Acoustic properties of Turkish voiceless fricatives

Abstract

The investigation of acoustic parameters which differentiate place of articulation for fricatives has been limited to few languages. This study investigates the acoustic properties of Turkish voiceless fricatives representing three different places of articulation, /f, s, ∫/. For each fricative, spectral properties, duration, overall amplitude, F2 transition, and center of gravity were measured. Each fricative occurred in different vowel environments, in one and two word syllables and in different positions within a word. The participants were 6 (3 male, 3 female) native Turkish speakers. A total of 4320 tokens were analyzed. The findings showed that frequency range, spectral peak location, F2 transition and center of gravity are cues to place of articulation in Turkish. The findings showed that the frequency range is 1500-10500 Hz for /f/, 3500-10800 Hz for /s/, 1800-9400 Hz for /∫/. The spectral peak location measurements were; /s/ > /f/ > /∫/. The mean duration of fricatives were /∫/ >/s/ >/f/. The amplitude for fricatives are as follows; / ∫/ >/s/> /f/. The onset of F2 transition were; /∫/ >/s/> /f/ and the center of gravity measurements were; /s/ > /∫/ > /f/.