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From: tssmith@netcom.com (Tim Smith)
Subject: Re: Where does the word "formant" come from?
Message-ID: <1993Jan14.054749.15910@netcom.com>
Summary: Phonetics
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
References: <1993Jan11.195301.5026@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu> <14158@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 05:47:49 GMT
Lines: 39

In article <14158@ecs.soton.ac.uk> rid@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bob Damper) writes:
>In <1993Jan11.195301.5026@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu> riegels@amstel.eng.ohio-state.edu (Edward L. Riegelsberger) writes:
>
>
>>The following question came up in a speech related class I am taking:
>
>>        Where does the word "formant" come from?
>
>
>>The definition is clear, but its origin is not.  Did someone just make 
>>it up or are there reasons for which I am unaware?
>
>It is derived from (form)+(ant).  The `form' bit is from Latin formare
>-- to take shape or be formed.  The suffix -ant forms a noun denoting
>agent from a verb as in e.g. assistant.
>
>That's the origin, at least.  One could argue about how much sense it
>makes.  It's hard to think of a formant as an agent, I reckon.

The OED, in its nicely pedantic way, cites a paper by the German
scholars Hermann and Mathias (Arch. f. d. ges. Physiol., 1894) as the
first attestation. No German quote given.  Here's a citation from a
paper in Nature (1901):

"A vowel, according to [Hermann], is a special acoustic phenomenon,
depending on the intermittent production of a special partial, or
'formant' or 'characteristique'.  The pitch of a 'formant' may vary a
little without altering the character of the vowel."

In my experience, the word is used mostly by phoneticians and other
speech researchers, occasionally by acousticians of music, and much
less often by engineers.

So the origin is Latin by way of German, and the word seems better
than the French "characteristique" (unless my limited French
Sprachgefuehl fails me here), since it seems to leave room for
multiple formative agents of the sound quality.


