Solution For June 2002: "The Story Is About A Mechanic."

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Solution for June 2002
"The story is about a mechanic."
Eth + Raising Sign, IPA 131 + 429

[D3], [ð̝ ]
We can debate the extent of this segment until the cows come home, but here's my thinking. The left edge (about 125
msec) suggest a burst. The segment is voiced, and it looks a little like a nasal, in thtitseems to have a little bit of a
resonance at about 1400 Hz and zeroes. But, if you can make them out, there's a little bit a noise in the upper 'poles',
particularly as they move into the following vowel and the resonance of the upper formants (which is discontinuous with
the apparent upper poles). So if you think this is a nasal, hold on to that. It's really a dental affricate, which is typical for
initial Eth.
Schwa, IPA 322

[«], [ə]
Teeny short vowel, especially for an utterance-initial syllable. This suggests a stressless vowel, which suggests reduction.
Following the usual conventions, this is transcribed as Schwa.
Lower-case S, IPA 132

[s], [s]
Fairly typical sibilant, nice dark noisy energy, getting strongest in the highest frequencies. I'm tempted to suggest that you
can tell this is syllable initial (or rather that it forms a syllable-initial cluster with the following stop) because the noise
increases in amplitude until the stop closure. Somebody who works on syllable affiliation and fricatives should tell me
whether that's really true or not, or if it's just that pressure always rises as you approach a following stop. Stay tuned.
Lower-case T, IPA 103

[t], [t]
Stop (ignore the reverberant noise in the upper frequencies), and voiceless. The transitions following the release look a
little velar, in that F3 seems to be rising and F2 seems to be falling (i.e. like they start in a velar-pinch configuration). Note
though that the burst/release thing is a) really loud, b) not at all double-looking, considering its apparent loudness, and c)
not centered in the F2-F3 area (as would be typical of a velar release) but in F3 and F4 (and if you work at it, higher).
Also, the closure itself is a little short (if we're still thinking velar), and the highest visible frequencies of the burst are too
strong. So limited positive evidence either in the velar or bilabial direction, so pick alveolar. Note that this gap is clearly
voiceless, but the stop is not aspirated.
Open O + Rhoticity Sign, IPA 151 + 419

[Õ], [ɔ˞]
This is the backest vowel I've ever produced. Note that the F1 is fairly plainly mid, around 500 Hz. but the F2 is,
depending on where you measure it, just below 1000 Hz. That's just outrageously back and round. The /r/ colo(u)ring (the
lowering of F3, in anticipation of, well, what's coming up next) doesn't start until almost 100 msec in. The result is
spectacular--there's actually a steady state where the F2 and the F3 are flat at the same time. Okay, it occurs very early
(from about 490 to 525 msec), but there it is. Mid, back and round. That's only /o/ for me, but given that it's /r/-coloured, I
suppose open-o is better.
Turned R, IPA 151

[¨], [ɹ]
No steady state, and I like to point out that the F3 minimum, which is the point at which I tend to measure these things, is
not accompanied by any kind of indication that F2 is doing anything in particular, beyond moving from where it was to
where it's going. F3 is nice and low, 1650 or something like that. That ought to be enough.
Lower-case I, IPA 301

[i], [i]
Okay, there are some vowels that don't reduce quite as drastically as others. /o/ and /i/, mostly, although /e/ particularly in
apparent compounds (yesterday, monday, etc.) sometimes pops up this way. Then there's the whole if-it-doesn't-reduce-it-
must-bear-some-stress argument which I don't believe. Anyway, this is an /i/, but reduced. Note the F2 goes way high
(although not as high as it might be). The F1 looks like it stays mid, but that's partly an illusion having to do with the
bandwidth and the underlying harmonics. It doesn't lower much tho. Hence, reduced. The proximity of F2 and F3, while it
might be due to F3 being relatively low at the point the F2 reaches its max, suggests /i/ over /I/. Depending on who you
believe, this could be /I/ underlyingly or even allophonically, but it doesn't sound like an /I/ to me.
Barred I, IPA 317

[ö], [ɨ]
The F3 is moving throughout, suggesting that, while a vowel, this vowel doesn't have a particular F2 target (following
Keating, among others). If redution involves the relaxing or deletion of targets, this is what you would get. Also, given
that this is a sequence of vowels, one of them has to be reduced, if not outright non-syllabic. This is too long to really be
non-syllabic, and it doesn't look much like one of the usual off-glides. So this probably reduced. Following convention,
since the F2 is closer to the F3 than the F1, I've transcribed it barred-i.
Lower-case Z, IPA 133

[z], [z]
What noise there is is in the high frequencies. It's not particularly loud, so you might miss it. But there it is. Nice striations
at the bottom, indicating voicing.
Schwa, IPA 322

[«], [ə]
Short, obviously reduced vowel. Pick one.
Lower-case B, IPA 102

[b], [b]
Nice little stop, fully voiced. The F2 and F3 transitions, such as they are, suggest bilabial, over anything else, although
they're subtle. The release burst (at about 990 msec--the first 'pulse' of the following vowel) is not strong in the high
frequencies or middle frequencies as it would be if it were alveolar or velar. As one would hope. Also, bilabial stops tend
to support voicing in a way that alveolar and velar stops can't (extra points if you can explain why).
Lower-case A + Upsilon, IPA304 + 321

[aU], [aʊ]
This is a diphthong. Trust me. I used to always use Tie Lines with diphthongs, but it's just too much work in Unicode.
Anyway, The F2 goes from something vaguely neutral to something clearly more back. The F1 isn't helpful, in that it's
sort of just inverted-U shaped. But it clearly hits an extremum (maximum, in this case) at about 1075 msec, indicating that
something in here is low. So low vowel, backing diphthong. Review the history of English, and there you go.
Fish-hook R, IPA 124

[R], [ɾ]
Nice little flap. A gap in the spectrogram, but incredibly short. Too short to be a 'real' stop. Nice little flap. Which means
that this is probably a /t/ or /d/.
Schwa, IPA 322

[«], [ə]
Another short little vowel, and given that the previous segment is a flap, this vowel is unlikely to be stressed. Get on with
your life.
Lower-case M, IPA 114

[m], [m]
Now this is a nasal. Fully voiced. Nice little zero. Actually more than one. Without any other nasals in this spectrogram to
compare it to, you'd have to know my voice pretty well to see that the pole (F2) is just a little low (for my nasals). Which
is typical of my /m/s.
Barred I, IPA 317

[ö], [ɨ]
Lots of unstressed vowels in this spectrogram, but that's why it can be long and still readable. See above.
Lower-case K + Right Superscript H, IPA 106 + 404

[kH], [kʰ]
Following strict IPA conventions, aspiration is a diacritic mark on a (stop) segment. UCLABET, following ARPABET and
a few others, suggest marking closure phases indpendently from release (plus aspiration) phases, which would make
segmenting easier, but whatever. There's frontish vowels on both sides, so this is fronted (i.e. front velar), so the pinch,
such as it is, is high rather than mid-frequency. Note that the burst is double, and centered around the F2/F3 (high) pinch
area. Dead giveaway for velar. Voiceless during the closure, and strongly aspirated, with loooong aspiration duration.
Velars like long aspirations. Extra points for explaining why.
Ash, IPA 325

[Q], [æ]
An incredibly high F1, indicating frankly the lowest vowel I think I've ever produced. The F2 looks like it's moving
throughout, and it looks pretty neutral. But for most of it, it's just a hair high. So vaguely front, and very low. This is
English, and this is me. Must be Ash.
Fish-hook R + Tilde, IPA 124 + 424

[R)], [ɾ̃]
Nasalized flap. I love this. How the heck are you supposed to know? Well, there's this very short thing. If it weren't so
short, it would look like a nasal. Hence nasal flap.
Barred I, IPA 317

[ö], [ɨ]
Okay, this really looks like an /I/. If you want it to be an /I/, fine. But this vowel turns out to be radically unstressed, so
I've transcribed it with a barred-i. Argue with me if you want to.
Lower-case K + Right Superscript H, IPA 106 + 404

[kH], [kʰ]
This is a nice example of a stop with velar pinch on either side. Released, definitely. Aspirated, let's argue about it.
Support Free Speech
Robert Hagiwara, Ph.D.
Linguistics Department
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
]
Solution for May 2002
"It comes in a huge bottle."

To properly view the phonetic symbols in the text below, you must have installed either SILDoulos IPA93 or Lucida Sans
Unicode. In the description that follows, the first line gives the name of the symbol (from Pullum & Ladusaw, 1996)
followed by the IPA reference number for the symbol named. The second line provides the symbol as a typed symbol in
SILDoulos IPA93, followed by the same symbol as a Lucida Sans Unicode symbol. One or the other of these may not
appear as the appropriate symbol, depending on which font(s) you have installed.
Small Capital I, IPA 319

[I], [ɪ]
This may start with a glottal stop, but I just couldn't cope with trying to explain why or why not, so we're starting with the
vowel. The F1 is low, The F2 is quite high (1900? 1950? Hz). If you look a little further down in the spectrogram
(between 900 and 1100 msec) you'll see the F2 getting higher still, suggesting that this isn't the most front vowel
available. What's incredibly front but not as front as /i/?
Lower-case T, IPA 103

[t], [t]
There's not much in the way of useful transition information. But in the absence of any indication of velar pinch, and any
indication of labial transitions, alveolar is the best guess. Note the apparent double burst, possibly triple (quadruple?),
depending on what you count as what. I think the first might be the actual alveolar closure, the second the alveolar release,
and the third (when the aspiration starts), the release of the following stop. See below.
Lower-case K + Right Superscript H*, IPA 109 + 404

[kH], [kʰ]
*Technically,P&L don't name the right-superscript letter diacritics for aspiration, palatalization and so forth. This should probably be called 'Right
Superscript Lower-case H', and I'd really prefer 'aspiration mark', but it's not always up to me.
There's not a lot of information here either. The lag between the big burst at about 250 msec and the beginning of the
aspiration at 300 msec or so is a little long for your typical double-burst situation. And I think there might be a true second
burst (of a velar release) about 20 msec after the aspiration begins (there's certainly something odd about the noise
between 500 and 1700 Hz just surrounding the 300 msec mark). But there is some evidence of velar pinch in the
transitions into and through the following vowel. The F3 is weak and difficult to distinguish, but there is some indication
that both F3 and F2 (for instance in the following vowel are pointing to about 1500 Hz in the release burst/early aspiration
moments, where the noise is definitely concentrated around 1500 Hz. This is the middle of the F2 range, and noise
centered here is typical of dorso-velar type approximations (hence velar pinch). Definitely voiceless and aspirated at least.
Turned V, IPA 314

[Ã], [ʌ]
If you transcribed this as Script A (IPA 305, SIL [A], LSU [ɑ]), you'd be justified. This has the high F1/Low F2/straddling
1000 Hz configuration of that vowel. But comparing it to the similar vowel later (1400 - 1600 msec), it's not quite as high
an F1, not quite as low an F2, and it's quite short. Could be prosodic, although the amplitude is a little high and the pitch
periods a little close together. Could be random, no two vowels are ever the same. But it might be the vowel it turns out to
be. The official description of Turned V in the IPA is as a back, unround vowel, which is true of this vowel. But so often
this vowel is central, it should probably be transcribed with another symbol. Especially in my California data, where this
vowel is clearly more fronter-than-central. But in this token, it's quite back.
Lower-case M, IPA 114

[m], [m]
The abrupt change in amplitude indicates something is going on, This isn't a prototypical nasal--there's no clear zero,
there's energy in the higher frequencies. But this doesn't have the structure of any of the usual approximants either. No
swooping transitions into it or out of it. So this is probably nasal. If you know my voice, you could probably guess
bilabial, especially given the transitions into it, but knowing it's nasal is probably enough for now.

[z], [z]
Just vaguely voiced (I can convince myself there are some striations at the bottom, although this might not be obvious on
the web. Definitely fricative, spanning the spectrum. But the noise gets slightly stronger as you go up in frequency,
suggesting /s/ noise. So [z].
Barred I, IPA 317

[ö], [ɨ]
Very short vowel, so probably reduced. Usually transcribe reduced vowels as schwa, since they don't carry enough
information to make it worth doing more. Following Keating et al. (1994), if the F2 is closer to the F3 than the F1, I use
barred I rather than schwa.
Lower-case N, IPA 116

[n], [n]
Another nasal, again without swooping transitions or a clear zero. On the other hand, this one is definitely different from
the preceding one, and the pole, such as it is, is higher, closer to 1500. This is typical of my nasal pole in /n/. Notice here
the other argument that this isn't an approximant--the transitions are not really continuous with the spectral pattern in the
closure.
Barred I, IPA 317

[ö], [ɨ]
See above. But notice this one is transitioning in F2.
C Cedilla, IPA 138

[C], [ç]
Ah, controversy. All those who transcribed this [s], raise your hand. Esh? [h]? Okay good. This is the famous example of
a true palatal (as opposed to post-alveolar/palatoalveolar) fricative. But, you cry, English doesn't have a palatal fricative.
Well, yes it does. This is an /h/. /h/ is voiceless (usually) with glottal or epiglottal noise. This is source and it resonates
through the vocal tract the way voiced source does. The result is formants, excited by noise. Here, it's combined with a /j/
supralaryngeal articulation, owing to this word being what it is. So imagine a palatal approximant [j], and now make it
voiceless. But, you cry, the IPA doesn't have a voiceless palatal approximant symbol, it has a diacritic. True. But this isn't
approximant. It's a fricative. Look at it. Now, this /h/ isn't absolutely voiceless. There's (all right, there are a lot of
striations here. So I probably should have used the voiced palatal fricative symbol here, but no one would have recognized
it. So I didn't. But it is. And for those of you who care, it looks like this: SIL [ï], [ɟ].
Lower-case J, IPA 153

[j], [ɨ]
There's just enough here that is clearly voiced and not fricative to transcribe, so that's what I've done. Also, leaving it out
would just be confusing given my voice of vowel following.
Turned M, IPA 316

[µ], [ɯ]
The F2 indicates this vowel is back, but it never quite gets as far back and round (i.e. low F2) as a good back, round [u].
In my dialect this vowel (/u/) is almost never round, and never fully round, or if it is round, it's definitely never full back.
So I've transcribed it as unround and back, because that's what it seems to be. Central and round is another choice, but
given that it's me, and I know my rounding/backing situation pretty well, I pick the other one. BTW,this sounds that
people transcribe conventionally/phonologically rather than phonetically. This is the famous /ju/, which has its origins as a
reflex OE or ME /y/ (front and round), which 'decomposes' to /ju/ in those "new/few/due" words that Wells (1984) lumps
into the GOOSE set. Compare this with a /du/ sequence sometime. You may learn something.
Lower-case D, IPA 104

[d], [d]
This one is going to get confusing, because this is the stop portion of an affricate. But I couldn't talk about them as a unit
without making it more confusing. So here goes. This is a gap. The F2 rises into it, and the F3 doesn't really fall. So this is
probably alveolar. It's got a fair amount of (mostly perseverative) voicing, so I'd transcribe it as voiced. If it were
underlying voiceless, it might still have some perseverative voicing, but not that much. So it's probably underlyingly
voiced. Keep that in mind and move on to the fricative.
Esh, IPA 134

