LIN228H1 Lecture Notes - Velar Nasal, Front Vowel, Spectrogram
Document Summary
This handout discusses only some basic information used in reading spectrograms. Additional example spectrograms illustrating english sounds can be found in the textbook. A spectrogram is a representation of speech sounds showing time on the horizontal axis and frequency on the vertical axis. Intensity is shown by the darkness of the representation (darker colouring = greater intensity): vowels. Spectrograms of different vowels are distinguished from one another on the basis of formants. Recall that formants are clusters of harmonics which are enhanced by the resonating properties of the vocal tract. The configuration of the vocal tract differs for each vowel leading to different formant frequencies for each vowel. F2 is even lower for rounded vowels because the front cavity is increased by lip protrusion. Front cavity: large (and increased by lip protrusion) Low f2 (articulatory speech synthesis: http://www. haskins. yale. edu/; see the last week"s handout for a discussion. ) See table 8. 2 in the textbook for typical english vowel formant values.
