Acoustics of the Vowel
Dieter Maurer
Acoustics of the Vowel
Free
Description
Contents
Reviews

It seems as if the fundamentals of how we produce vowels and how they are acoustically represented have been clarified: we phonate and articulate. Using our vocal chords, we produce a vocal sound or noise which is then shaped into a specific vowel sound by the resonances of the pharyngeal, oral, and nasal cavities, that is, the vocal tract. Accordingly, the acoustic description of vowels relates to vowel-specific patterns of relative energy maxima in the sound spectra, known as patterns of formants. The intellectual and empirical reasoning presented in this treatise, however, gives rise to scepticism with respect to this understanding of the sound of the vowel. The reflections and materials presented provide reason to argue that, up to now, a comprehensible theory of the acoustics of the voice and of voiced speech sounds is lacking, and consequently, no satisfying understanding of vowels as an achievement and particular formal accomplishment of the voice exists. Thus, the question of the acoustics of the vowel—and with it the question of the acoustics of the voice itself—proves to be an unresolved fundamental problem.

Language
English
ISBN
978-3-0343-2031-3
Cover
Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I Prevailing Theory and Empirical References
1 Prevailing Theory
1.1 General Acoustic Characteristics of Vowel Sounds
1.2 Language-Specific Acoustic Characteristics of Vowel Sounds
1.3 Speaker Group-Specific Acoustic Characteristics of Vowel Sounds
1.4 Phonation Type-Specific Acoustic Characteristics of Vowel Sounds and Limitation to Voiced Oral Sounds
1.5 Limitation to Isolated Vowel Sounds
1.6 Limitation to Vowel Sounds as Monophthongs with Quasi-Constant Sound Characteristics
1.7 Speech Community-Specific Acoustic Characteristics of Vowel Sounds
1.8 The Prevailing Theory of Physical Vowel Representation
1.9 Formalising Prevailing Theory
1.10 Illustration
2 Prevailing Empirical References
2.1 General References
2.2 Empirical Reference for Standard German
2.3 Other Statistical References
Part II Reflections
3 Vowels and Number of Formants
3.1 Inconstant Number of Vowel-Specific Relative Spectral Energy Maxima in Sounds of Back Vowels and of /a–ɑ/
3.2 Inconstant Correspondence between Vowel-Specific Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Calculated Vowel-Specific Formant Patterns
3.3 Inconstant Number of Vowel-Specific Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and of Calculated Vowel-Specific Formants
3.4 Addition: “Spurious” Formants
3.5 Addition: “Flat” Vowel Spectra
3.6 Addition: Inconstant Number of Vowel-Specific Formants in Synthesis
4 Vowels and Fundamental Frequency
4.1 Fundamental Frequency, First Formant and “Grade” of Vowels
4.2 Fundamental Frequency, Spectral Envelope, Formant Pattern and “Grade” of Vowels
5 Formant Patterns and Speaker Groups
5.1 Fundamental Frequency, Spectral Envelope, Formant Pattern and “Grade” of Vowels Uttered by Children, Women and Men
5.2 One Vowel, Different Formant Patterns
5.3 Different Vowels, One Formant Pattern
5.4 A Gap in the Reasoning
5.5 Addition: Formant Patterns of Voiced and Whispered Vowel Sounds
6 Terms of Reference, Methods of Formant Estimation
6.1 Formant and Sound Spectrum
6.2 Speaker Group and Vocal-Tract Size
6.3 Formant Analysis and Objectivisation
6.4 Formant Analysis, Fundamental Frequency and Speaker Group or Vocal-Tract Size
6.5 Addition: Parameter Adjustments in Formant Analysis and Inconsistent References to Vocal-Tract Size
6.6 Addition: Spectrum, Formant Pattern, Resynthesis
6.7 Addition: Formant Analysis and Objectivity with Regard to Synthesised Vowel Sounds
6.8 Addition: Formant Patterns and Resynthesis outside of the Framework of Prevailing Theory
Part III Experiences and Observations
7 Unsystematic Correspondence between Vowels, Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Formant Patterns
7.1 Inconstant Number of Vowel-Specific Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Incongruence of Vowel-Specific Formant Patterns
