Proc. of the Interspeech, pp. 1033-1036, Lisbon, 2005
Comparing tongue positions of vowels in oral and nasal contexts
T. Arai
Abstract: We studied tongue positions of vowels in oral and nasal contexts. In the previous study [Arai, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 115, p.2541 (2004)], formant frequencies were measured and bidirectional formant shifts in F1 frequency were observed: increasing F1 for high vowels and decreasing F1 for low vowels. Then, we tried to answer to the next question, that is, whether or not speakers and/or listeners compensate for the formant shifts. The perceptual experiment by Arai (2004) showed that compensation occurs when an isolated vowel has nasalization and is accompanied by formant transitions. This result agreed with the findings of Krakow et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 83, 1146-1158 (1988)]. The goal of this study is to examine the compensation effect for the formant shifts in production. In the EMMA experiment, the measurement of the positions of the articulators showed almost no compensation except for the lowest vowel /a/.