ささやき母音の自然性と母音範疇の知覚

概要

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The lower formant frequencies of whispered vowels are known to be slightly higher than those of modal vowels. This paper attempts to interpret this phenomenon acoustically, based on an electrical circuit model of the vocal tract. Perceived naturalness of whispered vowels is shown to be associated with bandwidth of the lower formant and spectral tilt resulting from loose acoustic coupling between supra- and sub-glottal systems through a small glottal chink. Perceptual significance of the frequency shift of the lower formant in whispered vowels is also studied. Perceptual experiments showed in that vowel boundaries between modal and whispered vowels were not changed in four of six subjects for the /o/-/a/ stimuli and in two of six for the /i/-/e/ stimuli. The results indicated that frequency shift of the lower formant in whispered vowels is not necessarily associated with the compensation for vowel boundary shifts.
1999-12-30