7.2 Partial Lack of Manifestation of Vowel-Specific Relative Spectral Energy Maxima
7.3 Addition: Resynthesis and Synthesis
8 Lack of Correspondence between Vowels and Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima or Formant Patterns
8.1 Dependence of Vowel-Specific, Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Lower Formants ≤ 1.5 kHz on Fundamental Frequency
8.2 Vowel Perception at Fundamental Frequencies above Statistical Values of the First-Formant Frequency
8.3 “Inversions” of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Minima and “Inverse” Formant Patterns in Sounds of Individual Vowels
8.4 Addition: Whispered Vowel Sounds, Fundamental-Frequency Dependence of Vowel-Specific Spectral Characteristics and “Inversions”
8.5 Addition: Resynthesis and Synthesis
9 Ambiguous Correspondence between Vowels and Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima or Formant Patterns or Complete Spectral Envelopes
9.1 Ambiguous Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Ambiguous Formant Patterns
9.2 Ambiguous Spectral Envelopes
9.3 Ambiguity and Individual Vowels
9.4 Addition: Resynthesis and Synthesis
10 Lack of Correspondence between Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima or Formant Patterns and Speaker Groups or Vocal-Tract Sizes
10.1 Similar Patterns of Relative Spectral Maxima and Similar Formant Patterns ≤ 1.5 kHz for Different Speaker Groups or Different Vocal-Tract Sizes
10.2 The Dichotomy of the Vowel Spectrum
10.3 Addition: Whispered Vowel Sounds and Speaker Groups or Vocal-Tract Sizes
10.4 Addition: Vowel Imitations by Birds
10.5 Addition: Resynthesis and Synthesis
11 Lack of Correlation between Methodological Limitations of Formant Determination and Limitations of Vowel Perception
11.1 Vowel Perception at Fundamental Frequencies > 350 Hz
11.2 Lack of Correspondence between Methodological Problems of Formant Pattern Estimation at Fundamental Frequencies≤ 350 Hz and Impaired Vowel Perception
11.3 Addition: Lack of Methodological Basis of Determining Formant Patterns for Vowel Mimicry by Birds
Part IV Falsification
12 Empirical Falsification despite Methodological Limitations of Determining Patterns of Relative Spectral Envelope Maxima or Formant Patterns
12.1 Lack of Methodological Basis for Verifying Prevailing Theory
12.2 Systematic Divergence of Empirical Findings from Predictions of Prevailing Theory
12.3 Empirical Findings Directly Contradicting Prevailing Theory
Part V Commentary
13 Preliminaries
13.1 Impediments to Adjusting Prevailing Theory
13.2 Prevailing Theory as an Index
13.3 Excursus: Vowel Quality and Harmonic Spectrum
13.4 “Forefield”
13.5 Two Approaches
13.6 Phenomenology
13.7 Theory Building
Afterword
Materials
Materials Part I
M1 Prevailing Theory
M2 Prevailing Empirical References
Materials Part II
M3 Vowels and Number of Formants
M4 Vowels and Fundamental Frequency
M5 Formant Patterns and Speaker Groups
M6 Terms of Reference, Methods of Formant Estimation
Materials Part III
Note on the Method
M7 Unsystematic Correspondence between Vowels, Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Formant Patterns
M7.1 Inconstant Number of Vowel-Specific Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Incongruence of Vowel-Specific Formant Patterns
M7.2 Partial Lack of Manifestation of Vowel-Specific Relative Spectral Energy Maxima
M8 Lack of Correspondence between Vowels and Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima or Formant Patterns
M8.1 Dependence of Vowel-Specific, Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Lower Formants ≤ 1.5 kHz on Fundamental Frequency
M8.2 Vowel Perception at Fundamental Frequencies above Statistical Values of the Respective First Formant Frequency
M8.3 “Inversions” of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Minima and “Inverse” Formant Patterns in Sounds of Individual Vowels
M9 Ambiguous Correspondence between Vowels and Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima or Formant Patterns or Complete Spectral Envelopes
