ASA 127th Meeting M.I.T. 1994 June 6-10

2pSP32. VC and CV transitions and the recognition of Canadian French syllables containing /l/.

Benoit Jacques

Lab. de Investigaciones Sensoriales, CONICET, Buenos Aires

Dept. de Linguistique, Univ. due Quebec a Montreal, P. O. Box 8888, sub. Centre-Ville, Montreal, PQ H3C 3P8, Canada

Lise Cloutier

Univ. du Quebec a Montreal

According to recent works, the formant structure of consonant /l/ is influenced by the adjoining vowels, so that the liquid appears as a modulation of these ones in frequency and intensity. The aim of this paper was to find out to what extent the VC and CV transitions are still needed in order that a syllable containing /l/ be recognizable. To that end, nonsense /V1V/ utterances in which both V's correspond to the same vowel were recorded by a Canadian French speaking informant and digitalized. In addition, vowels /i, e, |oh, a, o, u, y/, recorded in isolation, were also digitalized. Through the splicing and editing of the acoustic signal, the first vowel of each utterance, then the second one, was replaced successively by each of the vowels previously recorded in isolation, thus giving 112 stimuli. Listening tests through a panel comprising of 16 French Canadian subjects were performed. Results showed that a syllable containing /1/ is recognized most when the replacing vowel in the utterance is /i/ or /y/. In most other cases, the syllable is not recognized and the consonant itself might be perceived as a vowel.