An inverse filtering study of Burmese creaky voice
Hector R. Jaykin, Ian Maddieson · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1982
A systematic study of the glottal characteristics of creaky voice in a language which uses it for linguistic contrast has not yet been done. In Burmese, syllables can contrast plain and creaky phonation. The characteristics of these phonation types were studied using inverse filtering [R. L. Miller, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 31, 667–677 (1959); G. Fant, Q. Prog. Status Rep. Speech Transmission Lab. No. 1, 85–107 (1979)]. A Burmese speaker was recorded in a sound-treated booth using a high-quality condenser microphone and an FM tape recorder. The recording was analyzed through an analog multi-formant inverse filter. An Oscillomink was used to graph (1) the speech wave, (2) the output of the inverse filter (representing the differentiated glottal flow), and (3) the inverse filter output integrated to represent glottal flow. The differences between creaky and normal phonation can be described in terms of peak flow, the asymmetry between the rate of rise and fall of flow in each glottal pulse, as well as F0. [Work supported by NIH.]