[S], [ʃ]
Fricative, quite strong for its duration, broad band, but this time not strongest in the higher frequencies. Concnetranted in
the range of F2 and falling off sharply in the low frequencies. Pretty typical of Esh. And it's completely voiceless. But,
you cry, how can you have a d-esh cluster, especially followed by another stop. Well, you can. But underlyingly, this is a
d-yogh affricate, i.e. a <j> in English. Actually a 'soft' <g>. Moving on quickly.
Lower-case P, IPA 101

[p], [p]
Long gap here, indicating a stop. The noise is drifting down in the preceding fricative, and the transitions, sort of, are
rising in the following vowel, indicating labiality. Totally voiceless throughout, but with very (very, very) short VOT. So
this is voiceless, unaspirated [p], which I have transcribed accordingly. So, given that it's English, it's /b/.
Fish-hook R, IPA 124

[S], [ɾ]
Very short, and actually this one is laterally released, but I'm not sure how you'd tell that from the spectrogram. Teeny
short things like this are best transcribed as a flap and forgotten before your brain explodes.
Lower-case L + Mid Tilde + Syllabicity Mark, IPA 155 + 428 + 431

[lò`], [l̴̩]
The F3 rises sharply before dying off completely, suggesting a high F3. F3 is difinitely up out of normal range. F2 is
definitely very low. It would be easy to just say this was more Script A, but the upper formants do not permit this
interpretation. The high F3/F4 indicates lateral. I'll leave it to someone else to describe why. If it were /r/ the F3 would be
low. If it were /w/ the F2 would be lower. If it were any other vowel, the F3 and F4 wouldn't be the way they are.
Support Free Speech
Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
Note: Okay, this month, we're kissing my GIFs goodbye. Nobody likes them, and as long as a) browsers standardly support client-side
fonts and Unicode, and b) the relevant client-side fonts are free, I'm not going to miss them. SIL Doulos also is having trouble in some
browsers (or vice versa) with character spacing and overstrikes, so Unicode seems to be pulling into the lead. So this month it's Pullum
& Ladusaw labels, IPA identifiers, SIL Doulos, Lucida Sans Unicode. You can download Lucida Sans Unicode from John Wells, and
you can download the SIL font(s) from SIL.
Solution for April 2002
"Curling season is over."
Lower-case K + Superscript Lower-case H, IPA 109 + 404

[kH], [kʰ]
The double burst at about 200 msec is a dead giveaway. The burst tells you that there was definitely a stop closure, as opposed to a
weak fricative or more open articulation. The burst is doubled, characteristic of /k/ in English. The aspiration is very very long, again
characteristic of velars. The usual velar cue (velar pinch) is not in obvious evidence here, but then the following vowel pretty much
makes that pretty impossible. But note that the double burst is centered in the F2/F3 range of the following vowel, i.e. there's a velar-
pinch-shaped filter here. Voiceless, velar, aspirated.
Turned R + Syllabicity Mark, IPA 151 + 431

[¨`], [ɹ̩]
F1 appears to be quite low, F2 is at about 1250 Hz and F3 is about 1600 Hz. Low F3, therefore /r/ (in [{North}American] English).
Long and high-amplitude (and fully sonorant/resonant), and therefore a local vowel/syllable head.
Lower-case L + Superimposed Tilde, IPA 155 + 428

[lò], [l̴]
F2 dips sharply here (around 435-450 msec), as does the amplitude. F3 rises out of the R, hitting a peak toward the end of this stretch
or in the beginning of the following vowel. Very low F2 means very back or very round. The F2 transition in the following vowel looks
suspiciously /w/ like, but that's the nature of velarization in dark /l/. You'll know it's a dark l and not a /w/ or something by context more
than anything else. I suppose the F1 is weird for a /w/, but you couldn't prove that by me. Mark something going on here and then go
on. (Unless you're Canadian, in which case /l/ might be the only logical choice for this word....)

[i], [i]
Well, this turns out to be a stressless vowel, so we might expect it to look like a schwa. Frankly, I didn't think I did this, but there it is.
In California, we gave a test where one of the questions was to identify the minimal pair, and two of the choices were 'king, keen' and
'keen, kin'. And the native Californian students *all* chose 'king, keen', because in Californian English high front vowels go all tense
before the velar nasal. "We went hikeeeng and canoeeeeeng." So just look at that F2 and tell me this isn't the frontest vowel you've ever
seen. (The transition heads up higher than some of the non-/r/ F3s in this spectrogram). So how you can transcribe this vowel as
anything but [i] is beyond me. So I did.
Eng, IPA 119

[N], [ŋ]
The F2 and F3 have practically merged, suggesting pinch and velar-ness. The strong nasal formant (high as it is) obviously suggest
nasal.
Lower-case S, IPA 132

[z], [s], [s]
There's some stray formant organization which might mislead some, but ignoring the F2-looking shaping, this is pretty standard
sibilant. High amplitude (for a fricative), cent(e)red in the very high frequencies. Voiceless, sibilant, and alveolar (due to the high
frequency cent(e)r(e). (I really have to just switch to Canadian spelling or not.)

[i], [i]
Low F1, super high F2. Must be /i/.

[z], [z]
Same spectral profile as the preceding fricative, but this one is shorter, slightly weaker, and voiced. Typical of /z/ with respect to /s/.
Schwa, IPA 322

[«], [ə]
This schwa is pretty classic. Evenly spaced formants, at approximately 500, 1500, 2500 Hz. Well sort of approximately. Close enough.
Lower-case N, IPA 116

[n], [n]
You know something is going on here because there's clearly an amplitude drop from about 930 msec to 990 msec. The amplitude drop
suggests a) a consonant and b) a nasal zero. So this is probably a nasal, although sometimes /l/s look like this, except in English they'd
be dark/velarized and the F2 would definitely be lower. This one looks like a schwa, only a consonant. Okay, so this is nasal. If you are
familiar with my nasals, this looks alveolar, but whatever.
Barred I, IPA 317

[ö], [ɨ]
Well, this one looks just like the thing I called schwa before, except the F2 is a little higher. Following Keating et al. (1994)), if it's a
reduced or stressless vowel, and the F2 is closer to the F3 than the F1, call it a barred i and go on.

[z], [z]
This one is even shorter and weaker than the previous one, but the features are the same.
Glottal Stop, IPA 113

[?], [ʔ]
Actually,this is creaky voice, but you can't mark a stretch of creaky voice as creaky voiced without marking it as some kind of vowel or
something too. And I didn't want to do that. So this is 'creaky voice as glottal stop'. Irregular, widely spaced glottal pulses. Could be
taken as a series of transient bursts or something, but you can see the resonance/echoey sound in the formants in between each pulse.
Lower-case O, IPA 307

[o], [o]
This looks amazingly monophthongal for me. The F1 is mid-to-low. The F2 is as low as my F2s really ever get. So mid-to-high, very
back and round.
Lower-case V, IPA 129

[v], [v]
This is definitely fricative. The fricative noise here is quite definitely there, which is unusually, especially since it looks like this one is
at least partially voiced. The F3 transitions down into it, but that could just be the F3 starting down for the following /r/. The F2
actually has vaguely labial-looking transitions, sort of. Definitely not alveolar or velar looking. So not coronal, not dorsal, and fricative
and voiced. /v/ is really the only choice.
Turned R + Syllabicity Mark, IPA 151 + 431

[¨`], [ɹ̩]
Well, this is pretty clearly an /r/ for the usual reasons. Given the preceding consonant (not to mention the incredible length due in part
to phrase-finality), this must be syllabic.
Robert Hagiwara, Ph.D. Support Free Speech
Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for March 2002
"There was no mystery at all."
Eth + Raising Sign, IPA 131 + 429

[ ], [D], [ð̝ ]
There's some voicing here, so something is up. It looks a lot like a stop, clearly voiced and with a very short VOT. But underlying voiced
stops are usually voiceless initially, and you don't get much more initial than initial in utterance. (Well, you can, but there's very little
work on the segmental stuff of higher than utterance prosodic constituents.) The F2 and F3 transitions following start high, suggesting
alveolar, or at least coronal. Could be a /d/, but will turn out not to be once you get the whole utterance together. What's the thing that's
most likely to forticize to [d]? And then mark it raised. Moving on.
Epsilon + Rhoticity Sign, IPA 303 + 327

[ ] (no diac.), [EÕ], [ɛ˞]
I really go back and forth on those rhoticity signs. But here we go. Middish vowel, actually might be a trifle high for no apparent reason
(check the F1). Starts quite front, which narrows down the possibilities. The diving F3 (hence the rhoticity sign on the vowel) is clearly
heading toward an /r/. Following general convention, I picked the 'lax' version of a mid-front vowel, with r-colo(u)ring.
Turned R, IPA 151

[ ], [¨], [ɹ]
F3 very low, in this case prototypically below 2000 Hz, although not nearly as low as it might be. Please note, all of you lip-rounding
fanatics, that the following segment has an incredibly low F2, suggesting [w] more than anything else, and the F3 actually rises across it.
I never want to hear another complaint about lip-rounding actually lowering F3. It doesn't. At least not enough to matter.
Lower Case W, IPA 170

[w], [w], [w]
There isn't much information here, since all the energy above about 900 Hz dies. But note the transitions into and out of this stretch
(centered around 300 msec) tell us that the F1 is very very low, as is the F2. Must be very very high, and very very back/round. Note also
that if you interpolate or extrapolate or whatever the course of the F3, the extreme rounding/backing going on here has *no* useful effect
on F3. None. Zip. Zero. See above.
Turned V, IPA 314

[ ], [Ã], [ʌ]
Ignoring the transitions from the preceding /w/, we've got a mid-to-low, moderately back or round vowel. There's only so many vowels
back there, and I, being from the Western US have fewer than most. I must say, I would have transcribed this with a Script A, IPA 305,
except I know what the word was. Actually, when I'm speaking in my fake professional voice, this vowel is very Script-A-ish. Somebody
remind me to listen to this again.
Lower Case Z, IPA 133

[z], [z], [z]
Nice high frequency noise, but clearly voiced (note the striations at the bottom). Clearly sibilant, and alveolar to boot (due to the noise),
and voiced. Onward.
Lower Case N, IPA 116

[n], [n], [n]
Well voiced, certainly. Sonorant probably. Apparent zeroes in between the resonances, suggesting not only weakness but actual zeroes.
Hence probably nasal. Hard to tell what place, since the following transitions are, um, unhelpful, to say the least. Mark it as "N" and go
on.
Lower Case O, Top Ligature, Upsilon, IPA 307 + 433 + 321

[ou] (no diac.), [oƒU], [oʊ] (no diac.)
Middish vowel, going from not particularly back to quite round. Get out your IPA vowel chart, and work it out for yourself. (I'm in a
hurry this month, okay?)
Lower Case M, IPA 114

[m], [m], [m]
Another sonorant. Less obviously zeroed than the previous one, which might mislead you, except the edges are *really* sharp and clean,
which you just don't get with your average oral sonorant. The resonances are different than the preceding one, so it has to be at a
different place, and if you're really imaginative you can see that the second resonance in the previous one is at about 1500 and the
resonance in this one is definitely closer to 1000 Hz. Hence, of the two, this one must have the longer side cavity, i.e. the oral closure is
further forward.
Small Capital I, IPA 319

[I], [I], [ɪ]
Low F1, therefore high. Rather high F2 (though not as high as for /i/), so mostly front. Only so many choices in English, folks.
Lower Case S, IPA 132

[s], [s], [s]
This one is obviously voiceless (unless you are misled by the sound of my refrigerator in the background of this whole thing). And the
noise is centered very high and mostly unfiltered at lower frequencies. If you don't recognize this as /s/, you need to go back and practice
some more.
Lower Case T + Right Superscript H, IPA 103 +404

[t ], [tH], [tʰ]
In keeping with official IPA position, I'm trying to make sure I transcribe this as a unit, even if I really only segment off the closure
portion. There's a very very very short closure portion, unless you think it isn't closed, in which case there isn't. Following a fricative,
there's probably enough airflow that it doesn't take much time to build up any pressure behind it, hence it can be short and yet have a
sharp burst and high-volume aspiration. Little useful transitional information, so default to alveolar, especially given the short duration.
Please also notice the shape of the aspiration noise. There's this pattern where /tr/ gets rendered with something like a retroflex affricated
release. That's not what's going on here. Here, the noise is just being pulled down and post-alveolarized by the bunching of the tongue.
but you can see how it might be confused with an T-ESH affricate.
Turned R, IPA 151

[ ], [¨], [ɹ]
The very high F2 (required by the following vowel) is pushing the F3 up out of the usual range. But this is typical. Just cuz the F3 isn't
below 2000 Hz doesn't mean it isn't an /r/, any more than a random F3 just below 2000 Hz must be an /r/. Just ain't so. But you can still
tell this is an /r/ because the F3 is low (locally), and in fact about as low as it can get without having to push the F2 out of the way (which
it would do, if there weren't another competing demand on the F2. Hence my belief that the F2 and F3 or /r/ are probably perturbations to
the second and third resonance of the main tube, rather than side-cavity resonances. But proper acousticians disagree.
Lower Case I, IPA 301

[i], [i], [i]
Very low F1, very, very high F2. Must be [i]. Explain.
Glottal Stop, IPA 113

[ ], [?], [ʔ]
This is the stoppiest glottal stop I've ever produced. Note the weird voicing quality in the /i/, and the last couple of pulses which are just a
little off. If you thought it was an oral stop, look at that 'release'. No transient, the high-amplitude spots of the first pulse/release thing is
pretty evenly distributed across the frequency range below 4000 Hz, and exactly contiguous with the formants following. No transitions
in the first few 'pulses'. If there were anything oral going on, you'd expect *something*. So this is glottal.
ASH, IPA 325
[ ], [Q], [æ]
Nice high F1, meaning a low vowel. Not particularly Front, but not particular back either. Lowest not-obviously-back vowel available is
/ae/.
Fish-Hook R, IPA 124

[ ], [R], [ɾ]
Classic flap. Briefest of interruptions to the sonorance and pulsing of the surrounding vowels. SLight bursty transition thing, but that
shouldn't trouble you too much.
Script A IPA 305

[ ], [A], [ɑ]
Very high F1, so very low vowel. Very very low F2, so as back as it gets, given the height of the F1. Low back vowel. Not many choices
for me.
Lower Case L + Superimposed Tilde, IPA 209 (155 + 428)

