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Cited by 21Phonetics and Phonology ResearchVoice and Speech DisordersLinguistic Variation and Morphology

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Consonantal F0 perturbation in American English involves multiple mechanisms

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Xu, Yi, Xu, Anqi·2021·The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
DOI 10.1121/10.0004239PMC PMC8087449
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Abstract

In this study, we revisit consonantal perturbation of F0 in English, taking into particular consideration the effect of alignment of F0 contours to segments and the F0 extraction method in the acoustic analysis. We recorded words differing in consonant voicing, manner of articulation, and position in syllable, spoken by native speakers of American English in both statements and questions. In the analysis, we compared methods of F0 alignment and found that the highest F0 consistency occurred when F0 contours were time-normalized to the entire syllable. Applying this method, along with using syllables with nasal consonants as the baseline and a fine-detailed F0 extraction procedure, we identified three distinct consonantal effects: a large but brief (10–40 ms) F0 raising at voice onset regardless of consonant voicing, a smaller but longer-lasting F0 raising effect by voiceless consonants throughout a large proportion of the following vowels, and a small lowering effect of around 6 Hz by voiced consonants, which was not found in previous studies. Additionally, a brief anticipatory effect was observed before a coda consonant. These effects are imposed on a continuously changing F0 curve that is either rising-falling or falling-rising, depending on whether the carrier sentence is a statement or a question.

