Acoustics of Whispered Stops

Abstract

This study investigated voicing cues of stop consonants in whispered speech. Whispered speech is perceived in the absence of fundamental frequency. But there is hardly any information on the acoustic cues of voicing in whispered consonants. Twenty normal Kannada speaking subjects read visually presented syllables in normal and whispered voice conditions. Acoustic parameters were extracted and S ratio was calculated. The results indicated that transition duration, burst duration, burst amplitude, closure duration and total duration were longer in whispered condition compared to normal condition.