Reduction causes changes in the acoustics of consonant realizations that affect their identification. In this study we try to identify some of the acoustic parameters that are correlated with this change in identification. Speaking style is used to manipulate the degree of reduction. Pairs of otherwise identical intervocalic consonants from read and spontaneous utterances are presented to subjects in an identification experiment. The resulting identification scores are correlated to five different acoustical measures that are affected by the amount of consonant reduction: Segmental duration, spectral Center of Gravity, intervocalic sound energy difference, intervocalic F2 slope difference, and the amount of vowel reduction in the syllable kernel. The identification differences between the read and spontaneous realizations are compared with the differences in each of the acoustic measures. It showed that only segmental duration and the spectral Center of Gravity are significantly correlated to identification scores.
Cite as: Son, R.J.J.H.v., Pols, L.C.W. (1997) The correlation between consonant identification and the amount of acoustic consonant reduction. Proc. 5th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology (Eurospeech 1997), 2135-2138, doi: 10.21437/Eurospeech.1997-564
@inproceedings{son97b_eurospeech,
author={Rob J. J. H. van Son and Louis C. W. Pols},
title={{The correlation between consonant identification and the amount of acoustic consonant reduction}},
year=1997,
booktitle={Proc. 5th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology (Eurospeech 1997)},
pages={2135--2138},
doi={10.21437/Eurospeech.1997-564}
}