15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)Barcelona, Spain |
The human speech production apparatus consists of a number of articulators
or structures that have the capability of producing somewhat continuous
movements within particular ranges. However, with proper adjustment
of postures of the respiratory system and of certain other articulators,
the properties of the sound that is generated by these movements and
the human responses to this sound tend to fall into discrete categories.
These categories form the bases for the distinctive features that
potentially define the phonological contrasts in any language. This
quantal aspect of articulatory/acoustic/perceptual relations arise
from the properties of coupled resonators in the vocal tract, the nature
of the sound sources in the vocal tract, the anatomy and physiology
of vocal-tract structures, and auditory responses to sounds with spectral
prominences and to the temporal properties of these sounds. In a given
language, the perceptual saliency of a particular contrast may be enhanced
by introducing articulatory gestures that provide acoustic cues for
the contrast over and above the cues resulting from the defining gestures.
Examples of the language-independent defining properties for a variety
of features are given, as well as examples of language-dependent enhancing
gestures and acoustic cues.
Bibliographic reference. Stevens, Kenneth N. (2003): "Acoustic and perceptual evidence for universal phonological features", In ICPhS-15, 33-38.