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Spectrograms

The document discusses how different types of sounds appear on a spectrogram. It describes vowels, diphthongs, fricatives, plosives, nasals and laterals, and provides examples of what each looks like on a spectrogram. Key aspects include formant patterns for vowels, noise-like patterns for fricatives, periods of silence for plosives, and faint patterns for nasals and laterals.

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Sonja Grbić
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104 views

Spectrograms

The document discusses how different types of sounds appear on a spectrogram. It describes vowels, diphthongs, fricatives, plosives, nasals and laterals, and provides examples of what each looks like on a spectrogram. Key aspects include formant patterns for vowels, noise-like patterns for fricatives, periods of silence for plosives, and faint patterns for nasals and laterals.

Uploaded by

Sonja Grbić
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A spectrogram is a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies in a sound or other signal

as they vary with time or some other variable. The spectrogram is a basic tool in audio spectral
analysis and other fields. It has been applied extensively in speech analysis. The instrument that
generates a spectrogram is called a spectrograph/ spectrometer. A common format is a graph with
two geometric dimensions: the horizontal axis represents time the vertical axis is frequency! and
the third dimension indicates the amplitude of a particular frequency at a particular time which is
represented by the intensity or colour of each point in the image.
Identifying sounds in spectrograms
Let's look at how various kinds of sounds appear on a spectrogram.
Vowels
Vowels usually have very clearly defined formant bars, as in the following:
In dipthongs, you can see the formants change frequency as the tongue body moves
through the mouth:
ou can't always tell reliably which formant you're looking at !! "#, "$, "%, etc. !! unless
you already have a good idea of where to e&pect them. 'ut the e&istence of formants is
usually obvious enough that you can at least be sure you're looking at a vowel.
()here are some especially common difficulties in identifying formants. In , and
sometimes other back vowels, "# and "$ are often so close together that they appear as a
single wide formant band. In , "$ and "% also often appear merged together in a single
wide band.*
Fricatives
"ricatives are easy. )he turbulent airstream of fricatives creates a chaotic mi& of random
frequencies, each lasting for a very brief time. )he result sounds much like static noise, and
on a spectrogram it looks like the kind of static noise you might see on a )V screen.
+hile each momentary burst of energy occurs at a random frequency, there are tendencies
in which frequencies the random bursts cluster around. has a higher average frequency
than does, and both are higher than or .
Voiced fricatives show aspects of both regular vocal fold vibrations and a randomly
turbulent airstream.
[h]
-h. is really a voiceless version of the preceding or following vowel. /n a spectrogram, it
looks a little like a cross between a fricative and a vowel. It will have a lot of random noise
that looks like static, but through the static you can usually see the faint bands of the
voiceless vowel's formants.
Plosives
)he medial phase of a voiceless plosive is complete silence. /n a spectrogram, this will
appear as a white blank.
)he quiet vocal fold vibrations in a voiced plosive will sometimes appear as a faint band
along the bottom of the spectrogram at the frequency of f0. ('ut very often you won't see
anything there, either because the voicing got lost in the background noise or because the
recording or computer equipment cut off frequencies that low.*
)o tell the difference between plosives, listeners rely on the release burst and on formant
transitions. /n a spectrogram, the release burst looks like a very, very thin fricative. )he
formant transitions (if you can see them* look like the formants have been distorted away
from the frequencies they have during most of the vowel.
1spiration will look like a period of between the blank gap and the vowel !! specifically,
a voiceless version of the following vowel. (2ecall that the tongue body is in position for the
following vowel and that aspiration is 3ust a delay in the onset of voicing.*
4': 1spiration is not the same as the release burst. )he period of aspiration (which only
some voiceless plosives have* is much longer than the very short release burst (which all
released plosives have*.
)he above spectrogram is of the 5nglish word attack .
)he periods of time labelled are:
1: the initial schwa
': the medial phase of the (silence*
6: the release burst of the
7: the aspiration (delay of the onset of voicing for *
5:
the !! voicing has finally started. 2ight at the end of the vowel, you can see "$ and "%
start to approach one another in a formant transition pattern (often called the 8velar
pinch8* that usually marks the onset phase of a velar consonant.
": the medial phase of the (again, silence*
9:
the release burst of the (which I pronounced as released for the purposes of this
spectrogram*
Nasals and [l]
4asals and usually look like quite faint vowels, without a lot of amplitude in the higher
frequencies.
ou can still see some things that look like formants. 'ut the acoustic properties of tubes
with branches and side!chambers are much more complicated, with anti!formants as well
as formants, so the formant bands will appear in different positions and usually be fainter.
Which nasal or lateral it is usually isn't something you can figure out looking at 3ust a
spectrogram.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/"#russll/phonetics/acoustic/spectrogram$sounds.html

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