CS 551/651:
Structure of Spoken Language
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
John-Paul Hosom
Fall 2010
1
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
•
usually can divide fricatives into “strong” and “weak”:
strong = /s/, /sh/, /z/, /zh/
weak = /f/, /v/, /th/, /dh/
•
voicing may be present only in transition into a voiced
fricative; sometimes not at all
•
voiced fricatives tend to be shorter than unvoiced, relative to
the duration of the neighboring vowel
•
place of articulation causes some change in spectral shape:
/sh/ and /zh/ have greater energy at lower frequency than
/s/, /z/
2
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
•
/th/ sometimes has adjacent vowel’s F3, F4, F5 extend into /th/,
in contrast with /f/
•
/th/ and /f/ often have weak energy during middle part of
fricative
•
sometimes /f/ and /th/ best distinguished by formant transitions
of neighboring vowel(s)… more labial vs. more alveolar
characteristics of transitions.
•
sometimes /f/ has strong low-frequency energy (breath noise in
a close-talking microphone)
•
sometimes /th/ has more high-frequency energy above 4 kHz
3
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/f
iy
th
iy
s
iy
sh
iy/4
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/v
iy
dh iy
z
iy
zh
iy/
5
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/f
ah
th
ah
s
ah
sh
ah/
6
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/v
ah
dh
ah
z
ah
zh
ah/
7
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/f
aa
th
aa
s
aa
sh
aa/
8
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/v aa
dh
aa
z
aa
zh
aa/
9
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/iy
f
iy
th
iy
s
iy
sh/
10
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/iy
v
iy
dh
iy
z
iy
zh/
11
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/ah
f
ah th
ah
s
ah
sh/
12
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/ah
v
ah dh
ah
z
ah
zh/ 13
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/aa
f
aa
th
aa
s
aa
sh/
14
Spectrogram Reading: Fricatives
/aa
v
aa
dh
aa
z
aa
zh/
15