Place of articulation cues for voiced and voiceless plosives and fricatives in syllable-initial position

In this paper, the acoustic correlates of the labial and alveolar place of articulation for both plosive and fricative consonants are investigated, and the results are analyzed in terms of vowel context, voicing and manner of articulation. Several measurements, including formant and noise measurements, are reported for CVs spoken by two male and two female talkers. It was found that the spectral amplitude of frication noise relative to F1 at vowel onset results in 84% or better correct classi cation for the fricatives in 3 vowel contexts. For plosives, a measure which quanti es the amplitude of noise at high frequencies relative to F1 at vowel onset (Av-Ahi [8]) resulted in 81 % or better correct classi cation in the three vowel contexts. Formant frequency cues, on the other hand, were not reliable measures for all vowel contexts.