[l] (no diac.), [lò], [ɫ (l̴)]
On the other hand, what the heck is going on here? This looks like weird, phrase-ending-voice-quality variant of the preceding vowel,
but how many words end with [ ] (or if you're SIL Doulosing or Unicoding, [A], [ɑ]). Well, lots actually, but notice that there's a
moment, at about 1775 msec where there's an abrupt change in amplitude, or otherwise some kind of transient moment. So something
changed at that moment. So how many consonants could it be? Must be quite back, may not be high, but definitely involves some kind
of oral closure. Well, this one is tough, but once you consider /l/, you're home.
Note: I hate coding my GIFs for IPA characters, and I've been looking for alternatives. This month, as an experiment, I'm
coding my IPA GIFs into the text as always, but also coding in FONT FACE calls to the SIL Doulos 93 fonts, which are
downloadable for free from http://www.sil.org/computing/fonts/encore-ipa.html. For this to work, you must have the SIL
fonts installed on your machine. For good measure, I'm also putting in symbol names from Pullum and Ladusaw (1996)
(the 2nd edition of Phonetic Symbol Guide. Please let me know what works and what doesn't, especially if you have old
versions of Internet Explorer, any version of Netscape or any other browser, or if you're working on any kind of Mac or
Linux machine. Merci.
Solution for February 2002
"Racoons don't hibernate."
[ ], [¨], TURNED R
Here's the thing about approximants--they're articulated similarly to vowels, but they behave like consonants in a string.
So this is obviously sonorant and voiced, having formants (resonances) and striations. Note the transistions in the
following vowel, which show you that the F3 in the voew is continuous with the very very low F3 in the consonant. The
low F1 doesn't tell you much, the extremely low F2 might tel you back and round, but that F3 in the middle-F2 range is a
dead give-away for approximant /r/ in American English. (I respectfully remind you all that even though I'm in Canada
now, my dialect is definitely US, and western US at that.)
[ ], [Q], ASH
(I prefer 'AE LIGATURE' to 'ASH', but who am I to argue with Pullum and Ladusaw?) (Does anybody remember what a
runic AESC actually looks like?) Okay, The F1 in this latter part of this vowel (the steadier part, relatively unaffected by
the transition from the preceding sound) is highish, suggesting a lowish vowel. The F2 is sort of ambivalent, and the F3 is
a little low. So we're looking at a mid-to-low vowel, of a non-back variety. For me, that can only be [ ]- [Q]-ASH, or [
], [E], EPSILON. It'll turn out to be one or the other.
[k], [k], LOWER-CASE K

This is mushy, being vaguely fricative througout. I'm wondering if I'm developing neuromotor problem. Anyway, if one
assumes this isn't a fricative (it would have to be /h/, although it's probably closer to a [x], but that's not a useful guess in
English), one would have to note the sudden dip in F3 in the last bit of the preceding vowel (F3 hits its high point around
200 msec in and before you get to 250 it drops again), and the relative stability of F2 (at least it doesn't drop obviously),
suggesting a velar pinch. If this were alveolar, there would be no explanation for the dropping F3, and if it were labial
we'd expect F2 and F1 to drop a little more. Once the idea of [k] comes to mind, we cna find other evidence that might
support that--the 'burst' if that's what you want to call it might be double. It's definitely centered around the mid-F2 to F3
range, as is the following aspiration. This all suggests [k], if weakly.
[ ], [H], RIGHT SUPERSCRIPT H

(Pullum and Ladusaw don't name this symbol explicitly. Under [h] LOWER-CASE H, they mention "Used as a right
superscript, it is the official IPA diacritic for aspirated sounds." (p. 72). They are of course correct. However, since the
acoustic cue for aspiration is distinct both from the closed phase of a stop, and for that matter the transient release of a
stop, I always segment aspiration separately. This is something I should resolve, one way or another.) Aspiration.
relatively low amplitude (usually) noise, following (usually) the release of a stop consonant before the onset of voicing.
That's what we've got here.
[u], [u], LOWER-CASE U

Low F1, high vowel. Low F2, round vowel. This is frankly as low an F2 as I've ever produced for this vowel. I wonder
what I was doing that day.
[n], [n], LOWER-CASE N

The only evidence that there's something going on here is the sudden change int he 'quality' of F1. At about 525 msec,
something happens to the F1. Also the harmonics seem to flatten out (that's that slanty stuff going on in the preceding
vowel), and the evidence of a nasal zero/antiformant creeps in. Not a lot to go on, but hypothesizing a nasal moment or
something in here helps explain the change from the first half to the second half of this stretch of voiced stuff. Maybe it's
just nasality, and there isn't a lot in the way of nasal stop here. But whatever.
[z], [z], LOWER-CASE Z

(Where I come from, this letter is called "ZEE", but in Canada and elsewhere, it's called "ZED". "ZED" is the older form,
but it's the only letter name that has both a consonantal onset and a closing consonant. Think about it. "EFF" "EM" "BEE"
"KAY" "AITCH". "ZED"? Pfft.) Weak frication, would have been easy to miss. But it's there, and it's very high. Alveolar
sibiliants have very high frequency energy--the loudest noise is centered around 6-8kHz or even higher. When I was
transcribing the image, I though this was voiced, but it sure doesn't look that way. Technically, probably a devoiced [z] or
a weakly fricated [s].
[d], [d], LOWER-CASE D

This is very short for a full-fledged stop. I might have transcribed it as a flap ([ ], [R], FISH-HOOK R, but it has a fairly
strong release. Again technically voiceless. I don't know what I was thinking. Well, I do, but I should have been thinking
about actual cues, not phonemics of English.. Note the highish transitions into the following vowel, suggesting high 'loci'
for F2 and F3, suggesting alveolar. Also the short VOT is filled with high-frequency (alveolar-looking) noise.
[ou], [oƒU], LOWER-CASE O, TOP LIGATURE (TIE LINE), SMALL CAPITAL U

(One of the advantages of using the SIL fonts is the full suite of diacritics, which are messy to do by hand. on the other
hand, naming the resulting symbol(s) in words gets to be a mouthful.) The vowel here is clearly dynamic. There are some
clues to work with, though. The F1 has an extremum (a moment of maximum displacement in one direction or another)
just before 800 msec, and the F2 has an extremum just after 800 msec. This suggest to me that there are two targets, or
something like that, in this stretch of vowel. The earlier one is middish and sort of back, the second one is higher than
middish and very back/round. Search through your lexicon of English vowels, and you'll come up with something that is a
reflex of /o/.

Okay I admit it. I'm definitely cheating here. I believe that There is another 'moment' in this stretch ov vowe,k, where F3
gets fuzzy and changes frequency. That's the only thing to motivate a nasal here. Mea culpa.
[t], [t], LOWER-CASE T

Again, this could be a flap, except for the fairly clear burst. Or it might have been glottalized/unreleased, except for that
damn burst. Don't believe anything they tell you in baby phonetics, cuz it won't be true when you look at it on a
spectrogram.
[h], [h], LOWER-CASE H
This is very strong for an /h/ noise. It looks a little like a weak [ ], [S], ESH, but then I'd expect both the high
frequencies to be less loud (dark) and the frequencies below 1200 Hz or so to be absent. I cna convince myself that the
energy here has some formant structure, which would be more characteristic of /h/. On the other hand, having decided it's
an /h/, it may be particularly loud, long, and distinct from the following vowel due to its initialness in a) a stressed
syllable, b) a word, and c) a verb phrase. Fortition, don't you know. This is something I'm going to look at over the next
few years, using a small corpus I hope to collect over the summer.
[ai], [aƒI], LOWER-CASE A, TOP LIGATURE, SMALL CAPITAL I

This is quite short for this diphthong, but the F1 clearly goes from high to low (moves from a low vowel to a high one),
and the F2 clearly rises (moving from backer to fronter, although it's moderately front even at the beginning). Again,
searching for the possible diphthongs for my English, /ai/ is the best bet.
[b], [b], LOWER-CASE B

Please noteice that at the end of the preceding vowel, in the 10 msec or so approaching 1100, the F2 takes a sharp dive.
The F3 also lowers quite a bit, though neither as sharply or dramatically as F2. Anyway. the low 'loci' of these transitions
suggest (bi)labial. This one really is voiced, thank heaven.
[ ], [¨`], TURNED R, SYLLABICITY MARK

Even though this is moving, it definitely is /r/ like throughout, owing to the F3 being low. At the begninning of this vowel,
the F3 is more or less at the same frequency as the /r/ earlier in the utterance. Note the difference in F2 frequency--some
people require F2 and F3 to be close together. I don't know how they explain the othero ne. I think the F3 is low, and then
as the F2 moves between its onset (bilabially-locused) transition to its higher offset (alveolarly-locussed) transition, it
pushes the F3 out of the way. How people for whom the F3 is a side-cavity pole and not a perturbation of the main-cavity
F3 explain this, I don't know. It must have something to do with the coupling, but why it should work this way I'm not
sure. Anyway, this is a syllabic /r/, and the fact that it isn't flat' is explainable by the competing needs of the surrounding
consonants.

There's definitely a nasal here. It's voiced, and sonorant/resonant, but it definitely has lower energy than a vowel, and it
even has a zero. Sinc there's not a lot to compare it to, it's hard to identify its place features, so just mark it as a Nasal and
go on.
[ei], [eƒI], LOWER-CASE E, TOP LIGATURE, SMALL CAPITAL I

I convinced myself that the F1 moves between mid to low (i.e. vowel moves mid to high), but looking at the spectrogram
now, I'm less sure. The badnwidht certainly changes, but so does the voice quality, which might be what's going on. The
F2 starts highish and moves higher, suggesting front-to-fronter in vowels. How many vowels can you think of that
routinely move front-to-fronter? There you go.
[t ], [tH], SMALL CAPITAL T, RIGHT SUPERSCRIPT H

Not a lot in the way of clues, except the aspiration looks like it follows an aveolar, for the reasons suggested earlier.
Solution for November 2006
"Most require careful management."
Woo, a rough one. Very. Things will get easier in January. Probably.
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
From about 50-150 msec there's strong voicing, a weak, flat formant at 1200 Hz, another around 2600 Hz and one higher
than that too, but nothing in between. So something with that kind of weak resonance/zero structure, and flat, has to
be some kind of a nasal. The pole at 1200 is lower than I'd usually get for an alveolar, though a big higher than I'd
normally get for a bilabial. But the transition in the following vowel is in no way alveolar-looking, so there you go.
Probably in initial position my tongue wasn't as low as it might have been, effectively shortening the side cavity. Think
about it.
Lower-case O
[n], IPA 307
F1 at about 500 Hz, F2 just above 1000 Hz. Don't ask me why the F3 is high. But something that's got a mid-vowel F1, a
back/round vowel F2. And basially flat, rather than obviously diphthongized.
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Not the strongest I've seen, but whatever. Probably the effect of the syllabic psoition (coda, but not final). A single
broad band of noise, centered fairly high, and without a sharp drop off in the low frequencies. Don't be distracted by
the weak perseverative voicing.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Short gap, followed by [s]-shaped release noise (pulled down a bit in frequency by coarticulation with the following
sound). So alveolar [t] has [s]-shaped release noise. Discuss.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
Hard to tell, but that's F3 just above teh F2. That thing up around 3000 Hz is just too high to be F3. So the F2 starts about
1100 Hz and rises, and F3 starts around 1400 Hz and rises. F3's that low can only be rhotic.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
On the other hand, this short vowel is too short to worry about. To the degree that it's not just 'more' /r/, I had to
transcribe it as something, and following the F2-closer-to-F3 rule from Keating et al (1994), I chosed barred-i, although
with an F3 that low it can't help be close to the F2. I didn't use a rhoticity hook on it, since that mostly implies a
following /r/ (although there's no reason why it should). Moving on.
Lower-case K + Right Superscript H

[kʰ], IPA 109 + 404
So we have a short, but fairly solid, gap between 500 and 600 msec, with a release that heavy in the low frequencies.
Very suspicious. Usually indicative of a labial release. But the F2 transition in the following vowel may be throwing off
that judg(e)ment. As is the estimation of the transitions. If you look just at th transitions into the following voicing,
they look like they're rising, which again suggest bilabial. But that's almost 100 msec after the release, so anything
could be happening in the VOT. So the only clue that this is anything except a bilabial is the relative mushiness of the
release--not nice and sharp like a typical alveolar. Labials are usually fairly sharp. I'm choosing to believe that the little
blip just below 4000 Hz just after the main bit of release noise around 3750 Hz is evidence of a double burst. Of course, if
I knew this was bilabial, I'd choose to ignore it. This is not an exercise in the scientific method so much as hindsight
being 20/20. Don't confuse the two. Please. I couldn't live with myself as a scientist.
Lower Case W
[w], IPA 170
The thing about a [w] is that it's all transition. The noise that is visilbe in the low frequencies during the VOT is
supported by F1 and F2, which you can see rise sharply once the voicing kicks in. Note the 'straight' F2 transition,
typical of English (onset) [w]. Also note the F3 starts a little low, but by no means as low as an [r].
Lower-case A + Small Capital I

[aɪ], IPA 304 + 319
So abstracting away from the [w], there's nor eason for the F1 to rise to 750 or 800 Hz unless it's got some kind of target
independent of the relatively flat F1 in the midrange later. So there has to be something lowish here, something
compatible with the low F2 (or something odd would be happening to the F2 as well. So we're looking for something
lowish and back. Then the F1 drops, so something is moving slightly higher, but critically the F2 is zooming to a
maximum of aboutg 1800 Hz. Again, there's no reason of that to happen unless it's heading somewhere specific. It may
or not make it, since the F3 starts coming down and knocks it out of the way, basically. So what we have here is a
sequence of a lowish, backish vowel followed by a very front vowel followed by something with a low F3. But I'm getting
ahead of myself.
Turned R + Syllabicity Mark

[ɹ]̩ , IPA 151 + 431
So I've mentioned the F3. In my head, this is syllabic, but I don't know why. I used to think I always had syllabic
approximants following 'falling' diphthongs, as in 'file' and 'fire'. But 'hire', 'higher' and critically 'choir' "feel"
monosyllabic to me. "Require" "re-choir". Dunno now. Hmm.

