A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ACOUSTICS OF VOWEL AND CONSONANT REDUCTION - Contents

• A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ACOUSTICS OF VOWEL AND CONSONANT REDUCTION*
  • Abstract
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Material and methods
  • 3. Results
    • 3.1. Formant values
    • 3.2. F2 Locus Equations
    • 3.3. Duration
    • 3.4. Center of Gravity
    • 3.5. Intervocalic sound energy difference
  • 4. Discussion
  • 6. Conclusions
  • 7. Acknowledgements
  • 8. References

Vowel reduction has been studied for years. It is a universal phenomenon that reduces the distinction of vowels in informal speech and in unstressed syllables. How consonants behave in situations where vowels are reduced is much less well known. In this paper we compare durational and spectral data for both intervocalic consonants and vowels segmented from read speech with otherwise identical segments from spontaneous speech. On a global level, it shows that consonants reduce like vowels when the speaking style becomes informal. On a more detailed level there are differences related to the type of the consonant.