A selective history of issues in vowel perception

✍ Scribed by James J Jenkins

• Book ID: 103917352
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1987
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 701 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0749-596X
• DOI: 10.1016/0749-596x(87)90140-9

✦ Synopsis

Vowels may be studied from articulatory or acoustic points of view. Analysis of the articulation of sustained vowels was well developed by the 17th century, but analysis of the acoustics could not be undertaken until the 19th. Vowels differed in perceived "pitch," but it was not clear what the "pitch" consisted of. Acoustic research suggested that the different vowels involved the differential reinforcement of the harmonics of the voice by altering the resonances of the vocal cavities. Sustained vowel production was achieved by static positions of the articulators and resulted in specific acoustic resonances. The notion of "articulatory targets" and correlated "acoustic targets" became central to theories of vowel production and perception. However. because the acoustic values of vowels were seen to vary as a function of individual talkers. rate of speech, and phonetic context of the vowel. a great burden was put on "normalization" processes required of the listener. These problems and some anomalous facts encouraged the search for new ways to characterize the information that specifies vowels. The papers that follow represent some aspects of new approaches to vowel perception which have appeared in the last decade. ! 1987 Academic Pre\. Inc.