Tutorial on Acoustic Phonetics Term 2, Week 3 

The acoustic characteristics of plosives in English.  

In this tutorial, we will be looking at the acoustic description of
plosives in English, namely the sounds [p t k b d g]. We will be in the
phonetics laboratory, and you will be able to look at your own speech
on spectrograms and compare what you find with what you read about. You
will need to have some understanding of articulatory phonetics and a
willingness to deal with forms of representation you are not yet used
to.

Related relevant areas for this tutorial are: articulatory phonetics,
speech perception, and recognition of speech by computers. This
tutorial ties in with Additional Linguistics Course 111.

Come along having found out the following things:

What is closure duration, and what is its acoustic correlate?
How does closure duration vary for English plosives?

What is voice onset time (VOT)? What is a positive vs. a negative VOT?
How does VOT differ by place of articulation for English
plosives? How does VOT differ according to whether a plosive is
voiced or voiceless?

What is a burst? And how do the acoustic properties of the burst vary
according to place of articulation?  What is a formant transition? What
do patternsof formant transition relate to?

Suggested reading (mostly in MZ 10.1 in the library):  

Borden, Gloria J. & Katherine S. Harris (1984): Speech Science Primer.
London: Williams & Wilkins. Relevant parts of Ch. 3 & Ch. 5.

Clark, John & Colin Yallop (1990): An Introduction to Phonetics &
Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell. Ch. 7 (This may be too much detail for
you: skip irrelevant parts.)

Fry, D. B.  (1977): Acoustic Phonetics. Cambridge: CUP. Relevant
parts.

Kent, Ray D. & Charles Read (1992): The acoustic analysis of speech.
London:  Whurr.

Lieberman, Philip & Sheila E. Blumstein (1988): Speech physiology,
speech perception and acoustic phonetics. Cambridge: CUP.  Relevant
chapters.

Richard Ogden Office: Z/A011 (in the yellow building across the lawn)
e-mail: rao1 telephone: x2672.