Newsgroups: comp.speech
Path: pavo.csi.cam.ac.uk!doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!cs.uiuc.edu!asimov!blix
From: blix@asimov.cs.uiuc.edu (Gunnar Blix)
Subject: Re: What physical grounding do formants have?
Message-ID: <CJFosr.IDo@cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
References: <CJFCuw.124@cygnus.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 21:53:14 GMT
Lines: 23

crash@cygnus.com (Jason Molenda) writes:

>One thing about which I was not clear -- is the sound for a particular
>formant tied to a particular part of the vocal tract, i.e. the
>frequencies in the first formant (F1) are made between the glottis and
>velum?

I'm not an expert and I suppose someone else may answer this better,
but my understanding is that the first and second formants correspond
roughly to the resonances of the cavities delimited by the tongue
hump, that is, in front of and behind this hump respectively. Roughly,
the higher the vowel (and thereby tongue hump), the lower F1 (i.e.,
smaller front cavity); the more front the vowel, the higher F2 (i.e.,
larger cavity behind).  I know it's a bit more complicated than this,
but I think the basic idea is correct.  Also, I believe F3 is
associated with the rounding of the vowel (e.g. Peterson and Barney's
results that the vowel in "heard" can be distinguished on the third
formant).
--
******************************************************************
* Gunnar Blix      * Good advice is one of those insults that    *
* blix@cs.uiuc.edu * ought to be forgiven.              -Unknown *
******************************************************************