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FIG. 1. Average F0 values of vowels following English voiced and voiceless bilabial stops in real time, aligned at vowel onset (adapted from Fig. 1 in Hombert et al., 1979).
FIG. 1. Average F0 values of vowels following English voiced and voiceless bilabial stops in real time, aligned at vowel onset (adapted from Fig. 1 in Hombert et al., 1979).CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 2. (Color online) (a) Spectrogram of utterances consisting of only vowels and sonorants; (b) spectrogram of utterances consisting of vowels and consonants.
FIG. 2. (Color online) (a) Spectrogram of utterances consisting of only vowels and sonorants; (b) spectrogram of utterances consisting of vowels and consonants.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 3. (Color online) Schematic illustrations of different procedures of measuring vertical F0 perturbation. The curves represent F0 contours in syllables that start with a nasal consonant (solid), a voiced consonant (dotted), or a voiceless consonant (dashed). In (a), time is normalized across the syllable; in (b) time is actual time, aligned at the syllable onset; and in (c), time is normalized across the consonant closure and the vowel, respectively.
FIG. 3. (Color online) Schematic illustrations of different procedures of measuring vertical F0 perturbation. The curves represent F0 contours in syllables that start with a nasal consonant (solid), a voiced consonant (dotted), or a voiceless consonant (dashed). In (a), time is normalized across the syllable; in (b) time is actual time, aligned at the syllable onset; and in (c), time is normalized across the consonant closure and the vowel, respectively.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 4. (Color online) An example of segmentation of consonantal and vocalic intervals.
FIG. 4. (Color online) An example of segmentation of consonantal and vocalic intervals.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 5. (Color online) (a) An example of a burst at labial release between [m] and [n]. (b) An example of an arbitrary boundary in the middle of a nasal geminate.
FIG. 5. (Color online) (a) An example of a burst at labial release between [m] and [n]. (b) An example of an arbitrary boundary in the middle of a nasal geminate.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 6. (Color online) (a), (b) Sample mean F0 contours for the target word “nay” embedded in declarative (left, a) and interrogative (right, b) sentences.
FIG. 6. (Color online) (a), (b) Sample mean F0 contours for the target word “nay” embedded in declarative (left, a) and interrogative (right, b) sentences.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 7. (Color online) (a)–(d). Mean F0 contours in target CV syllables (also showing parts of the carrier sentence) with different types of consonants in declarative sentences. The methods of alignment and time-normalization are specified below each plot. The vertical lines indicate the alignment points, and the symbolic markers indicate segment boundaries. The consonants having the same manner of articulation are in paired colours with different grayscale values. The voiced consonants are darker than their voiceless counterparts.
FIG. 7. (Color online) (a)–(d). Mean F0 contours in target CV syllables (also showing parts of the carrier sentence) with different types of consonants in declarative sentences. The methods of alignment and time-normalization are specified below each plot. The vertical lines indicate the alignment points, and the symbolic markers indicate segment boundaries. The consonants having the same manner of articulation are in paired colours with different grayscale values. The voiced consonants are darker than their voiceless counterparts.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 8. (Color online) (a)–(d) Mean F0 contours of vowels following target consonants in CV syllables (also showing parts of the carrier sentence) with different types of consonants in interrogative sentences. The methods of alignment and time-normalization are specified below each plot. The vertical lines indicate the alignment points, and the symbolic markers indicate segment boundaries. The consonants having the same manner of articulation are in paired colours with different grayscale values. The voiced consonants are darker than their voiceless counterparts.
FIG. 8. (Color online) (a)–(d) Mean F0 contours of vowels following target consonants in CV syllables (also showing parts of the carrier sentence) with different types of consonants in interrogative sentences. The methods of alignment and time-normalization are specified below each plot. The vertical lines indicate the alignment points, and the symbolic markers indicate segment boundaries. The consonants having the same manner of articulation are in paired colours with different grayscale values. The voiced consonants are darker than their voiceless counterparts.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 9. (Color online) Mean F0 contours of vowels following target consonants in CVC syllables [(a) and (b)] and CVCV [(c) and (d)] and parts of carrier sentences. The time points of consonants are normalized with reference to the mean time points of nasals. Carrier sentence is declarative [left, (a) and (c)] or interrogative [right, (b) and (d)]. The vertical lines indicate the alignment points and the symbolic markers indicate segment boundaries. The consonants having the same manner of articulation are in paired colours with different grayscale values. The voiced consonants are darker than their voiceless counterparts.
FIG. 9. (Color online) Mean F0 contours of vowels following target consonants in CVC syllables [(a) and (b)] and CVCV [(c) and (d)] and parts of carrier sentences. The time points of consonants are normalized with reference to the mean time points of nasals. Carrier sentence is declarative [left, (a) and (c)] or interrogative [right, (b) and (d)]. The vertical lines indicate the alignment points and the symbolic markers indicate segment boundaries. The consonants having the same manner of articulation are in paired colours with different grayscale values. The voiced consonants are darker than their voiceless counterparts.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 10. Illustration of onset F0, F0 jump, F0 elbow, elbow jump, and offset F0.
FIG. 10. Illustration of onset F0, F0 jump, F0 elbow, elbow jump, and offset F0.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 11. (Color online) Schematic comparisons of F0 perturbation following voiced and voiceless obstruent consonants when applied with (solid) and without (dotted) trimming and smoothing pitch processing.
FIG. 11. (Color online) Schematic comparisons of F0 perturbation following voiced and voiceless obstruent consonants when applied with (solid) and without (dotted) trimming and smoothing pitch processing.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 12. (Color online) Boxplots of trimmed onset F0 (Hz) (left, a) and untrimmed onset F0 (Hz) (centre, b) and untrimmed F0 jump (Hz) (right, c) of vowels following voiced and voiceless stop consonants.
FIG. 12. (Color online) Boxplots of trimmed onset F0 (Hz) (left, a) and untrimmed onset F0 (Hz) (centre, b) and untrimmed F0 jump (Hz) (right, c) of vowels following voiced and voiceless stop consonants.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 13. (Color online) Boxplots of onset F0 (Hz) (left, a) and F0 jump (Hz) (right, b) of vowels following target consonants across voicing and intonation contexts.
FIG. 13. (Color online) Boxplots of onset F0 (Hz) (left, a) and F0 jump (Hz) (right, b) of vowels following target consonants across voicing and intonation contexts.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 14. (Color online) Interaction between voicing and manner of articulation in onset F0 (left, a) and F0 jump (right, b). Nasals and affricates are excluded.
FIG. 14. (Color online) Interaction between voicing and manner of articulation in onset F0 (left, a) and F0 jump (right, b). Nasals and affricates are excluded.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 15. (Color online) Histographic distributions of F0 jump values by consonant type. The upper panel shows distributions of F0 jump for voiced consonants and the lower panel for voiceless consonants. In each plot, the dashed vertical line marks the zero point on the x axis.
FIG. 15. (Color online) Histographic distributions of F0 jump values by consonant type. The upper panel shows distributions of F0 jump for voiced consonants and the lower panel for voiceless consonants. In each plot, the dashed vertical line marks the zero point on the x axis.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 16. (Color online) Boxplots of F0 elbow (a) and elbow jump (b) separated by consonant voicing and intonation context. See Fig. 10 for definitions of F0 elbow and elbow jump.
FIG. 16. (Color online) Boxplots of F0 elbow (a) and elbow jump (b) separated by consonant voicing and intonation context. See Fig. 10 for definitions of F0 elbow and elbow jump.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 17. (Color online) Histographic distributions of elbow jump values by consonant type. The upper panel shows distributions of elbow jump for voiced consonants and the lower panel for voiceless consonants. In each plot, the dashed vertical line marks the zero point on the x axis.
FIG. 17. (Color online) Histographic distributions of elbow jump values by consonant type. The upper panel shows distributions of elbow jump for voiced consonants and the lower panel for voiceless consonants. In each plot, the dashed vertical line marks the zero point on the x axis.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 18. (Color online) F0 at five relative locations in the vowels preceding voiced consonants (nasals excluded) and voiceless consonants. Error bars show the standard errors.
FIG. 18. (Color online) F0 at five relative locations in the vowels preceding voiced consonants (nasals excluded) and voiceless consonants. Error bars show the standard errors.CC BY · PubMed Central
FIG. 19. (Color online) Illustration of F0 curves obtained by various trimming methods.
FIG. 19. (Color online) Illustration of F0 curves obtained by various trimming methods.CC BY · PubMed Central

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References 48 · Cited by 21

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Metadata

Authors
Xu, Y., & Xu, A.
Affiliations
University College London (GB)
Corresponding author
Xu, Anqi
ORCID
Venue
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Publisher
Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
Published
2021-04-01
Volume
149
Issue
4
Pages
2877-2895
ISSN
0001-4966 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1121/10.0004239
PMC
PMC8087449
OpenAlex
W3159284836
Cited by
21
References
48
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4
FWCI
2.65
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01 DC03902)
  • Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2019-241)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Speech and Hearing › Voice and Speech Disorders
  • Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Linguistic Variation and Morphology
Keywords
American English, fundamental frequency, voice onset, voiceless consonants, voiced consonants, nasal consonants, coda consonants, prosody
MeSH terms
Acoustics, Language, Nose, Phonetics, Speech Acoustics, Time Factors, United States

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Xu, Y., & Xu, A. (2021). Consonantal F0 perturbation in American English involves multiple mechanisms. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0004239