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15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)Barcelona, Spain |
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Previous work showed that the Pattani Malay length distinction for all word-initial consonants is audible for all categories, even voiceless plosives, and that relative closure-duration is a significant differentiator. Listening suggested greater salience on the first syllable of words with a long plosive, and higher amplitude and fundamental frequency were found on such first syllables. Amplitude variants yielded significant effects but not complete perceptual shifts. Changes in F0 on both syllables gave the same results. This study tests the combining of relative amplitude and F0. For every word-pair the experiment included the original words and stimuli derived from each member of the pair by changing the peaks of F0 and amplitude on both syllables. Combinations of values of F0 and amplitude provide sufficient and powerful cues to the length of initial voiceless stops but not for voiced stops. For nasals and fricatives the effect was clear.
Bibliographic reference. Abramson, Arthur S. (2003): "Acoustic cues to word-initial stop length in pattani malay", In ICPhS-15, 387-390.