[kʰ], IPA 109 + 404
Now this is a [k]. The pinchiness is a little off, since it may be that the F2 and F3 seem to be rising out of the /r/. But
there's a nice double burst, the burst noise is centered in the fronted F2/F3 region. Dunno what's going on in the low
frequencies. I think I'm just too close to the microphone, since something weird is happening to my input these days.
The noise here looks a little sibilant, but the burst noise is just wrong for an alveolar.
Epsilon
[ɛ], IPA 303
Well, the F3 is definitely low, but in my head there's a separate vowel here. Maybe these should be transcribed as
diphthongs. But anyway, the F1 is middish, the F2 is very slightly front. ANd there's an /r/ coming up, so there's a
neutralization here anyway.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
Well, there it is.
Lower-case F
[f], IPA 128
Very slight frication, fairly broad band, unshaped by any resonances, and strongest, at least at the beginning, in the
very low frequencies. No way this can be sibilant. The F2/F3 transitions are consistent with a labial, but that could just
be the [r]. So if this turned out to be an interdental, I wouldn't be particularly surprised, although phonotactically it
would be odd.
Tilde L (Dark L) + Syllabicity Mark

[ɫ],̩ IPA 209 + 431
Don't ask me. But this is pretty classic. The F1 is nondescriptly mid. F2 is about as low as it could be, F3 is distinctly
raised, relative to where it usually is. Lateral, and dark (velarized--the low F2). And since it's got less sonorous items on
each side, must be syllabic.
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
Nice voicing bar, but F1 is either 'gone' or so low it's in the voicign bar. Zero below 1000 Hz, nice little pole about 1000
Hz, more zero, then another pole in the neutral F3 range. Look familiar? It should. Flat, resonant, with zeroes, must be a
nasal. The 1000 Hz pole is pretty classically bilabial, and the F2 transition in the following vowel can't really be anything
but bilabial also. So this one is pretty clear.
Ash
[�E6], IPA 325
So here we have another mid-to-low vowel (highish F1), a frontish but not comepletely convincingly front F2 moving, if
anyything, toward neutral. Really can only be [E] or ash.
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
Short enough to be a nasal flap, I guess, the nasal here explaines the fuzziness of the F1 in the preceding vowel. Note th
zero, tand the pole. Note also that even though the pole 'looks' like it's in the bilabial ergion, there's just a trace of
something right at 1500 Hz! Woo hoo, because that's the only thing about this that makes it look alveolar. That and the
flappiness, but I've been known to produce very flappy bilabials (no comments from the peanut gallery, please).
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Short vowel. Don't want to belabor it. Note the offset frequency of F2, near the 'locus' for alveolar transitions.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Which suggests that this gap is alvoelar. Or close.
Yogh
[ʒ], IPA 135
Broadish band of voiceless noise, sharp energy drop off below F2 and concnetrated in the F3 region. Too low to be [s]
noise, so must be postalveolar.
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
Well, turns out there must be something here, or there's no real reason for the F2 to 'dip' into the silence the way it
does (pointing down in the fricative and up in the vowel). I mean, if there were just the fricative, or just aspiration,
there'd be no reason for F2 to do anything except transition. So there's something here, perhaps weakly voiced. Could
be an approximant, but then it would have to be /r/, since it looks like F3 is low. But knowing wha tI do, I'll choose to
ignore that... Hindsight. So the weakness might be nasality, in which case, the F2 transitions look decidedly labial. But
this is hindsight too. Sorry.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Vowel. Lengthend in a final syllable, but weak, very low pitched, and not really 'long'. So final lengthening
notwithstanding, unstressed and reduced.
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
But this last syllable, if reduced, is just too long to be just a vowel and a stop. So there must be something here.
Something weak. And potentially devoiced. But I have no idea how I'd tell what it is since there's not a lot of
information available.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
So there's something that looks like a double burst in the low frequencies (just at 2100 msec), but there's nothing else
until you get up to sibilant frequencies. So on the balance this is probably a weak alveolar burst.
So putting it all together, you get "most require careful man()ch()t, where the ()s indicate some kind of vowel/syllable
affair. Should be too rough to come up with something plausible, and fill in the features later.
Last modified: 11/08/2009 22:57:46 Support Free Speech

Linguistics Department Linguistics Department - University of Manitoba
University of Manitoba Robzone Home - Research - Courses - Personal
Winnipeg, Manitoba Current Mystery - Solution - How To - Past Mysteries
CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for October 2006
"Mushrooms are an edible fungus."
Or maybe that's "mushrooms are inedible fungus", now that I look at it again. Discuss.
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
Wow, more that 150msec of nice flat nasal. Okay, so rom about 50 msec to about 200 msec there's a nice sonorant (i.e.
nice, striated voicing bar, and resonances all the way up). Almost definitely a nasal, because of a) the zeroes at about
800, 1800, and 3000, b) the flat formant structure, and c) the sharp discontinuities with the following vowel (clearly a
vowel, since it's also obviously sonorant, and of higher overall amplitude, no zeroes, and transitiony-looking
transitions). So anyway, if it's a nasal, it must be [m], since the pole (formant) is at 1000-1100 Hz, which is typical of my
bilabila nasals. The transitions in the following vowel are also consistent with that, but are so short it's hard to tell.
Turned A
[ɐ], IPA 324
You maybe be wondering what happened to everybody's favo(u)rite vowel, [ʌ]. Well, I've been thinking about my
commitment to the IPA, and this has been bugging me. The IPA defines [ʌ] as a lower-mid, unround, back vowel,
Cardinal 14, the unround counterpart to [ɔ]. This vowel (as in 'hut', 'tuck', and especially STRUT, if you're into Well's
lexical sets. It and [ʊ] are reflexes are ME short /u/ (and short(ened long) /o/). But enough of the history lesson. It's not
round. In general North American English, it's not amazingly back, and in Western American and Canadian English, it's
downright frontish. Not as front as front [æ], so let's split the difference and call it central. Which is not controversial.
But the symbol for a lowish/lower-mid central vowel is turned-a, [ɐ], not turned-v, [ʌ]. So are we transcribing
phonetically, using the IPA, or aren't we. I've decided we are. So here it is. Now, that said, this vowel looks like an [ɑ] or
even an [ɒ], but it's outrageously short. Which I suppose makes it look back again. So maybe I'm still a hypocrite.
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
That falling peak between 300-400 msec (falling from 2500 to 1500 Hz) is a bit worrisome, but it'll turn out all right. So
ignore it's movement. We've got something that looks like a voiceless fricative, quite strong and sibilant, but with a
peak in the lower frequencies (in the F2-F3 range) rather than a lone peak way the heck off the top of the spectrogram.
So this is probably post-alveolar. Following that, there's a sharp drop-off in amplitude below 1000 Hz, which is more
typical of postalveolar than alveolar sibilants. The sloping peak is probably indicating some kind of transition....
Turned R + Under-ring
[ɹ]̥ , IPA 151 + 402
Well, the loss of high-frequency and high-amplitude energy (i.e. sibilance) suggests that this is osmethign else. The F1 is
invisible, since it's still coarticulating with the zero (or whatever it is) that zaps the low frequencies of the fricative. F2
and F3 are clearly visible in the noise (and contiguous with the F2/F3 of the vowel, an low and behold look at what that
peak in the fricative seems to be--something that follows the resonances from about 2500 Hz (what you might call the
neutral frequency of F3, or near enough), d own to about 1600 Hz, which looks like the frequency of the F3. Which is
plenty low enough for an [ɹ]. But voiceless.
Barred U
[ʉ], IPA 318
I know this is round because I remember it being round at the time I recorded it and I spent time workng out why--I
think the tendency of [ʃ] and [ɹ] to labialize, and the following bilabial (I don't want to get ahead of myself, but there I
go), I think this vowel just tends to get rounded. A little. But while This vowel is round, the F2 isn't really that low,
compared to the F1. So again, let's split the difference and call it roundish, but not back, or backish, but not round, or
just throw up our hands and say central. So that's what I did. F1 is a little high for something I think of as a high vowel,
making this look more mid, but hey, I pick my moments of IPA precision. I guess.
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
Shorter, and with considerably less energy than the earlier nasal, this still looks like a nasal. But, well, shorter, and with
considerably less energy. But the transitions are consistent with bilabial, and to the degree that we can see any energy
at all in the resonances, there might be a pole at about 1000-1100 Hz.
Lower-case Z
[z], IPA 133
Well, so this is a sibilant, with that high-frequency, high-amplitude peak. And it's the only peak, so we're looking at an
alveolar rather than a postalveolar. And I thought it was voiced when I did the figure but I'm not not sure that couple of
pulses at the beginning should count. But maybe it does. And it's shorter than a voiceless sibilant probably would be,
and weaker, sort of, both of which correlate with an 'underlying' voiced fricative. Okay, I'm just a complete hypocrite.
But I really think we should be using turned-a for the STRUT vowel.
Script A
[ɑ], IPA 305
The harmonics are getting in the way of this vowel, but I take the F1 to be the sort of peakish thing at about 900 Hz (as
opposed to the one at 500 Hz) to be the F1, and the F2 would be the one at about 1200 Hz. Ignore the diving F3 for the
moment. So we've got a very, very low vowel with a mostly back tongue position. Unless we have a mid vowel, but I
don't think we do.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
And here's what we do with the diving F3. Moving on.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
On the other hand, there's a transition after the F3 minimum that is a little long to be just a transition. So I've shoved in
an unstressed vowel. Moving on.
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
Well, there's something going on here. Fully voiced, but too weak to support any higher resonances. But too strong in
the voicing bar to be an obstruent. So some kind of unknown sonorant. Probably nasal, judging by the sudden loss of
energy from the preceding vowel. It just looks like an edge, of the kind nasals have but oral sonorants don't. The F3
transition (into it) is hard to read, since it starts so low it has no place to go but up. But assuming it's going up, the F2
isn't really pinching into it, nor is it obviously dropping bilabial-wise. So maybe this is an alveolar nasal. It would be
nice if we could se some resonance around 1500 (or anywhere 1300-1500) Hz, but you can't have everything....
Glottal Stop
[ʔ], IPA 113
Well, not so much a stop, as a creakiness at the end of the nasal and into the following vowel, but that's as close as we
usually see in my voice.
Epsilon
[ɛ], IPA 303
So the vowel looks like it's short and transitional, mostly in F2, but there's shorter coming, and it's unlikely they're
both completely stressless. So if we have to choose, let's look. THe F1 is basically mid, although it's moving from slightly
higher to slightly lower, so it's moving from lower to higher in the mid-range. The F2 is also in the central range, but
moving frontish (slightly) to backish (slightly). F3 is just neutral. So this is a middish, possibly lower-mid-ish vowel,
moving from frontish to centralish. Which is about all you can say.
Lower-case D
[d], IPA 102
Well, clearly voiced. Not really resonant, except for some mush in the upper formants. Could be a flappy type thing, but
is a little long, or a shortish stop. I went back and forth and decided on the stop. No pinch, no serious labial transitions,
so probably alveolar.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Short little vowel, the F2 clearly all transition. Moving on.
Lower-case B
[b], IPA 102
Again, a voiced stop, this one even plosive-y-er than the othe rone, and sufficiently long to not really be a question. As
to place, thre's not a lot of information. The F2 transition could be labial (it couldn't be much else, but it's also
consistent with just a vowel-to-vowel transition (check the formants of the following vowel). So who knows. Not velar.
Probably not alveolar. But that's a guess.

[ɫ],̩ IPA 209 + 431
Well, I looked, and couldn't convince myself there was a separate vowel in here. The F1 is mid-looking, the F2 is
absurldy low, and the F3 is raised. The apparent zero between the F2 and F3 is probably just realitive weakness in the
harmonics with nothing resonant to support htem, rather tahn a real zero. If this were a nasal, I'd expect a) a weaker
voicing bar, b) no F1, and c) no higher resonances, given the range of the apparent zero. So this must be an oral
approximant, and the raised F3 suggests a lateral. It's length and the absence of anything you'd want to call a vowel on
either side suggests syllabic.
Lower-case F
[f], IPA 128
A a non-sibilant fricative. Voiceless, and with no formant-like shaping. So this has to be labiodental or dental. Hard to
tell, but the trnasitions in the following vowel are more labial-looking than anythinge else. I guess.
Turned A
[ɐ], IPA 324
Ick. Okay, for the record, we're looking ath the sort of fuzzy-formanted thing that's mostly stransition, from about 1450
msec to where the F2 (or whatever it is) leaves off at about 1525 msec. F1 (not to be confused with the strong harmonic
over the voicing bar, is that t hing that starts at about 600 and rises, sort of to about 1000 Hz, maybe. The F2 starts really
low as well, let's say 900 Hz, and rises to about 1500 or so. F3 is lower than it was, and more or less flat, but it gets
fuzzier as it progresses. Okay, so the weakness in F1 and the increasing fuzziness in F1 (and the increasing weakness of
the inter-formant energy, and ultimately the formatns as well) suggests increasing nasality. Just something to file away
for another segment. F1 is mid-to-high, so we're dealing with a lower-mid-ish kind of vowel. This one sort of back as
well, but I'm sticking to my guns on thins one, at least or this spectrogram. Lowish central-to-backish vowel.
Eng
[ŋ], IPA 119
Backing perhaps helped along by coarticulation with a following velar, which is waht this is. It's a nasal, and the only
real reasonacnes is sort of in F3. But more important than that, there's a bit of a gap, with definitely velar transitions
following, and English nasal-place-assimilation being what it is, I'd say this was a velar nasal.
Lower-case G
[ɡ], IPA 110
That's assuming I can convince myself that there really is a gap here. Homorganic stops following nasals tend to be very
short, in terms of their apparenty oral-plosive component, so I'd take this little bit of low-energy voicing around 1600
msec to be sufficient evidence of a plosive. And as I said, the transitions in the vowel can only be velar.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
WHich leads us to the velar, which if it ain't a 'real' vowel, it hsould be transcribed as a barred-i, following Keating et al
(1994) as I do. But if it isn't a reduced vowel, what is it? Well, it's definitely mid. And definitely central or front of
central. And the F3 is a little low, but that again may just be coarticulation with the velar (transitional). So soemthing
schwa-like or epsilon-like, or somewhere in there....
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Oooh, this is weak for a sibilant, but it definitely has that centered-off-the-top, broad band 'shape' of a sibilant
spectrum. Final weakening lives, I guess. Even though it seems to have that postalveolar low zero, it doesn't have the
lower (F2-F3) peak. So this has to be [s].

CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for September 2006
"The store opens daily at 10am."
Eth
[ð], IPA 131
Unfortunately, ther's a sharpish release looking thing in this, followed by some voicing and frication. There's a little bit
of noise, suggesting prevoicing, down at the bottom before the first 'pulse' thing, but not so much that it really tells us
there must be something going on before this. But what we can see of the voiced area is weaker than the following
vowel (as short as it is) and noisy, so it's a fricative. Voiced. And not sonorant, what with the formant structure showing
through. So that only leaves a couple of possibilities, and only one is likely to look like a stop in initial position.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
So the first full period of this vowel comes on at about 125 msec, and the last one is about three or four pulses later. So
this vowel is absurdly short. What do we always say about absurdly short vowels? They're reduced. Mark them as some
kind of reduced vowel, and move on.
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Nice long fricative from at least 175 msec to 250 msec. Broad band (no formant-like banding, just one big band)
apparently centered off the top of the spectrogram. Typical for [s].
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
The gap and release burst here are nicely indicative of a plosive. The release noise is sibilant looking (high amplitude
and broadband) typical of an alveolar release. The formant transitions in the following vowel are consistent with that.
But the short VOT means this is unaspirated.
Lower-case O
[n], IPA 307
Ignoring the F2 transition, let's pick up this vowel around 400 msec. It seems to go on to about 550 msec, which is when
the F2 starts to change and the F3 hits its minimum. So that's where I marked the end of the segment. F1 is about 500,
so mid-ish, F2 is about 1000 Hz, so backish or roundish.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
The F3 here is at about 1700 Hz. Such a low F3 can only be an [ɹ].
Lower-case O + Upsilon
[nʊ], IPA 307 + 321
SO the F1 hasn't really moved from the preceding two segments, and the F2 is roughly back to where it was, but heading
down. Whether this is really diphthongization or just the transition into the following gap, I have no idea. But since
people seem to like their diphthongs....
Lower-case P
[p], IPA 101
Well, as I suggested before, the drop in the preceding F2 could be interpreted as a labial transition. The F3 transition
could also be interpreted that way, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part. Similarly, the vowel on the other
side is too short to provide much in the way of transitional information. So let's see, what else could we use. Well, the
release burst is sort of mushy, so it's probably not coronal. And the concentration of energy seems to be in F1 and F2,
rather than F2 and F3, so again that might tell us labial. I think that noise at the bottom is just noise, but if you
interpreted it as voicing I guess I couldn't fault you. But it would lead you down a garden path....
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Barely three pulses of vowel. Look at the F1 die out. Reduced. Moving on.
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
Notice how the apparent F1 (around 500 Hz is suppressed, but the voicing bar below it still looks nice and strong. That's
typical of nasals. Full voicing bar with supporessed upper frequencies. There's a resonance around 1300 Hz or so, and a
fairly strong one around 2500 Hz. No evidence of velar pinch on either side, and the pole around 1300 is far enough
away from the 1000 Hz I usually expect for bilabial nasals, so I'd say this was alveolar.
Lower-case Z
[z], IPA 133
Now around 850 msec or so, the voicing bar loses energy, but keeps its striated quality. So whatever this is, it's voiced.
And the loss of energy suggests an obstruent, i.e. something that doesn't resonate easily. The noise at the top of the
spectrogram looks sibilant, at least band-wise and frequency-wise, so this is probably a [z].
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Short little gap, from about 900 msec to about 950 msec or so. The burst is a little mushy again, but it's obviously
centered up high (in the 3500-4000 Hz range) which is high enough to be an alveolar release. The F2 and F3 transitions
are consistent with that, no diving into the gap and no pinchiness.
Lower-case E + Small Capital I

