonic.

 WHERE ARE ALL THE OTHER
FREQUENCIES PRODUCED?

 All frequencies thet you find a speech signal come

the larynx.
 When we look at the vocal tract as a cylindrical
pipe which is closed at one end (glottis) and open
at the other end (mouth) its wavelength is four
times its length a female vocal tract is about 15 cm
long, which means that its wavelength is 6O cm at
about 35˚C sound travels at about352 m/sec
SCHEMATIC VOCAL TRACT
 Acoustically the vocal tract is not a very good pipe, energy is dampened in
every frequency of the source signal (coming from the larynx), what is not
dampened so much are the resonance frequencies, which show as dark
shading in the spectrogram.
 The laryngeal signal has many higher harmonics which means that energy
can also be found in higher frequencies than simply the fundamental
frequency as said before, the vocal tract dampens certain frequencies more
and others less (dependingon the formation of the articulators) these
resonance frequencies are call formants
 Formants are a property of the vocal tract and completely independent from
any source signal (it does not matter whether there is a source signal or
not !!!)
 Try this: whisper the following : heed, hid, head, had, hod, hawed, hood,
who’d
FORMANTS
 FORMANTS

 The first two formants F1 and F2 are more important

for the intelligibility of vowels
 Their position characterizes the spoke vowel.
 In order to understand each other, it is important that
these formants are similar in every speaker
“ I cannot teach anybody anything, I
can only make them think”

Thank you!