M9.1 Ambiguous Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Ambiguous Formant Patterns
M9.2 Ambiguous Spectral Envelopes
M9.3 Ambiguity and Individual Vowels
M10 Lack of Correspondence between Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima or Formant Patterns and Age- and Gender-Related Speaker Groups or Vocal-Tract Sizes
M10.1 Similar Patterns of Relative Spectral Maxima and Similar Formant Patterns ≤ 1.5 kHz for Different Age- and Gender-Related Speaker Groups or Vocal-Tract Sizes
M10.2 The Dichotomy of the Vowel Spectrum
M10.A Addition: Vowel Imitations by Birds
M11 Lack of Correlation between Methodological Limitations of Formant Determination and Limitations of Vowel Perception
M11.1 Vowel Perception at Fundamental Frequencies > 350 Hz
M11.2 Lack of Correspondence between Methodological Problems of Formant Pattern Estimation at Fundamental Frequencies ≤ 350 Hz and Impaired Vowel Perception
Experiments
E1 Number of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima and Number of Formants
E1.1 Sounds of Back Vowels Showing only One Lower Spectral Peak ≤ 1.5 kHz
E1.2 Sounds of Back Vowels Showing only One Pronounced Lower Formant ≤ 1.5 kHz
E1.3 Sounds of Single Front Vowels Showing Non-Corresponding F2 and F3
E1.4 Sounds of Back Vowels Showing No Pronounced Spectral Peak ≤ 1.5 kHz
E1.5 Sounds of Front Vowels Showing No Pronounced Spectral Peak > 2 kHz
E2 Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima, Formant Patterns and Fundamental Frequency
E2.1 Sounds of Single Vowels Produced at Different F0 Exhibiting Different Spectral Peaks and Different Calculated Formant Patterns: Part 1, Dependence of Formant Patterns on F0
E2.2 Sounds of Single Vowels Produced at Different F0 Exhibiting Different Spectral Peaks and Different Calculated Formant Patterns: Part 2, Vowel Intelligibility for Sounds at F0 > 500 Hz
E2.3 Sounds of Single Vowels Produced at Different F0 Exhibiting Different Spectral Peaks and Different Calculated Formant Patterns: Part 3, Resynthesising a Formant Pattern at Different F0
E2.4 Sounds of Single Back Vowels Produced at Different F0 Exhibiting Inverse Spectral Peaks
E2.5 Special Note Concerning Inconstant Numerical Relationship between Calculated F0 and Formant Patterns
E3 Formant Pattern Ambiguity
E3.1 Formant Pattern Ambiguity in Natural Vocalisations
E3.2 Formant Pattern Ambiguity in Model Synthesis
E4 Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima, Formant Patterns and Age- and Gender-Related Vocal-Tract Sizes
E4.1 Comparison of Vowel-Specific Spectral Characteristics of Children, Women and Men Related to Different and Similar F0 of Vocalisations: Part 1, Natural Vocalisations
E4.2 Comparison of Vowel-Specific Spectral Characteristics of Children, Women and Men Related to Different and Similar F0 of Vocalisations: Part 2, Resynthesis
E5 Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima, Formant Patterns and Phonation Types
E5.1 Whispered Sounds Compared with Voiced Sounds at Different F0 in Utterances of a Single Speaker
E5.2 Whispered Sounds Compared with Voiced Sounds at Different F0 in Utterances of Speakers of Different Speaker Groups
E5.3 Sounds of Back Vowels Showing Three Spectral Peaks ≤ 1.5 kHz
E5.4 Sounds of Front Vowels Showing Two Spectral Peaks ≤ 1.5 kHz
E6 Patterns of Relative Spectral Energy Maxima, Formant Patterns and Vowel Imitation by Birds
E6.1 Direct Comparisons of Selected Sounds of Humans and Birds
E6.2 Resynthesis Relating to “Anomalous” Formant Patterns of Sounds of Birds
E7 Anomalous Vowel Spectra
E7.1 Spectra with Increasing Number of Harmonics Equal in Amplitude (“Flat” Vowel Spectra)
E7.2 Spectra with Increasing Number of Harmonic Pairs Showing Equal Amplitude Differences (“Ridged” Parts of Vowel Spectra)
E8 Aspects of Method
E8.1 Formant Pattern Estimation Related to Non-Standard Parameters
E8.2 Formant Pattern Estimation at F0 > 350 Hz
E8.3 Resynthesis of Sounds at Varying F0 and Subsequent Formant Pattern Estimation
List of Figures
List of Tables
References
The book hasn't received reviews yet.