This study aims to characterize the nature of the dynamic spectral change in vowels in three distinct regional varieties of American English spoken in the Western North Carolina, in Central Ohio, and in Southern Wisconsin. The vowels /ɪ, ε, e, æ, aɪ/ were produced by 48 women for a total of 1920 utterances and were contained in words of the structure /bVts/ and /bVdz/ in sentences which elicited nonemphatic and emphatic vowels. Measurements made at the vowel target (i.e., the central 60% of the vowel) produced a set of acoustic parameters which included position and movement in the F1 by F2 space, vowel duration, amount of spectral change [measured as vector length (VL) and trajectory length (TL)], and spectral rate of change. Results revealed expected variation in formant dynamics as a function of phonetic factors (vowel emphasis and consonantal context). However, for each vowel and for each measure employed, dialect was a strong source of variation in vowel-inherent spectral change. In general, the dialect-specific nature and amount of spectral change can be characterized quite effectively by position and movement in the F1 by F2 space, vowel duration, TL (but not VL which underestimates formant movement), and spectral rate of change.
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November 2009
November 05 2009
Cross-dialectal variation in formant dynamics of American English vowels Available to Purchase
Robert Allen Fox;
Robert Allen Fox
a)
Department of Speech and Hearing Science,
The Ohio State University
, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1002
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Ewa Jacewicz
Ewa Jacewicz
Department of Speech and Hearing Science,
The Ohio State University
, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1002
Search for other works by this author on:
Robert Allen Fox
a)
Department of Speech and Hearing Science,
The Ohio State University
, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1002
Ewa Jacewicz
Department of Speech and Hearing Science,
The Ohio State University
, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1002a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: [email protected]
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 126, 2603–2618 (2009)
Article history
Received:
March 31 2009
Accepted:
July 30 2009
Citation
Robert Allen Fox, Ewa Jacewicz; Cross-dialectal variation in formant dynamics of American English vowels. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 November 2009; 126 (5): 2603–2618. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3212921
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