[eɪ], IPA 302 + 319
Well, okay, this looks like another short vowel, but it turns out bto be a really short nucleus and a long offglide. So. If
you look ath the obviously vowel part, just around 1000 msec, we've got a middish F1, and an F2 that looks front
(relatively high) moving fronter. So mid and front. Taking the next part, the F1 lowers just a little, so goes a little higher,
and the F2 just zooms up to a peak around 2200Hz, which is really the range only of [i]. So this is a diphthongy /e/.
Whether it 'counts' as a diphthong, I don't know, but there it is.
Tilde L (Dark L)
[ɫ], IPA 209
So it's worthn oticing that around 1100 msec the F2 reaches a minimum and sort of loses cohesion. The F1/voicing bar
also sort of dies off, but slowly, but clearly clicks back on just before 1200 msec, which is the same moment that the F2
comes back. So taking F2 off/on as th edges of 'something', we can see that the energy above is also suppressed (and the
formants more diffuse) for that same duration. So this is a thing. The lesenened energy suggests some closure
somewhere, but the presence of low frequency energy (between F1 and F2) suggests an oral sonorant rather than a
nasal (which should have a zero somewhere in there). So the F1 appears to be in the middish-highish range (that is, is
500 Hz or below). The F2 is a little back (below 1500 Hz. The F3 is a little raised, which is usually indicative of a lateral. so
we've got a darkish /l/. Yay.
Lower-case I
[i], IPA 301
Remember what I said about an F2 around 2200 Hz? That would be useful to remember here. The apparent zero betwixt
F1 and F2 is probably just due to the very widely spaced formants, and the overall lower amplitude of this vowel
compared to others. The F2 transition which makes it look like an [eI] is just a transition from the low F2 of the dark /l/.
Exactly how you would tell the difference, I don't know. Maybe the F1. If we could be sure where it was...
Ash
[�E6], IPA 325
But then there's the transition after the F2 peak, and this is just too long to be just a transition. So it's gotta be another
vowel. But what kind of vowel? The F1 is still hovering around mid, and the F2 is still basically front, if not amazingly
front. So this could be another /e/, or even lower. I think the height is coarticulatory, i.e. with a high vowel in hiatus it
doesn't actually get low. Sure felt low when I did it. But definitely front. Hmm. Lucky for us this is a function word....
Glottal Stop
[ʔ], IPA 113
See how towards the end here the F1 sort of dies, the pulses in the upper frequencies seem to come every other
striation in the voicing bar. That's shimmer, folks, a reflex of glottalization, which suggests a) a syllable-final plosive, b)
probably [t]. But this is creak, so we'll call it a glottal stop.
Lower-case T + Right Superscript H

[tʰ], IPA 103 + 404
OTOH, there's a serious gap following the creak, so there's still a plosive here. Now see that sharp, high-amplitude
burst? See how its energy 'tilts' toward the high frequencies? This has to be coronal. Unless the transitions point
elsewhere, which, thank heavens, they don't. And a long VOT, so aspirated. Whee!
Epsilon
[ɛ], IPA 303
Teeny short voiced vowel, and according to accepted rules we should just regard this as reduced. But if it weren't
reduced, what would it be? Well the F1 is sort of in the midrange, or maybe higher, so this is mid-to-lowish kind of
vowel, but the F2 is definitely higher than neutral, i.e. telling us this vowel is more front than anything else. So a mid-
to-low front vowel of some kind. Hmm.
Fish-Hook R + Tilde
[ɾ]̃ , IPA 124
Haven't had one of these for a while. This, folks, is nasalized flap, such as you almost only get in North American
English. The usual flap is a super-short plosive thing, so it should look like a short gap, or at best a little noise where
you're expecting a gap. This looks like a sonorant. It's fully voiced, if slightly reduced amplitude. See how it has 'edges'
like a classic nasal stop, but it's so short? See how it has a zero-ey thing around 1000 Hz and a pole-like thing at about
1400 Hz or so? See how the resonances are flat? See how the upper frequencies are vastly lowered amplitude? Looks like
a nasal. An [n] in fact. But it's so bleeping short! Flap, folks. Or tap. Whichever. But nasal.
Ya gotta love spectrograms.

[eɪ], IPA 302 + 319
Well, does this one look at all like the previous one? Not really. It's longer and more stretched out, but it's spectrum is
silmilar. It's F2 has a similar frequency range, but moving over a longer time. And we are moving toward the end of the
utterance. Notice how the F1 has fuzzed out to practically nothing from here to the end? Hmm. Broadened band F1.
Must mean something....
Epsilon
[ɛ], IPA 303
Well once again, we're faced with something that's too long to 'just' be a transition. So wha t is it? WHo knows where F1
is? Could be around 700-750 Hz. Or I guess it coudl be somewhere else, but for lack of a better idea, let's suppose this is
the F1 of a mid-to-lowish vowel of some kind. The F2 is stronglest as it approaches the midrange (1500 Hz or so) from
above, and then it starts to lose some integrity. Also around 1850, the F1 does something odd. So those last 50-75 msec
or so (approaching 1900 msec) are probably more 'transtional' than the rest of it at least. So if we tkae everything
before that as non-transitional, we've got something that seems to be vaguely frontish. Not wildly frontish, but vaguely.
So frontish and not higher than mid. Hmm. And there's that fuzzy F1 again.
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
A-ha! I hear you cry! A final nasal! Flat resonances, full voicing, overall lessened amplitude, and a nice clear zero
between the voicing bar and the first pole. The first pole is just above 1000 Hz, which puts it closer to my [m] ranged
than any previous nasal in the spectrogram. And the final nasal explains the fuzziness of the F1. There's a zero creeping
in to the resonances, which is broadening the bandwidth of F1. Whence the fuzzies! Don't you love it when things come
together like that?

CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for June 2006
"Silly people walk too close."
I like this spectrogram because you have to separate your attention to the formant and the voicing bar. Just a hint.
Lower-Case S
[s], IPA 132
Well, this is a decent sibilant. It's got more resonance structure than I prefer, I don't know what was going on in my
mouth that day. But the strongest bit of energy is wa-a-ay up off the top, which is a good cue for [s]. The amplitude
(darkness) is consistent with sibilance, and the broad band (ignoring the resonant structure) is typiccal as well.
Small Capital I
[ɪ], IPA 319
This is so short, it probably should be treated as reduced, but you can sort of tell that it's the local pitch peak, which
suggests that it's stressed. So whatever. The F1 is low of 'mid', the F2 is, well, moving. Part of the problem is that the
following sound is throwing off the expected acoustics of this vowel. So whatever. Fill in the features later, I guess.
Tilde L (Dark L)
[ɫ], IPA 209
I've been doing a lot of these latetly. The overall amplitude here is slightly less than th e surrounding vowels, although
not by much. The F1 fuzzes out a little. The F2 hits a minimum of about 1100 Hz at about 325 msec. F3 is raised to about
2800 Hz. Oooh. Raised F3 almost always means lateral. The lowish F2 is consistent with a) the dark /l/, and b) the
surrounding front vowels.
Lower-Case I
[i], IPA 301
There are still transcription guides that insist that unstressed -y as in 'city' is always [ɪ]. It ain't. Transcribe what you
hear, not what you have been told to transcribe. Okay, so this again is a relatively high vowel (F1 is lower than 500 Hz.
Much lower, actually.), F2 is way high up above 2000 Hz. Can really only be [i].
Lower-case P + Right Superscript H

[p ʰ], IPA 101 + 404
So from 400 to 525 msec there's a pretty clear gap. Voiceless (no energy in the very low frequencies), and if you notice
all the formants in the preceding vowel fall as you move toward the closure. Also, they all seem to rise out of it duirng
the aspiration. So this is probably bilabial. The noise in the aspiration (from 525 to 600 msec or so) is tilted a little high,
but the rising transitions really only say bilabial. That and the low-frequency noise (absent any noise above it until you
get up to the F2 transition) is pretty bilabial looking as well.
Lower-Case I
[i], IPA 301
Well, we still have our low F1, in fact possibly the lowest of the entire spectrogram, F2 is close to 2400-2500 Hz, which is
about as high as I've ever seen it. F3 is sort of pushed out of the way. So this has to be [i].
Lower-Case P
[p], IPA 101
Another gap. With falling transitions into it and for the most part rising transitions out of it. At least F3 and F4. Also you
can sort of see a burst that is stronger in the low frequencies than the high frequencies. That's also a cue for bilabial,
sometimes. No aspiration this time, tho.

[ɫ], IPA 209 + 431
Well, if this were a vowel, which is what it looks like, it would have a mid, or just low of mid, F1, a very low F2 (for my
voice) around 1000 Hz, and an F3 way the heck above anything it should ever need to be. So if this were a vowel, it
would have to be something middish and very back and/or round. Maybe [o]. But that wouldn't explain the high F3....
On the other hand, this is clearly the sonority peak of this syllable, so what are we going to do?
Lower Case W
[w], IPA 170
So from 900 msec for about 50 msec, we've got a seriously reduction in aperture, resulting in suppresion of acoustic
energy. Actually, it starts earlier than that, but you can see it really kills the first and second formant in thi ssection.
With a low F1/F2 like this, it really can only be either dark /l/ or /w/. Given that the 'peak' of the F3 movement looks
like it's here rather than before, you might have found this string to be [pol] and not [plw], but then you would have
been mistaken. One way or another. There's not a lot about this that looks particularly [w] like (relative to a dark /l/)
except for its extremity of F1/F2 lowering.
Script A
[ɑ], IPA 305
It's always hard to decide what to do with moving formants, but here goes. I usually ignore the first and last fifth or so,
so you're really only looking at the middle 2/3s or so of the vowel (do the math yourself, if you care). This allows you to
ignore the obvious effect of very local transitions. With something like this, that doesn't quite do it, so we'll have to
move on. F1 starts (absent the worst of the transition) in roughly id position, and rises to very high, up around 900 Hz.
So this vowel mostly occupies the lower part of the vowel space. The low starting frequency is attributable to
coarticulation with the preceding [w], so ignoring the last bit of the transition, the 'target' here seems to be around 800
Hz or so. The F2 again starts absurdly low due to coarticulation, but kind of levels out around 1000 Hz. So we've got
something with a lowish quality, and very back and/or round. This being my voice there's only one vowel back there,
really.
Lower-case K
[k], IPA 109
Well, we've got a gap, from just before 1100 to about 1150 msec, with some bursty releasey stuff following up to about
1200 msec. The transitions have a falling F3 but a a flattish F2 (and F4, if it comes to that). So the falling F3 might say
bilabial, but then we'd expect to see more falling formants, especially in F1 and F2. So this is probably velar. There's no
reason for a coronal plosive to have a falling F3 like that, and while not strictly 'pinch'y, it's as close as we're going to
get. The strong noise in the F2 range is also consistent with velar release, although the higher frequency noise (in F4) is
distracting, I admit.

[tʰ], IPA 103 + 404
Now we immediately find another gap, with a long, aspirated release. The noise is vaguely [s] shaped, which is sort of
the point. Again, there's a little more formant-shaping than I'd like but you get thiat in aspiration noise rather than
clear sibilance. He says. At least the release noise is consistent with coronal transitions. Can't see the F2, but the F2
seems to start right about 1800 Hz, and the F3 is pretty flat and neutral.
Barred U
[ʉ], IPA 318
Ah, my favo(u)rite vowel. Sort of. Somebody asked on PHONET recently about the difference between barred-i and
crossed-u. And I don't know what it is. This is actually my version of post-coronal /u/ (which has merged with post-
coronal /ju/) into this thing with a frontish onglide, and a backish/roundish, but not amazingly back or round offglide.
Nice, straight F2 transition. Anyway, I remember being careful to round this, so that's why I chose [ʉ] as opposed to
anything else.
Lower-case K + Right Superscript H+ Tilde L (Dark L) + Under-ring

[kʰɫ],̥ IPA 109 + 404 + 209 + 402
There was no way to segment this, so I just jammed the aspirated plosive and the voiceless approximant/fricative thing
together. Sorry, but it's been a rough month. So we seem to sort of have some kind of gap. Somewhere. Followed by a
long period of aspiration and voicelessness. The only clues to place here are the strong bit of noise in F2 in the release,
which is typical of velars. Although again the [s] shape to the noise is distracting. The only clue to the lateral is the
absurdly raised F3 (also the F4). Sorry.
Lower-case O
[n], IPA 307
So here againg we have an middish F1, a quite low F2 and a fairly high F3. The fundamentl is lower here, so the formants
are all a little broader, but this looks a lot like the previous dark /l/. But of course it isn't. Not sure why the F3 is so
consistenly high and flat here. Note how flat this is. Not really diphthongy at all, at least until you get to the last few
pulses. There's no reason for the F2 to drop like that unless something was going on, but for the most part this vowel is
pretty flat.
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Now this is a decent looking [s]. It's length is attributable to final lengthening, and it's relative lack of amplitude is also
consistent with being at the end of utterance. It's still pretty strong as fricatives go, tho. This is what I mean by one
really wide band. THere's very little shaping to this at all, and the center frequency of this is somewhere off the top.

