Speech units

• Speech variability - variability in acoustic waveforms 


  • differences in speaker rate
  • intonation - melodic patterns of speech
  • background noise & distortion
  • accents
• Speech units - phones

  • basic unit of sound - each phone represents specific sound
  • possesses distinct physical or perceptual properties
  • Phones can vary acoustically or articulatorily
• Speech units - acoustic or atriculatory distinction

  • each posses unique characteristics:
  • acoustic phonetics (waveforms) - sounds
  • articulatory phonetics (articulators) - produced
• Speech units - amount

  • around 4000 distinct phones can be produced
  • over 800 phones in some languages
• Phonemes

  • representations of speech production
• Phonemes

  • Phonemes - set of phones cognitively equivalent - groups of speech sounds perceived as same despite variations in how produced
  • basic unit that distinguish words - change = prodcue different word
  • require perceptual distinction - language specific, abstract unit
• phonemes - phoneme & allophones

  • phones - representations of speech production
  • Allophones - different phones that are perceptually equivalent - different ways of saying same sound in a language