An Acoustic Study Of Fricative-To-Vowel Coarticulation In Arabic

Abstract

This study examines th carryover coarticulatory effecrs of consonantal context upon the acoustic characteristics of voqwia in Arabic. Five speaders read a list of 65 ev.c syllables containing various initial fricatives, five long vowels, and either final voiceless or voiced alveolar stop consonants. Formant frequency analysis have shown that fricative consonants induced significant coarticuatory effects on the F2 steady state frequency of the variation varies significantly as a function of fricative place of articulation. The degree of fricative-to-vowel coarticulation appears to be related to the amount of articulatory constraint on the tongue activity duriqg the pro¬duction of fricativeee consonant. Thus the large amount of F2 transition may reflect the antagnoistic demand on the articulatory movements during the production of fricative-to-vowel sequence as in emphatic or pharyneal fricatives and front high vowels combinations, whereas therelatively small amount of F2 transition may reflect the complementary devand on the articulatory movements as in the sequence of alveolar or palatal fricatives and front high vowels. The insignificant F2 transition variation in the sequence of labio-dental or glottal fricative and vowel may be interpreted to mean neutral demand on the articulatory movements.