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WHISTLED TURKISH: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF VOWEL

DISTRIBUTION AND CONSONANT MODULATIONS

XVI ICPhS

Julien.Meyer@univ-lyon2.frUniversitat Politecnica Catalunya

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Introduction: natural whistled speech

Consists of an emulation of the spoken speech to enable dialogues at long distances (100 m to 2 km) Adaptation to a problematic: the speech signal is degraded by the ambiant middle (attenuation, absorption)

loud shoutedVoice recorded at distance:

Dialogue not possible

Possible

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whistle

voice in Mazatec (tonal):

Example in Turkish:

Sorts the languages according to the phonologic role of some frequency features (advantage: natural sorting)

A. We perceive simultaneously two heights in the voice (pitch, timbre)

Introduction

voice

whistle

1) Frequency reduction, selection;

« formant distribution » transposition

• B1. The languages combine them differently in their phonology• B2. Whistled speech focuses primarily on only one of them (in real time)

2) Typology

pitch transposition

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Vowel distribution in whistled Turkish

Table: One-way ANOVA on vocalic groups in whistled Turkish

(cf. data above)

Compared groups

F p Signif.

() vs. (, ) F(1,50)=90.94 7.743e-13 ***

(, ) vs. (,, ) F(1, 120)=46.53 3.9e-10 ***

(,, ) vs. (a, o) F(1,224)=186.43 2.75e-31 ***

Frequency distribution of Turkish whistled vowels(280 vowels, single whistler, stable conditions of production)

Vocalic triangle of Turkish

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Vowel distribution in whistled Turkish

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Comparison with whistled spanish (Silbo)

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Phonologic vocalic harmony rules

The possibilities they open sum up as follows:a and -------- can be followed by ---------- a and o and ------- can be followed by ---------- a and and I -------- can be followed by ---------- and I

and ------ can be followed by ---------- and

• Two harmony rules between consecutive syllables in Turkish agglutinated words (neutralize aspects of the vowel quality oppositions)

1) If the first vowel has an anterior pronunciation ([I], [], [], []) or a posterior one ([], [], [a], [o]), the subsequent vowels will respectively be anterior or posterior.

2) If one diffuse (High) vowel is plain (resp. flat), the following vowel will be also plain (resp. flat). On another hand, a compact (Low) vowel in non-initial position will always be plain (the direct consequence is that the vowels and o will always be in an initial syllable).

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Combination harmony rules/whistled groups

vocalic harmony

rules+ =

- 2 consecutive [] (resp. []) might be confused with 2 consecutive [] (resp. [])

-[] followed by [] might be confused with [] followed by []-[a] followed by [a] might be confused with [o] followed by [a] or [o] followed by [o].

Simplify the vowel identification: only one link induced by harmony rule between two distinct frequency groups (two consecutive vowels not whistled in the same frequency group will always be identified)

Few opportunities for confusion remain for two-syllable words with identical consonants and vowels in the same groups

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Modulations and transients:diphtongs and consonants

Combination of Amplitude and Frequency modulations:- Amplitude: continuity/discontinuity, rapid/slow sound attack (or decay)- Frequency: typical shapes

• Diphtongs:

• Consonants:

- continue and rapid frequency modulation between two vocalic frequency intervals

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Consonants:Typical frequency shapes

• /a(Consonant)a/ shapes

• Reductions confined to close loci

• Adaptation to the constraints (tensed muscles: throat and lips)

/kom - jun - kp/ (recorded near the whistler)

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Conclusions:

• Whistled speech: Adaptation to both sound propagation and language structure

=> language specific natural telecommunication system.

• Whistled Turkish: - transposes articulatory aspects of vowels and consonants - reveals a frequency scale of vowels (reflection of formant distribution) - unravels the recognition of vowels thanks to harmony rules - highlights classes of close consonants in terms of locus

Underlying processes at play in the spoken production/perception Good model for perception

(a) formant distribution, (b) spoken speech in low SNR(in tone languages: contribution of tone and intonation to intelligibility)

Bibliography: See www.theworldwhistles.org