Warner Natasha, Fountain Amy, Tucker Benjamin V
Department of Linguistics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0028, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2009 May;125(5):3317-27. doi: 10.1121/1.3097773.
Natural, spontaneous speech (and even quite careful speech) often shows extreme reduction in many speech segments, even resulting in apparent deletion of consonants. Where the flap ([inverted J]) allophone of /t/ and /d/ is expected in American English, one frequently sees an approximant-like or even vocalic pattern, rather than a clear flap. Still, the /t/ or /d/ is usually perceived, suggesting the acoustic characteristics of a reduced flap are sufficient for perception of a consonant. This paper identifies several acoustic characteristics of reduced flaps based on previous acoustic research (size of intensity dip, consonant duration, and F4 valley) and presents phonetic identification data for continua that manipulate these acoustic characteristics of reduction. The results indicate that the most obvious types of acoustic variability seen in natural flaps do affect listeners' percept of a consonant, but not sufficiently to completely account for the percept. Listeners are affected by the acoustic characteristics of consonant reduction, but they are also very skilled at evaluating variability along the acoustic dimensions that realize reduction.
自然的、自发的言语（甚至是相当谨慎的言语）在许多语音片段中常常表现出极大的简化，甚至导致辅音明显缺失。在美国英语中，预期会出现/t/和/d/的闪音（[倒J]）音位变体的地方，人们经常看到类似近音甚至元音的模式，而不是清晰的闪音。尽管如此，/t/或/d/通常仍能被感知到，这表明简化闪音的声学特征足以让人感知到辅音。本文基于先前的声学研究（强度下降的幅度、辅音时长和F4谷底）确定了简化闪音的几个声学特征，并给出了用于操控这些简化声学特征的连续体的语音识别数据。结果表明，自然闪音中最明显的声学变异类型确实会影响听众对辅音的感知，但不足以完全解释这种感知。听众会受到辅音简化的声学特征的影响，但他们在评估实现简化的声学维度上的变异方面也非常熟练。