CANADA R3T 5V5
"They liked the warm sunshine."
Eth + Raising Sign

[ð]̝ , IPA 131 + 429
Well, there's some voicing that starts at about 75 msec. It looks a little like closure voicing, but if it's a closure, it doesn't
really do a good job of staying closed. Which is not to say my closures are usually good at staying closed, because
they're not. But if you're a fan of these things, you already know that. But there's a long (relatively speaking) noisy
phase at/near the 'release', which just doesn't look 'release'y. So that's our evidence of frication. I'm not sure what else
to say, except how many non-sibilant fricatives are there, not obviously labial, and subject to this kind of fortition.
Hmm.
Lower-Case E + Small Capital I

[eɪ], IPA 302 + 319
Beginning at about 125 msec and going on to almost 250 there's a nice clear first formant right around 500 Hz. And flat.
Ooh, ya gotta love flat. The F2 is a little odd. Starting at about 1750 Hz and rising to around 2100 or so, and then sharply
falls off to below 1500 Hz when something else starts happening. So let's take each of those bits in turn. The 1750 is
consistent with something front, and given the F1 (which tells us this vowel is mid-ish) this is pretty significantly front.
(For a higher vowel, with a lower F1, F2s can get much higher than this before they get 'really' front, but with this F1,
the F2 range is more limited). So we've got something middish and frontish, and it stays mid but the F2 moves up,
indicating forward movement. So on the balance the first part of this is [eɪ] or something like that. I'll assume therefore
that the rest of it, with the falling F2 is transitional, since there's clearly a low F2 target coming up later. I mean, you
have to get there somehow.
Tilde L (Dark L)
[ɫ], IPA 209
So there's this sonorant consonant between 250 and 325 msec or so. It's fully voiced and resonant. The lowered energy
leads to what looks like a zero around 2000 Hz, but there's too much energy below to really be a good nasal. So I think
that apparent zero is just the low energy dropping off the end of the visible scale. So anyway, this is probably oral. With
consonants we don't worry about the F1, usually, because there's not much variation across types. Close-to-closure is
close-to-closure, after all. The F2 is swooping to a low of something like 1000 Hz at or near 325 msec, that is towards the
end. That probably means something in terms of prosody but I'm not sure what. The F3 is really interesting though. It
raises from the beginning to the end of this consonant. What do raised F3s mean? Right. Lateral. Probably. Consistent
with the low F2 (I only have fairly dark /l/s after all), and the overall intensity. Good spotting.
Lower-Case A + Small Capital I

[aɪ], IPA 304 + 319
Okay, so the amplitude becomes appropriately vowel-like again around 325 msec and stays that way to about 500 msec.
The F1 starts (except for the first 25-50 msec of transition) around 750-800 Hz. While moving, the corresponding part of
F2 starts at about 1200 and moves up to 1500 Hz. It continues to rise to a pea at 2100 Hz or so, while the F1 dives,
perhaps in transition, to a low just about 500 Hz at 500 msec. So we've got something that starts moderately low (higher
F1) and rises slightly, and quite far back and/or round (low F2) and shoots forward in the vowel space. Now part of the
lowness of the F2 starting frequency is coarticulation with the backness of the preceding dark /l/, but there's no
getting around the backish bit. So we've got something that moves from low and back to high(er) and front. It's worth
noticing the falling F3 ...
Lower-Case K
[k], IPA 109
... because combined with the rising F2 we've got something that looks like velar pinch. If this transition were bilabial,
then the F2 would have to come down, at some point. If it were alveolar, there's no reason for the F3 to come down. So
that transition must be velar. So from 500 msec to at least that release noise thing around 550 or 575 msec, this must be
a velar plosive. Looks pretty voiceless.
Lower-Case T
[t], IPA 103
On the other hand, from that release thing there's more gap up to about 625 msec. There's some clunks which might be
release noise, in the high frequencies, but they're not very loud. They are consistent with the real noise from 625-700
msec. This noise is [s]-shaped. It's very loud, and loudest at the highest frequencies. It's a little disturbing that the noise
dies off below 1500 Hz, which makes it look like a post-alveolar rather than an alveolar. But the concentration of energy,
such as it is, in F4 and above rather than below is probably the best cue for alveolar-ness. So if this is just the release of
the stop, then it must be alveolar.
Eth + Raising Sign

[ð]̝ , IPA 131 + 429
Well, here's something odd. Voicing starts at about 700 msec, and something 'happens' about 25 msec later. Then the
voicing settles down, but with some very high frequency, but very low amplitude, noise at the top. Then there's three
pulses or so of real noise around 800 msec. Hmm. Well, I'd be stumped. Voiced, probably obstruent. Now what. Well, the
transitions into the following vowel are all basically alveolar. In fact there's something odd about the F3/F4 being so
high. Higher than the lateral. But whatever. Lateral fricatives aren't really an option in English. Dental ones are. And
subject to a lot of fortition at the beginnings of some constituents.
I confess I chose this phrase because I was interested in this sequence of consonants. Now I wish I hadn't. But
challenges help us grow, right?
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
The vowel, such as it is, is weak in amplitude, and the formants are all in transition. So this is a classic reduced vowel.
Call it schwa and move on.
Lower Case W
[w], IPA 170
Well, we have a problem. From about 900 msec to about 1000 msec (or 1050, depending on where you want to draw the
line) there's something that's clearly sonorant. The voicing is full and resonant. On the other hand, there's no energy
above 1000 Hz, and precious little between 600-1000. So we don't have a lot to go on. So then we need to look at the
transitions. The F1 starts to fade out, but it seems to be headed down from about 500 Hz and back up again on the other
side. So let's suppose it's heading to someplace like a close vowel. The F2 in the schwa is falling, and when the F2 finally
fades out, it's about 800 Hz or so. It seems to click on again even lower on the other side. F3, falls from high to neutral,
and is still headed down by the time it kicks on again. So we've got something very close (consistent with a high vowel
or an approximant), with a very low (back/round) F2. Lower even than it gets with the dark /l/. So backer/rounder
than that. And nothing really going on in F3 specific to anything else. So this is probably a [w].
Lower-Case O + Rhoticity Sign
[o˞], IPA 307 + 419
Well, let's suppose this starts around 1000 msec and goes on to about 1125. (I guess I forgot to stick in a segment mark
and recenter the vowel symbol. Oops.) So we've got mid or higher-mid F1 (i.e. near or low of 'neutral'), and a very low
F2 (indicated something round and back. That's easy. The F3 is way low for a normal vowel, hence the rhoticity sign.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
And my favo(u)rite approximant. F1 heaven only knows where, let's say around 500 Hz. F2 rising to about 1300-1400 Hz.
F3 falling to a low of 1600 Hz or so. You just don't see F3s that low with anything except North American-style
approximant [ɹ]s.
Lower-Case M
[m], IPA 114
So just shy of 1200 msec, the amplitude drops suddenly. Things stay sort of constant to about 1250 msec when
'something' happens. So let's talk about that stretch and ignore the rest for the moment. The sudden amplitude drop is
characteristic of nasals, so my guess is that's what we're dealing with. There's a zero around 750 Hz, although there's
not much to it. There's a pole around 1000 Hz. I'd be happier if there weren't apparently another pole around 1500 Hz,
which makes this more ambiguous. But the lower one is stronger, so I'll pretend that's the one we're supposed to pay
attention to (this is cheating. If I thought it was supposed to go the other way, then I'd ignore this one. As Peter
Ladefoged used to say, sometimes "you have to know what you're looking at before you can look at it," or something
like that. Anyway, in my voice, a pole around 1000 Hz is indicative of a bilabial nasal. (The higher pole around 1400 Hz
would be indicative of an alveolar.) The transitions in the previous segment are consistent with a bilabial (notice how
the F3 just keeps falling and the F2 seems to drop just a hair in the last few msec before the nasal kicks on). The
lowering effect of the /r/ confounds that, but if the following sound were really alveolar, I'd expect both those last
transitions to be just a little bit upward. Or at least to level out.
Lower-Case S
[s], IPA 132
This is a better [s], spectrally speaking, even if it is a little lacking in amplitude. compared with the noise in the previous
[t] release. But this is a pretty classic [s]. A single, very broad band of noise, extending from bottom to top, with very
little resonant-like shaping. The single, broad band is centered off the top of the spectrogram, so above 4500 Hz. If we
could image the higher frequencies, the center could be anywhere between 6-8 kHz, maybe up to 12 kHz. But whatever,
higher than we can see.
Turned V
[ʌ], IPA 314
Vowel. That's all. Vowel. Fully voiced, right amplitude, resonances all the way up. Formants? Well, I don't know. My best
guess is that F1 is around 750, or at least somewhere between 500 and 1000 Hz. F2 is around 1250 Hz, or at least between
1000 and 1500 Hz. F3 is raised a little, but since this is a vowel that doesn't tell us a lot. Okay so we've got something
mid-to-low and central-to-back. Or somewhere in that area. Turned V is the traditional symbol used in North America
for this vowel, but I'm not sure it's the right one.
Lower-Case N
[n], IPA 116
Another nasal. This one as a nice clear zero from 600-1300 Hz, and then there's a pole, very faint, but it's there. Around
1300 Hz. Close enough.
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
Now here's another sibilant. High energy, and mostly high frequency. This one being a fricative we'll pay attention to
the loss of energy below F2. And again this is ambiguous, but there's a little extra energy in the F3 area, and maybe
again in F4. So this fricative has lower-frequency center(s) than the previous [s], and has more resonance-y
organization. So the lower center, especially in F3, and the loss of energy below the F2, are classic [ʃ] markers.

[aɪ], IPA 304 + 319
Now this is what a standard [aɪ] looks like. Very high F1 with a short transition at the end. Nice low F2 rising sharply to
the front space. Ah.
Lower-Case N
[n], IPA 116
Well, there's an abrupt change in amplitude just before 2000 msec. And basically all the energy got sucked away as a
result. So this has to be a nasal. Nice little voicing bar, nice little zero, and then no (visible) pole to tell us anything. So
we'll have to look at the transitions. And the really obvious thing is that the F2, after climbing drops sharply into the
nasal. It seems to point to that 1700-1800 Hz 'locus' for alveolars, rather than lower down for a bilabial. THe F3
transition is a little ambiguous, in that it also seems to drop a little. But in the end [n] is a better guess.
This page last modified: 11/08/2009 22:57:41 Support Free Speech
Robert Hagiwara, PhD

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
"Mice in cartoons eat cheese."
Lower-Case M
[m], IPA 114
Starting at 75 msec and goign on until about 150 msec, we've got a nice little sonorant happening. It's got a nice, clear
voicing bar at the bottom, and resonances at the higher frequencies. The sharpness of the edge (of the following vowel),
the overall lowered energy (relative to the following vowel), the presence of a nice clear zero (around 750 Hz) and
mostly flat (unchanging) resonating structures, are all good pointers to a nasal stop. The pole around 1000 Hz is usually
a pretty good clue (in my voice) that it's bilabial. The F2 transition in the following vowel is consistent with that--that
F2 onset frequency is too low to be alveolar, and the distance between F2 and F3 is atypical of velars. But it's that F3
transition that bothers me. The F3 seems to fall into the following vowel, which is consistent really only with alveolars.
So we've got conflicting cues. Which are we going to believe? Well, we're going to wait for a deciding vote. Once we
have a clearer idea of what the first few syllables of this utterance are, knowing it's English and a declarative sentence,
we'll use lexical access to decide whether we're looking at an [m] or an [n]. Or something else...

[aɪ], IPA 304 + 319
So the F1 onset frequency in the first full pulse is just below the 750 Hz zero in the nasal, but it rises very quickly and
reaches a peak well before 200 msec. So ignoring the first few pulses as transition, we've got something that starts fairly
low in the vowel space. The F2 at that moment is still fairly low as well, but some of that might be transitional. So we've
got something that starts lowish and sort of backish (or roundish?), but the F1 lowers over almost 100 msec toward the
following consonant, indicating a slow rising of the vowe, and the F2 never stops moving up (forward in the vowel
space). So what we have here is a diphthong starting lowish and backish and moving up and forward. Again, there may
be two choices, but one is probably better than the other. (Quick, what's the other choice, and how would you expect it
to look, assuming this isn't it?)
Always be an active learner.
Lower-Case S
[s], IPA 132
Well, this is interesting. From 300 msec (a little earlier in the higher frequencies) to almost 400 msec, there's a nice
voiceless fricative. There's no hint of voicing or anything at the low end. There's some noise into the very low
frequencies, and for some reason the amplitude hikes up a bit at about 1500 Hz. Then it stays pretty much flat (i.e. at
the same amplitued) all the way up. So this is fairly strong and broad band, typical of sibilants. And the sudden drop off
below 1500 Hz is usually a clue that it's post-alveolar. But I'm going to suggest it's not. Partly, it's because I know what
it's supposed to be, and I'm floundering for reasons to be right. Okay, usually a post-alveolar (rather than alveolar)
sibilant has that strongest energy in the F2-F4 range, and I think that low energy 'border' isn't quite continuous with
the F2 band in the following vowel, such as it is. So I don't know. This is supposed to be an [s]. And I think if we followed
it up to the 6-12 kHz range, we'd see it really gets really, really loud up there. So this is an alveolar. Accept it. Move on.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
Well, for a scant 25 msec or so, there's a vowel. There is. Look at it. But it's so short, it's hardly worth spending any time
worrying about. So I won't.
Quick, why isn't it worth spending any time worrying about?
Lower-Case N
[n], IPA 116
Another nasal. Now look at this one carefully. There's a nice strong voicing bar, and there's a band of weaker energy just
above that. Now compared with the initial one, this one is a little higher in frequency or broader in band. So they're not
quite the same. There's a zero. It's narrow, but it's a little higher in frequency than the zero in the previous one. There's
a little energy at 1000 Hz, but it's weak w/r/t the previous one. And there's that blip, or whatever youw ant to call it,
several pulses of resonance, or something, up just below 1500 Hz. I point that out because it turns out that it's
important. I think that's the real pole. But I could be wrong. But what are the odds.
Lower-Case K + Superscript Lower-case H

[kʰ], IPA 109 + 404
There's what appears to be a closure transient, or maybe it's just a clunk, where I've marked the boundary. There's
some perseverative voicing, I guess, but look at that aspiration. Even excluding the material before the second burst,
that's at least 75 msec of aspiration. Which is quite a lot for me. So this has to be aspirated, and therefore voiceless. Now
look at that double burst. Double bursts like that, especially centered in F2/F3 like that, are typical of velar releases. So
there you go. There's not a lot of unambiguous transition information but the long VOT and the double burst and pretty
good cues.
Script A + Rhoticity Sign

