WHISTLED TURKISH: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF VOWEL DISTRIBUTION AND CONSONANT MODULATIONS

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WHISTLED TURKISH STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF VOWEL
DISTRIBUTION AND CONSONANT MODULATIONS
XVI ICPhS Julien.Meyer_at_univ-lyon2.fr Universi
tat Politecnica Catalunya

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Introduction natural whistled speech

• Consists of an emulation of the spoken speech to
  enable dialogues at long distances (100 m to 2
  km)
• Adaptation to a problematic the speech signal is
  degraded by the ambiant middle (attenuation,
  absorption)

Voice recorded at distance
loud
shouted
Dialogue not possible
Possible
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Introduction
1) Frequency reduction, selection
2) Typology
Example in Turkish
 formant distribution  transposition
pitch transposition
in Mazatec (tonal)
voice
voice
whistle
whistle

• A. We perceive simultaneously two heights in the
  voice (pitch, timbre)

• B1. The languages combine them differently in
  their phonology
• B2. Whistled speech focuses primarily on only
  one of them (in real time)

• Sorts the languages according to the phonologic
  role of
• some frequency features
  (advantage natural sorting)

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Vowel distribution in whistled Turkish
Frequency distribution of Turkish whistled
vowels (280 vowels, single whistler, stable
conditions of production)
Vocalic triangle of Turkish
I ? Y ? ? ? a o
Table One-way ANOVA on vocalic groups in
whistled Turkish (cf. data above)
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Vowel distribution in whistled Turkish
I ? Y ? ? ? a o
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Comparison with whistled spanish (Silbo)
I ? Y ? ? ? a o
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Phonologic vocalic harmony rules

• Two harmony rules between consecutive syllables
  in Turkish
• agglutinated words (neutralize aspects of the
  vowel quality oppositions)

• 1) If the first vowel has an anterior
  pronunciation (I, ?, ?, ?) or a posterior
  one (?, ?, a, o), the subsequent vowels
  will respectively be anterior or posterior.
• 2) If one diffuse (High) vowel is plain (resp.
  flat), the following vowel will be also plain
  (resp. flat). On another hand, a compact (Low)
  vowel in non-initial position will always be
  plain (the direct consequence is that the vowels
  ? and o will always be in an initial syllable).

The possibilities they open sum up as follows a
and ? -------- can be followed by ---------- a
and ? o and ? ------- can be followed by
---------- a and ? ? and I -------- can be
followed by ---------- ? and I ? and ? ------
can be followed by ---------- ? and ?
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Combination harmony rules/whistled groups
vocalic harmony rules

• Simplify the vowel identification only one link
  induced by harmony rule between two distinct
  frequency groups (two consecutive vowels not
  whistled in the same frequency group will always
  be identified)
• Few opportunities for confusion remain for
  two-syllable words with identical consonants and
  vowels in the same groups

- 2 consecutive ? (resp. ?) might be confused
with 2 consecutive ? (resp. ?) -? followed
by ? might be confused with ? followed by
? -a followed by a might be confused with
o followed by a or o followed by o.
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Modulations and transients diphtongs and
consonants

• Diphtongs

• continue and rapid frequency modulation between
  two vocalic frequency intervals

• Consonants

• Combination of Amplitude
  and Frequency modulations
• - Amplitude continuity/discontinuity, rapid/slow
  sound attack (or decay)
• - Frequency typical shapes

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Consonants Typical frequency shapes

• /a(Consonant)a/ shapes

• Reductions confined to close loci

• Adaptation to the constraints
• (tensed muscles throat and lips)

/kom - jun - k?p/ (recorded near
the whistler)
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Conclusions

• Whistled speech
• Adaptation to both sound propagation and
  language structure
• gt language specific natural telecommunication
  system.
• Whistled Turkish
• - transposes articulatory aspects of
  vowels and consonants
• - reveals a frequency scale of vowels
  (reflection of formant distribution)
• - unravels the recognition of vowels thanks
  to harmony rules
• - highlights classes of close consonants in
  terms of locus
• Underlying processes at play in the spoken
  production/perception
• Good model for perception
• (a) formant distribution, (b) spoken speech in
  low SNR
• (in tone languages contribution of tone and
  intonation to intelligibility)
• Bibliography See
  www.theworldwhistles.org