The positional variants of /i, u/ in the Spanish diphthong were studied by spectographic techniques. Four male speakers recorded a list of 24 words that contained the dipthongs /ie/, /ei/, /ue/ and the sounds /i/, /u/ in the same consonant environment. The measurement of the central frequency of the first three formants shows that their displacement is different for each positional variant. Furthermore the intensity relation between the positional variants and the vowel-sound /e/ and the rate of change of F2 transition seem to be significant cues for the identification of the three variants observed. These acoustic results suggest some articulatory differences in the way these variants are produced.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alarcos Llorach, A. ( 1961). Fonologia Española ( Madrid ).
2.
Borovickova, B. and Malac, U. ( 1967). The Spectral Analysis of Czech Sound Combination ( Prague).
3.
Fant, G. ( 1970). Acoustic Theory of Speech Production ( The Hague).
4.
Gay, T. ( 1968). Effects of speaking rate on diphthong formant movements , J. acoust. Soc. Amer., 44, 1570.
5.
Guirao, M. and Manrique, A. M. B. de ( 1972). Fonemas, silabas y palabras del Español de Buenos Aires, estudio estadistico, Filologia, 16, 135.
6.
Guirao, M. and Manrique,A.M.B. de (1973). Identification of Argentine Spanish vowels. J. psycholing. Res. 4, 17.
7.
Jones, D. ( 1957). Outline of English Phonetics ( Cambridge ).
8.
Lehiste, I., and Peterson, G.E. ( 1961). Transitions, glides and diphthongs. J. acoust. Soc. Amer., 38, 268.
9.
Liberman, A., Delattre, P.C., Gerstman, L.J. and Cooper, F. ( 1956). Tempo of frequency change as a cue for distinguishing classes of speech sounds. J. exp. Psychol., 52, 127.
10.
Navarro Tomas, T. ( 1967). Manual de Pronunciación Española ( Madrid).
11.
O'Connor, J.D., Gerstman, L.J., Liberman, A.M., Delattre, P.C. and Cooper, F. ( 1957). Acoustic cues for the perception of initial /w, j, r, I/ in English. Word, 13, 24.