[ɑ˞], IPA 305 + 419
Well, the F3 is low, so you might be tempted to call this a syllabic /r/. But that wouldn't explain the F2 movement. Or
for that matter, the F1 movement. Which together look like diphthongal movement, which I suppose is what this
sequence is.
Lower-Case T + Superscript H
[tʰ], IPA 103 + 404
From 775 msec to about 850 msec, there's serious gap. The few periods of voicing leadin gup to 800 msec I'd say are just
perseverative. Since the release at 850 is followed by going on to 75 msec of aspiration (voicelessness, VOT), there's
little doubt that this plosive is aspirated. The transitions into it are decidedly alveolar looking, in the sense that both F2
and F3 are pointed up, but given their frequency in the preceding segment, they have precious little choice. The
aspiration noise is the big clue. It all respects (except for the formant shapping in F2 and F3, this looks like a sibilant,
particularly [s]. (I suppose you might say it looks like an [ʃ], but really it doesn't. There's not enough energy in the F2/F3
pole relative to the higher ones.) Ennyhoo, it's not an [s], it's just really heavy aspiration following an alveolar release.
So it's not 'grooved' like an [s], but the airflow is basically high pressure being directed at the incisors, just like [s]. SO
this has to be alveolar. The transitions out look vaguely velar-pinch-y, but since there's no way a velar would have
aspiration that looks like this, we can rule that out.
Turned M
[ɯ], IPA 316
Well, this is not good. The highest-pitched voice in the whole spectrogram. Which probably makes this syllable the
nuclear accent, or at least the focus accent of the utterance. But in practical terms it means a) the striations are so close
together you can't tell one pulse from the next, and b) the harmonics are widely separated (Quick--why?) and so
bandwidths just increase. sSo it's hard to tell exactly where F1 is. It could be that band around 500 Hz (or just below, but
above the very strong voicign bar), or it could be that band up around 800 Hz. Which makes this either a relative mid to
higher-mid kind of vowel or a very, very low one. The F2 is a little easier. Before it fuzzes out, you can see the F2
transition in the aspiration noise, so you know where it's headed at least. So the F2 has to be around 1200 Hz or so,
depending on exactly where you measure. So knowing the answer, I might suppose that the strength of the 'voicing bar'
was actually a very low first formant, and the two things I'd considered before are just strong harmonics. But I don't
know. It probably ain't the increibly low vowel that it would be. SO figure not high and realtively back, but not
outrageously round (or very round but not outrageously back). And we'll try to make a word out of it later.
For the record, this is a fairly typical /u/ for me. Not at all round, fairly high, and with front on-glide following the
coronal.
Lower-Case N
[n], IPA 116
So I think the oral closure happens on at about 1075 msec--when the zero kicks in. Which is another contributer to the
fuzziness of the preceding vowel--nasalized vowels tend to have broader bandwidth (and more centralized formant
frequencies) than their oral counterparts. So the zeroes are a good thing, really--they tell us this has to be a nasal.
Frankly, the pole looks like it's about 1000 Hz, and so I'd say this was bilabial. And I'd be wrong. Good guess, but if it's
not bilabial, then it has to be alveolar. No hint of velar pinch, and, well, there is that narrow thing at 1500, which is
where I'd expect the pole for an [n] to be, in my voice. There's no hint of that in the initial nasal of this utterance, so
there's some difference. But I wish I knew what was going on on at 100 Hz.
Lower-Case Z
[z], IPA 133
Well, there's a hint of voicing at the bottom, so this is probably voiced. The noise is [s]-shaped, if you follow, and weaker
(and shorter) than we'd expect for [s], which is consistent with the idea that it's voiced.
Lower-Case I
[i], IPA 301
Well, if the previous thing is an alveolar, then we can say that the onset frequency of F2 is in line with the alveolar
locus, which means all that movement is just transitional. Or we could suppose that it's meaningful. I n the first case,
coupled with the relatively low F1, I'd be looking at that spot, just after 1300 msec where the F2 levels off or just a bit,
and say that was our target F2 frequency, which would make this an [i], just because nothing else ever has an F2 above
2200 Hz. But in the other case, we'd say this was a relatively high, front vowel moving higher (I guess) and much much
fronter, something much more like classical [eɪ]. One or the other. One is right, the other's a good guess.
Lower-Case T
[t], IPA 103
So with the exception of that one pulsey thing before 14500, the gap here seems to start at about 1350 emx and go on
for almost 100 msec. The transitions into look sort of pinchy (but very front velar, if you follow) and the burst is slightly
doubled. All of which just screams [k]. But then we wouldn't get this spectrogram to say anything. So on the high-tilt to
the burst, and the phonotactics of the following thing, I'd say this was [t].
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
So here you see how much stronger the F2 pole is. And the energy below is weaker. So this looks like an [ʃ]. THis is also
more consistent with the F2/F3(/F4?) poles, which are more typical of postalvelaors than alveolars. There's just more
room to couple and a longer front cavity to play in. That is, for acoustic coupling to take place and to resonate in,
respectivecly. Shame on you for thinking what you were thinking!
Lower-Case I
[i], IPA 301
Well, there's a couple of odd amplitude discontinuities, but they're not really radical, considering the length and overall
energy in this vowel. So I'm thinking it all has to do with pitch change, and therefore striation spacing and harmonic
structure. So from 1575 to 1925 msec, I'm thinking this is really all one vowel. And since the F2 reaches 2200 Hz (i.e.
'absurdly high for anything except [i], and then still very, very high'), I'd say this was [i]. If you were determined to put
vowels on either side, what would you do with the middle?
Lower-Case Z + Under-Ring
[z]̥ , IPA 133 + 402
Well, this is a lesson, so here goes. This looks like an [s] again, but it's very weak. There's no hint of voicing, but it's
weak, and it's shorter than even the fricative in the affricate, even though it's final in utterance. So there's something
odd about it. It's not post-alveolar, because even though it looses energy below F2, you'd still expect the F2 pole in the
fricative to be a little stronger than above it, and this is flat. The noise gets a little better organized off the top of the
spectrogram. All this points to [s]. So how do we account for the weakness? Well, voiced fricatives are almost always
weaker and shorter than their voicless counterparts, just because the act of voicing impedes airflow and therefore
pressure build up. But this isn't voiced. So I'll suggest it's passively devoiced. That is, rather than devoicing by abducting
the vocal folds (as with underlyingly voiceless sounds), the vocal folds remain adducted here. But because we're at the
end of an utterance, we (I) don't have a lot of subglottal pressure to work with, and the result is the vocal folds don't
vibrate. And there you have it, devoiced [z]. As distinct from [s].

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
N"Harmony is achievable."
Lower-Case H
[h], IPA 146
So starting note quite 100 msec in, and going on until 225 msec or so, there's some voiceless (no striations in the very
low frequencies, in the range of the fundamental or first harmonic, which in my voice could be anywhere between 90
Hz to 130 or 140. So it's voiceless. There's lots of energy up above, but it's aperiodic, or noisy. If you notice the formants
of the following vowel, there's a little more noise in those same frequencies. Which is typical of [h]. The noise, being
produced in the laryngopharynx, bounces around the vocal tract the same way periodic energy does, and thus gains
energy in the frequencies of the vocal tract resonances and loses it in between. What's interesting is the high F3-there's
no hint of rhoticity in the noise, until about 200 msec, when it starts to come down in frequency. We can see that
transition continue once the voicing kicks in, but then we're well into the next segment.
Script A + Rhoticity Sign

[ɑ˞], IPA 305 + 419
So ignoring the voicing bar, which you can see is a very narrow band down there around 150 Hz or so, the first
resonance is quite high. Depending on how you measure these things, I'm thinking it's that upper band around 850 Hz
or so. If you look though, there's another, slightly fainter band just below, closer to 600 Hz. I'm thinking that's just an
idiossyncratically strong harmonic (there's something about there all through the spectrogram, regardless of where the
F1 is). (Well, use your imagination.) In a perfect world, we might located the 'center' of that formant in that slightly
lower-energy space in between what I'm calling F1 and what I'm calling that weird harmonic, since the combined width
of those two things is only a little wider than the formants above it. So I don't know. But F1 is definitely high here, so
this is a low vowel. F2 starts about 1200 Hz or a bit below, but it rises a little into the following segment. Now look at
that F3. This is the best argument for segments (or at least sub-syllabic constituents) I've seen in a while. The F3 in the
[h] is up around 2500 Hz, dead neutral. It comes down in the last part of the fricative and through the 'clear' part of the
vowel until it approaches its low steady state in the following segment. But if you believe a) [h] does not have oral
features/targets of its own, and b) "rhoticity" (lowering of F3) is a feature realized on vowels before approximant /r/,
why doesn't the F3 start low in the fricative? Or at least lower, if you believe that the F3 of the vowel is categorically
affected by rhoticity. Which it obviously is not. But here you can see the rhoticity is a) not phonological, and b)
constrained in the phonetic grammar to the coda /r/, and is allowed to creep into (but not take over) the F3 of the
vowel. But not really at all into the fricative. But there's nothing in the fricative to prevent it from doing so. Except
obviously there is. So there must be something 'there'.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
So I guess I've given it away, this is an approximant /r/ (properly, IPA [ɹ]) of the North American variety. The F1 is still
where it was for the vowel, the F2 (oddly enough) is raised to approximate the low F3, and the F3 is very low, almost 800
or 900 Hz lower than it was in the beginning of the [h] (where you can see it returns eventually. Typical of [ɹ].
Lower-Case M
[m], IPA 114
Then the amplitude falls off around 350 msec. The F2 transition in the /r/ is diving at that moment, which suggests
labial transitions. The overall energy from 350 to 425 msec (or so) is lower than either of the surrounding vowels, so this
is relatively consonantal. And its edges are sharp, if you see what I mean, suggesting some acoustic change that sucks
energy out of the source suddenly turns on, and then off. So this is a typical nasal-the aforesaid sucking occurring as
the nasal cavity is opened and the oral cavity is closed, and then stopping when the velopharyngeal port is closed and
the oral closure released. There's a nice pole around 400 Hz, which is just to be expected, but the first 'real'
pole/formant in the nasal is around 1000 Hz. You can see pole above that (continuous with the F3 of the /r/) is rising.
The frequency of that middle pole, the one around 1000 Hz is a good cue to this being bilabial-if the oral closure were
further back, this would be higher in frequency. (Go back to acoustic phonetics and read about 'side cavities' if you're
not sure why.) So that's two solid cues to this being [m], and none particularly pointing anywhere else.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
So from 425 to about 475 msec, there's a vowel. The F1 is sort of low, unless you believe it's still high, but it's not
particularly distinct either way. The F2 is in constant motion, almost as if it had nowhere in particular to go. The F3 is
still transitioning, so it' snot helping either. Also the F4 if it comes to that, but since we almost never look at F4, we
won't belabo(u)r the point. So we've got a short vowel of indistinct structure that never really develops a strong
identity of its own. So call it reduced, transcribe accordingly, and move on.
Lower-Case N
[n], IPA 116
So here we have another one of these. Note its similarity, in terms of its amplitude and edges, to the previous nasal.
There's a pole I don't think I've ever seen before at about 850 Hz, so I'm going to ignore it.... The main pole is up around
1400 or not quite 1500 Hz. Note how much higher it is than the 1000 Hz or so pole in the [m]. So there we go. This one
isn't bilabial, so we're stuck with alveolar or velar. There's no hint of velar pinch in the transitions into or out of this
nasal, and the transition-end frequencies (around 1700 Hz) is consistent with the locus of alveolar transitions.
Lower-Case I
[i], IPA 301
So the F1 is still rather low. Note the voicing bar in the first syllable. There's a strongish harmonic just below 500 Hz but
the main body of the resonance is clearly between the voicing bar and that harmonic. So this is an exceptionally low F1.
So this is an exceptionally high vowel. The F2, once it straightens out, is exceptionally high, up around 2100 or 2200 Hz.
So this vowel is exceptionally front. And the highest, frontest vowel you can think of? Right!
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
Well, another section of vowel that's mostly F2 transition. If you missed it as just transition, you have to explain why
this vowel is so long when its pitch is clearly quite low (see how far apart the striations are compared to most of the
preceding vowels-each of those striations is a glottal pulse). So I think this is actually two different vowels/syllables. In
fact, two different words. I worked hard at not putting a glottal stop in this one, so I hope you appreciate the duplicity
involved.
Lower-Case Z
[z], IPA 133
So the striations continue, albeit in weaker form, all through the following amplitude dip (from about 700 msec to 750
msec or so?). So whatever it is, it's a consonant and it's voiced. But up above the voicing bar, there's no evidence of
periodicity, so no resonance to speak of. So there must be a very tight constriction somewhere. And it's noisy, so it's a
close constriction, but not a closure. So we're talking about a fricative. Voiced, but very noisy. The noise is not
particularly organized into bands. In fact, it's one broad band. It's a trifle weaker in the lower frequencies than the
higher frequencies (note the relative lightness of the noise just around and below 1000 Hz compared to anywhere
above), so this looks like it's tilted to the high frequencies. Very high frequencies, without any tilt toward the F2 or F3
region. So there you go. [s]-shaped noise, but voiced.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
And another short little vowel, overlapped in the high frequencies with a bit of the noise from the fricative. Or maybe
the noise is coming from the upcoming closure. Or both. Hmm. So this is amazingly reduced.
Lower-Case T
[t], IPA 103
Nice sharp gap so obviously we're dealing with some kind of plosive. There's not a lot going on in terms of transitions
suggesting anything in particular. On the other hand, if you look at the release noise burst, it's very sharp, broad band,
and evidently [s]-shaped. Although this may be in part a product of the following frication. But whatever. Believe it's
alveolar, or at least coronal, or remain agnostic. When it comes to parsing the upcoming fricative your choices will be
limited.
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
So here we go. We've got some very loud friction here. No voicing bar, but with that much noise, you wouldn't really
expect any voicing. The frication is very loud, but you'll notice it isn't one very broad band, but has some formant-like
shaping to it. It's loudest not off the top of the spectrogram (i.e. between 4-6-8-12 kHz), but seems loudest in the F2-F3-
F4 bands. And the F2 band is pretty noisy, while below it the energy drops off sharply. That's pretty typical of post-
alveolar [ʃ].
flight of the concords new zeland duo folk parody
Lower-Case I
[i], IPA 301
So it's tough to tell where F2 is. You have to surmise from that falling transition afterwards that it's really, really high,
around 2200 Hz or so. It's almost merged with the F3, but that's not supposed to happen, so the combined band is still
wider than you'd expect a single band to be, but at this bandwidth there's no telling where the separation is. So the
edges of the filter overlap slightly. Get over it. So that's the F2, where's the F1? Low low low, I say. We could argue about
that, but TMSAISTI.
Lower-Case V
[v], IPA 129
Another voiced fricative here, from 1075 to 1125 msec or thereabout. Nice striations at the bottom, but no periodicity to
speak of above. This is a very loud fricative-it has about the same energy as the previous [z]. But spectrally, this looks
different. It doesn't have any tilt to it at all. It just looks white, in the sense of having equal energy at all frequencies.
Sort of unfiltered. Well, probably this is louder than it should be-I may have been spitting into the microphone or
something. The unfiltered-ness is a huge clue though. In order to be unfiltered, your source has to be uncoupled from
the resonators of the vocal tract. Which means it has to have a tight closure, and no vocal-tract-tubey-volumes in front
for the energy to bounce around. So this has to be at the teeth or lips. Given that this is English, the lips (bilabial) is
unlikely. It would be really helpful if the transitions on either side looked more labial, but they don't. Which might
make us think coronal, just by default. But then we'd be wrong. So let's just keep both [v] and [ð] in mind until we can
make a word out of it.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Very short, indeterminate vowel. Moving on.
Lower-Case B
[b], IPA 102
Another gap, this one rather long, although since we're approaching the end of the utterance that might be
lengthening of the final syllable. There's a nice, clean gap in most frequencies, but if you look at the bottom, there's an
awful lot of perseverative voicing. More than you'd get if there were a nice abduction gesture associated with an
underlying voiceless stop. So this is probably voiced. It's a little annoying that the transitions are so ambiguous. The F2
in the preceding vowel seems to be coming down, well below the 1700-1800 Hz alveolar locus we usually look for with
alveolars. So that looks labial. F3? Seems to be high, if anything. Ya gotta love coproduction messing up all your cues. So
on the balance, I'm going to say bilabial. The F2 isn't even close to alveolar or velar looking. The F3 is ambiguous, but I'll
attribute it to coproduction with ...

