Acoustic characteristics of Greek fricatives

Abstract

The present study examined the acoustics of Greek fricative consonants in terms of temporal, spectral, and amplitude parameters. The effects of voicing, speaker's gender, place of articulation, and post-fricative vowel on the acoustic parameters were also investigated. The results indicated that first and second spectral moments (i.e., spectral mean and spectral variance), as well as second formant (F2) onset, and normalized amplitude values are the acoustic parameters most correlated with the Greek fricative place of articulation distinction. F2 onset and spectral mean were the parameters that distinguished all five places of articulation, while normalized amplitude differentiated sibilants from non-sibilants. In addition, normalized duration and normalized amplitude are the parameters that distinguish Greek voiced from voiceless fricatives, with high classification accuracy.

The acoustics of Cypriot Greek fricatives

“…Moreover, there were significant effects of stress and vowel context on duration, centre of gravity, skewness, and kurtosis. Specifically, stressed fricatives are longer than unstressed fricatives (see also Nirgianaki, 2014). Also stressed and unstressed /x/ is longer than stressed and unstressed /f/ and /θ/ correspondingly.…”

Effects of Stress on Fricatives: Evidence from Standard Modern Greek

“…Previous research on SMG fricatives focused on temporal properties of fricatives in a number of segmental contexts [5]. Current studies also provide evidence on the spectral, and amplitude parameters of SMG fricatives and on coarticulatory effects of fricatives on following vowels [6]. However, little research has been conducted on the effects of stress on fricatives' spectral shape.…”

“…Namely, the place of articulation had significant effects on all spectral properties of fricatives, including the temporal ones and can account for the intrinsic properties of fricatives: intrinsic duration, Articulatory accounts for these effects were provided by the models of speech production; for a review see [1]. Another important effect are the effects of the following vowel on the spectral and temporal properties of SMG fricatives; see also [6]. The tongue displacement for the production of the following vowel: high front vowel /i/ vs. low central vowel /a/ changes the overall space in the front of the cavity and induces micro-articulatory effects on fricative production.…”

Syllable phonology and cross-syllable temporal production in Greek

“…(1) segmental sounds and especially vowels have different intrinsic durations and, thus, "low" vowels, such as /a/ are intrinsically longer than "high" vowels, such as /i/ or /u/ (e.g. Fourakis, Botinis, Katsaiti 1999); (2) voiceless fricatives are longer than voiced fricatives at all places of articulation (Nirgianaki 2014); (3) both low/high vowels and voiced/voiceless fricatives have compensatory effects at syllable domain. 4open syllables are correlated with longer nucleus vowels than closed syllables (Maddieson 1985).…”