Languages show systematic variation in their sound patterns and grammars. Accordingly, they have been classified into typological categories such as stress-timed vs syllable-timed, or Head-Complement (HC) vs Complement-Head (CH). To date, it has remained incompletely understood how these linguistic properties are reflected in the acoustic characteristics of speech in different languages. In the present study, the amplitude-modulation (AM) and frequency-modulation (FM) spectra of 1797 utterances in ten languages were analyzed. Overall, the spectra were found to be similar in shape across languages. However, significant effects of linguistic factors were observed on the AM spectra. These differences were magnified with a perceptually plausible representation based on the modulation index (a measure of the signal-to-noise ratio at the output of a logarithmic modulation filterbank): the maximum value distinguished between HC and CH languages, with the exception of Turkish, while the exact frequency of this maximum differed between stress-timed and syllable-timed languages. An additional study conducted on a semi-spontaneous speech corpus showed that these differences persist for a larger number of speakers but disappear for less constrained semi-spontaneous speech. These findings reveal that broad linguistic categories are reflected in the temporal modulation features of different languages, although this may depend on speaking style.
Skip Nav Destination
,
,
,
,
Article navigation
October 2017
October 11 2017
A cross-linguistic study of speech modulation spectra
Léo Varnet;
Léo Varnet
a)
1
Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d'Études Cognitives, École normale supérieure, PSL Research University
, CNRS, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
Search for other works by this author on:
Maria Clemencia Ortiz-Barajas;
Maria Clemencia Ortiz-Barajas
2
Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 8242, Université Paris-Descartes
, 45 rue des Saints Pères, 75006 Paris, France
Search for other works by this author on:
Ramón Guevara Erra;
Ramón Guevara Erra
2
Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 8242, Université Paris-Descartes
, 45 rue des Saints Pères, 75006 Paris, France
Search for other works by this author on:
Judit Gervain;
Judit Gervain
2
Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 8242, Université Paris-Descartes
, 45 rue des Saints Pères, 75006 Paris, France
Search for other works by this author on:
Christian Lorenzi
Christian Lorenzi
1
Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d'Études Cognitives, École normale supérieure, PSL Research University
, CNRS, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
Search for other works by this author on:
Léo Varnet
1,a)
Maria Clemencia Ortiz-Barajas
2
Ramón Guevara Erra
2
Judit Gervain
2
Christian Lorenzi
1
1
Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d'Études Cognitives, École normale supérieure, PSL Research University
, CNRS, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
2
Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR 8242, Université Paris-Descartes
, 45 rue des Saints Pères, 75006 Paris, France
a)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 142, 1976–1989 (2017)
Article history
Received:
December 23 2016
Accepted:
September 22 2017
Citation
Léo Varnet, Maria Clemencia Ortiz-Barajas, Ramón Guevara Erra, Judit Gervain, Christian Lorenzi; A cross-linguistic study of speech modulation spectra. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 October 2017; 142 (4): 1976–1989. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5006179
Download citation file:
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Citing articles via
Focality of sound source placement by higher (ninth) order ambisonics and perceptual effects of spectral reproduction errors
Nima Zargarnezhad, Bruno Mesquita, et al.
Related Content
Speech rate effects on the realisation of multiple acoustic cues to the Japanese stop voicing contrast
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (April 2025)
Speech rate and pitch characteristics of infant-directed speech: Longitudinal and cross-linguistic observations
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (March 2016)
Recognition of foreign-accented speech in noise: The interplay between talker intelligibility and linguistic structure
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (June 2020)
A kinematic study of critical and non-critical articulators in emotional speech production
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (March 2015)
The role of linguistic and indexical information in improved recognition of dysarthric speech
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (January 2013)