ACOUSTIC CORRELATES OF EMPHASIS IN ARABIC

Abstract

The effects of emphasis, a secondary articulation in the posterior vocal tract, were investigated in the speech of 8 speakers of Jordanian Arabic. A number of acoustic parameters were measured in the consonants and vowels of mono- and bisyllabic minimal pairs containing plain or emphatic consonants in initial, medial, or final position. In general, the acoustic correlates of emphasis include a raised F1, lowered F2, and raised F3 in the vowel adjacent to the emphatic consonant. This pattern across the three formants suggests that emphasis involves a constriction near the epiglottis. In addition, the present results indicate that the spectral mean of the consonant itself is also a reliable acoustic correlate of emphasis. However, while the spread of emphasis can be detected throughout both vowels of bisyllabic words, only the target consonants themselves (not the surrounding consonants) show an effect of emphasis.