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Testing theories of vowel inherent spectral change.

Morrison GS, Nearey TM

Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Three competing accounts of vowel inherent spectral change in English all agree on the importance of initial formant frequencies; however, they disagree about the nature of the perceptually relevant aspects of formant change. The onset+offset hypothesis claims that the final formant values themselves matter. The onset+slope hypothesis claims that only the rate of change counts. The onset+direction hypothesis claims that only the general direction of change in formant frequencies is important. A synthetic-vowel perception experiment was designed to differentiate among the three. Results provide support for the superiority of the onset+offset hypothesis.

Published 6 July 2007 in J Acoust Soc Am, 122(1): EL15-22.
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