Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
565497 Speech Communication 2008 15 Pages PDF
Abstract

This paper investigates the organization of the vowel space in French speakers. Speakers aged from 4 years to adulthood were recorded in order to generate significant between-speaker variability. Each speaker produced repetitions of the ten French oral vowels /i y u e ø o ε œ ɔ a/. Acoustic analyses show that, despite considerable between-speaker variability in the relative positions of the vowels within the vowel space, speakers tend to produce vowels along a given height degree with a stable F1 value, depending on the speaker, but independently of place of articulation and roundedness. Simulations with the Variable Linear Articulatory Model (VLAM) show that a stable F1 value is basically related to stable tongue heights. The results are discussed in the framework of the Perception-for-Action Control theory (PACT), in which speech units are considered as gestures shaped by perceptual processes.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Signal Processing
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