Title: The Effects of Speaking Rates and Vowel Length on Formant Movements in Japanese
Abstract:This study examined the extent to which variation in speaking rates and phonemic vowel length affect formant frequencies and movements in Japanese vowels. It is known that vowel targets are not always...This study examined the extent to which variation in speaking rates and phonemic vowel length affect formant frequencies and movements in Japanese vowels. It is known that vowel targets are not always reached at fast rate, i.e., vowel targets might be undershot at fast rate. Vowel duration is one of the factors that determine the degree of formant undershoot (Moon & Lindblom, 1994; Lindblom, 1963). Effect of speaking rates on formant movements has been examined in English (Gay, 1978), Swedish (Engstrand, 1988), Dutch (Van Son & Pols, 1992), and Korean (Magen & Blumstein, 1993). However, very few studies have examined how formants of Japanese vowels vary as a function of speaking rates with the exception of Imaizumi, Kiritani, Hirose, Togami, & Shirai (1987). Japanese has five short (/i e a o u/) and five long (/i: e: a: o: u:/) vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, e.g., /i/ ‘stomach’ vs. /i:/ ‘good.’ The duration ratio of short to long vowels is 1 : 2.4-3.2 (Han, 1962; Tsukada, 1999; Ueyama, 2000). The first question in the present study was whether long vowels are more likely than short vowels to reach their targets or resist coarticulation with neighboring segments. If this were the case, formants of long vowels would occupy peripheral areas in the F1-F2 vowel space, compared to those of short vowels. The second question was whether formants of each vowel systematically vary as a function of speaking rates. If vowel duration is a factor that determines the degree of formant undershoot, as suggested by Moon & Lindblom (1994) and Lindblom (1963), formants of vowels spoken at slower speaking rates would occupy more peripheral areas in the acoustic vowel space than those spoken at faster rates.Read More
Publication Year: 2004
Publication Date: 2004-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 16
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot