Acoustic characteristics of English fricatives

This study constitutes a large-scale comparative analysis of acoustic cues for classification of place of articulation in fricatives. To date, no sing le metric has been found to classify fricative place of articulation with a high degree of accuracy. This study presents spectral, amplitudinal, and t emporal measurements that involve both static properties (spectral peak loc ation, spectral moments, noise duration, normalized amplitude, and F2 onset frequency) and dynamic properties (relative amplitude and locus equations) . While all cues (except locus equations) consistently serve to distinguish sibilant from nonsibilant fricatives, the present results indicate that sp ectral peak location, spectral moments, and both normalized and relative am plitude serve to distinguish all four places of fricative articulation. The se findings suggest that these static and dynamic acoustic properties can p rovide robust and unique information about all four places of articulation, despite variation in speaker, vowel context, and voicing. (C) 2000 Acousti cal Society of America. [S0001-4966(00)02909-X].