[ɫ],̩ IPA 209 + 431
... the raised F3 of this segment, which is lateral. You can tell because of the raised F3. /r/s have greatly lowered F3s,
/l/s tend to have slightly raised F3s, and/or sometimes F4s. With an F2 below 1000 Hz, this can only be described as
back (or round), so it's dark as well. If you believe those first few pulses with energy in F3 and F4 and above are
evidence of a separate vowel before lateral-contact, you're welcome to insert a schwa or something. But I tried to be
careful and release the /b/ into the lateral. There are advantages to doing these things with your own voice....

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for (late) February 2006
Due to various delays, I decided to take a shortcut on this month's spectrogram. This one is composed of four words,
one word each from the following pairs.
1. HE/SHE
2. CHAINS/TRAINS
3. MEEK/WEAK
4. LEADERS/READERS
So the real trick here is to work out whether the first consonant is [h] or [ɫ][h] or [ʃ], whether the second onset is [tʃ] or
[tʰɹ]̥ , etc.
Here's the labelled spectrogram from February
N"She trains weak leaders."

For the sake of comparison, I've included the 'opposite' spectrogram at the bottom of the page.
I'll only be discussing differential cues this time, again, just because of time constraints. (I will leave it as an exercise for
the reader to segment the 'known' segments and work out what cues there are as to their identities.)
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
From about 75 - 225 msec. This looks more like [ʃ] than [h] for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's too loud. This has
absolute amplitude like a vowel rather than a consonant. So this very loud frication is tilted to the higher frequencies,
typical of sibilants in general. This looks like [ʃ] rather than [s] since it has very little energy below F2, below which it
drops off fairly sharply ([s] has broad band noise that may diminish at the lower frequencies, but it'll do so more
gradually). The fact that it drops off right below F2 is suspicious, if you were wondering. Also an [s] would not have that
strength specifically in F2/F3/F4, but presumably would have a single broad band much centered much higher. An [h]
would have less energy over all, and wouldn't have any kind of discontinuity with the following vowel (except in terms
of voicing). If you notice, the "F2" in the fricative doesn't match that in the vowel.
Lower-Case T + Right Superscript H, Turned R + Under-Ring
[tʰɹ]̥ , IPA 103 + 404, 151 + 402
350 msec to 450 msec or thereabouts. The choice here is really between an [ʃ] release to the affricate or a voiceless [ɹ]̥ .
I'll duck the whole question of segments and affricates and so on. Okay, so the gap for the plosive goes from about 325
msec to the release somewhere between 375 and 400 msec. The release frication probably runs from about the release
for between 25 and 50 msec. The 'center' of the /r/ moment, if you follow me, is around 425 msec. Notice that by the
time voicing kicks on at about 450, the formants are already moving fast. So our choices for this bit, from 400 to 450
msec or so are the /r/ (devoiced due to the aspiration) or Esh. Notice the intensitive of the noise—on release, it's nice
and sibilant. It's centered pretty low, sibilant-wise, and looks a lot like the previous Esh. But you'll notice the intensity
drops off fairly quickly, instead of being nice and sustained through the voicelessness, and also that the noise is in the
shape of the following formants. The F2 starts up wherever it stars on release (around 1900 Hz or so), falling rapidly to
just below 1500 Hz. The F3 falls out, but notice in the release how the corresponding band is definitely falling.
Extrapolating or interpolating, or whatever, from the angles of the transitions on either side, it looks like the F3 drops
to just below 2000 Hz, but there's not a lot of evidence that it really gets there. But those transitions in F3 can only be
due to rhoticity. And the lowness of the F3 and the closeness of F2 and F3 together explain the esh-shaped-ness to the
release noise--the center of the energy is being pulled down by the low formants. But this explains why there seem to
be people who have a /tr/ goes to [tʃ] rule and/or /dr/ goes to "jr". For comparison, notice how, while diminishing, the
esh-noise in the comparison spectrogram is more or less stable right through until the voicing kick in.
Lower Case W
[w], IPA 170
Approxiamant or nasal? We're looking at the fully-voiced segment from about 725 msec to just past 800 msec. It's got
less energy in the voicing bar than in the following vowel, but that's typical of both nasals and close approximants. The
transitions are mostly bilabial, although F3 isn't helping much. So nasal or not? Well, not. Nasals don't have to have
'sharp' edges, but prevocalically the usually do. See that moment near 800 msec in the comparison spectrogrma. The
edge here is the velum closing--at that moment, the acoustic change suddenly. The energy that was being lost by the in
the nasalization is suddenly regained, the main resonances change--notice how the formants 'pop on' without
transitioning. Here, ther formants are all transition, suggesting something oral throughout, with continuously
changing articulators transitioning from the /w/ moment to the following vowel.
Tilde L (Dark L)
[ɫ], IPA 209
Finally another lesson in approxmants, this time /r/ and /l/. We're looking at the moment that begins when the
voicing kicks on around 1000 msec, and going utnil the upper frequency periodicity really becomes clear, at about 1075
msec. Again, this doesn't look nasal due to the continuity of the whole thing. That ahd the F1/voicing bar complex is
too continuous (in both amplitude and frequency) to indicate a sudden addition or loss of a cavity. So what's the
difference between a North American /r/ and an /l/? The F3. Lowered F3 for /r/, raised F3 (or sometimes F4--ideally
both) for /l/. So where's the F3? F1 is down just below 500 Hz. F2 is just above 1000 Hz, and F3 is way up there around
2750 Hz. It's falling a little, so by the time the upper frequendcy periodicity kicks on it's already almost back down to
2500, but you can still see how high it was in the noisy, semiperiodic energy during the approximant. So that's it. Raised
F3.
For comparison, the 'opposite' of the original spectrogram
labeled spectrogram
This page last modified: 11/08/2009 22:57:37 N"He chains meek readers." Support Free Speech

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for August 2006
"Most are perfectly capable."
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
We start with a clear sonorant consonant of some kind, fully voiced, nicely striated, and with nice clear resonances all
the way up. The formants are flat, and there's a nice clear zero about 750 Hz, both of which suggest a nasal. The pole
(formant) around 1100 Hz suggests a bilabial (at least for my voice--an alveolar nasal usually has a pole somewhat
higher, closer to 1400 or 1500 Hz, and a velar nasal a) wouldn't be initial in an English utterance and b) would have more
evidence of velar transitions in the following vowel.
[nʊ], IPA 307 + 321
I love the overlap between this and the following consonant, but whatever. F1 is at about 500 Hz or just higher. F2 is up
around 1100 Hz or thereabouts. F3 is high for some reason. But since this is a vowel we're not going to worry about F3.
Just put it out of your mind. Don't let it consume you for twenty minutes like I just did. So we've got the F1 of a mid-ish
vowel, and the F2 of something fairly back and/or round. The F1 and F2 seem to move downward slightly (hence the
transcription as a diphthong) but you'll notice that the upper frequencies are taken over by the incipient sibilant noise
coming up. Gestural overlap? Spreading? Whatever. The illusion of segments. Moving on.
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Well, since it's September, we'll review. From about 350 to almost 500 msec. This is a fricative (random, snowy 'noise').
It's voiceless (no striations or energy in the low-frequency 'voicing bar'). And the noise is in a single, very broad band
(unfiltered by a lot of vocal tract resonances) which suggests that it's relatively forward in the vocal tract. It's very loud
(and broad band) which suggests sibilance, and centered in the very high frequencies, which suggests alveolar (the
postalveolar sibilant is usually centered in the F2/F3 range rahter than above the F4 range). So this must be an [s]. [s] is
your friend, spectrographically speaking.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Our first real plosive. From about 475 msec to the release burst at about 525 msec there's a gap in the spectrogram,
indicating no airflow, no resonance, no voicing, squat. It's got a short VOT (not even 25 msec) so it's unaspirated.
Voiceless goes without saying, right? (Study question: Why?) The F2 transition starts at about 1600 Hz and falls, the F3
transition starts around 2400 Hz and again falls. So we have 'uppy' pointing transitions (pointing into the gap, that is)
and so this is probably an alveolar. The noise in the VOT is a little low (we'd like to see more [s]-looking release noise
following a [t], but there's a coarticulatory thing going on....
Schwa + Turned R
[əɹ], IPA 322 + 151
Okay, I've transcribed a diphthong here because there was just no place to segment. Sorry. I've also used a deceptive
sequence of symbols--for a lot of people, the sequence schwa-r is a shorthand for the symbol schwa-r (i.e. [ɚ] IPA 327,
for which I always use turned-r with the syllabicity diacritic, i.e. [ɹ]̩ .) But here we have something that looks and sounds
like a diphthong. So I've transcribed it as such. F1 is in the mid-region. F2 is neutral (and falling). F3 is sort of neutral
but also falling. The end of the F3 fall is way below 1800 Hz, which accounts for the F2 fall as well--that is, that's
rhoticity, i.e. approximant /r/ in North American English. But there's a non-rhotic vowel in front of it. So it's a
diphthong.

[p ʰ], IPA 101 + 404
Another gap. This one is long,and that might mean there's a sequence here. Or it might mean it's initial in some
domain. The transitions into it are a bit difficult to interpret, since the F2 and F3 are pulled down so far by the /r/. But
if it weren't for the /r/, these would look bilabial. I mean, they point down. The release at about 700 msec has a lot of
noise in the very low frequencies. The transient seems to go all the way up, but it's neither 'sharp' (typical of especially
alveolar stops--especially if accompanied by sibilant noise, which this isn't) nor 'doubled' (more typical of velars,
especially if accompanied by 'pinch). Well, F2 and F3 are close together, but that could just be because F3 is so low in the
following vowel. That's also a reason why the previous /r/ doesn't transition anywhere else. On the other hand, both of
those suggest that there's no coronal action in this consonant, which leads us back to considering bilabials and velars.
So if we look at the transitions in the aspiration noise, it looks to me like F2 and F3 both pont down into the gap (that is,
rise as they move into the vowel), and so the transitions look bilabial. And voiceless, of course, and the loooong VOT
can't be anything but aspirated.

[ɹ]̩ , IPA 151 + 431
See, this is a syllabic /r/. It's not a vowel like schwa 'combined' with some diphthongy rhoticity. It's just a vowel. F1 is
mid-ish, F2 is as neutral as it can get, considering the F3 is around 1600 or 1700 Hz. An F3 that low can only be an /r/.
Lower-case F
[f], IPA 128
What we have here is another voiceless fricative. Now take a moment and compare it to the previous [s]. Broad band
noise but not of sibilant amplitude. So probably fairly far forward in the vocal tract. Given that this is English this
means labiodental or (inter)dental. Any other clues? The F2 in the preceding /r/ seems to transition downward, just a
tad, while the F3 is rising, slightly. The only reason for the F2 to not be transitioning in the same direction as the F3 is if
it's a labial transition. The transitions on the other side of the fricative all point down (that is, rise into the vowel, which
also makes this look bilabial. Now, we might discount the F3 transition as just 'rising' from the low position for the /r/.
But the F2 transition(s) still look(s) labial. Vaguely. So probably [f]. The double clunky thing at the onset of the vowel is
probably just a clunky thing.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
Absurdly short vowel. Reduced. Ignore it. Well, don't ignore it, but don't waste any time trying to identify it. Move on.
Lower-case K
[k], IPA 109
Another long gap, but now there's another double clunky thing at about 1100 msec, in the F3/F4 range. Not much of a
cue, but double burstiness is sometimes indicative of a velar release. Then again, there's another double-bursty-looking
thing at 1150 msec (or so) which I'm going to claim is a red herring (or rather, that the usual explanation for velic
double-bursting doesn't account for the other double clunk (either of them), but my explanation will. Anyway, that's
really the only clue that there's something else going on here, or that it's a velar release into another plosive. So if you
caught it great, if you didn't, you'll have to insert it in through lexical identification later.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
The release here is good and sharp. It looks doubled, but I think most of the energy is in the F3, rather than in a pinched
F2/F3 combination. F2 seems to start at about 1500 Hz. So what's going on? I'm going to suggest the release at 1150
msec is coronal, and that the double clunkiness we see is the result of ...
Tilde L (Dark L)
[ɫ], IPA 209
... lateral release. I was being persnickety with the half-under-ring diacrhitic but the point is that there's dark /l/ here,
partially (or fully) devoiced by the aspiration following the /t/. The lowness of the F2 transition (relative to the
expected frequency of 1700-1800 Hz) is compatible with rounding, but I'm going to suggest that it's there result of
velarization of the lateral. The second clunk is the other side of the lateral releasing. So my story on double clunks is
that they involve two sides opening at different moments. So velars and laterally released [t] is most likely to have a
double burst. The standard story is that the long closure associated with velars (and dentals) causes a high-velocity
airflow on release, and a Bernoulli 'clunk' immediately after release. I think I'm right, but I'm apparently the only one.
And sometimes a clunk is just a clunk. The vocal tract is a juicy place, after all.
Lower-case I
[i], IPA 301
So after all that, we end up with an F2 up above 2000 Hz (way up above) and an F1 which is quite a bit lower than the
mid-ish F1s we've been seeing. So this is a highish vowel, amazingly front. /i/ or /e/. In this case [i]. Trust me.

[kʰ], IPA 109 + 404
Ah, another gap. I hope you noticed the subtle velar pinch in the preceding transitions. Also the double burst. And the
long aspiration noise, concentrated in the F1/F3 region. All classic velar signs.
Lower-case E
[e], IPA 302
Now this is a flat /e/. Not diphthongy. F1 is mid or just low, F2 is around 2000 Hz and relatively stable. Not obviously a
diphthong. So there.
Lower-case P
[p], IPA 101
A gap of about 100 msec. Withs ome perseverative voicing, but not enough to worry about. The burst is not amazingly
sharp, and it seems to be loudest in the low frequencies. If I work hard enough I can convince myself that the F2 and F3
transitions into this gap are bilabial, but they're not obviously sow on the other side. At least they're not obviously
anything else....
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Another absurdly short vowel, mostly transition, so all it reduced and move on.
Lower-case B
[b], IPA 102
Well here's gap. Notice that the perseverative voicing here is more 'voiced'. Probably meaningful, although there's no
guarantee. THe transitions into this look bilabial, at least the F2 does. The F3 and F4 transitions out of this gap and into
the following vowel are also suggesting bilabial more than anything else. So potentially voiced and bilabial.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
I hear a vowel here, so I guess it's a schwa. But it's really so totally coarticulated with all but the contact-part of the
following lateral, that I can't really blame you for wondering what the heck I'm talking about.
Tilde L (Dark L)
[ɫ], IPA 209
Okay, so here's the trick. THe formants, such as they are, indicate a mid-ish vowel (neutral F1), and a very back or round
tongue body F2 well below 1000 Hz. Ideally we'd like to see F3 (or at least F4) rise to above neutral for a lateral, but no
such luck. But it can't be an /r/ with an F3 like that, and it certainly can't be a /j/ with an F2 like that. So that leaves the
lateral and the labial-velar. So which is more likely to a) follow schwa and b) form a word with the preceding. But you
can see how dark /l/s and /w/ or /u/ shaped vowels can resemble one another....

CANADA R3T 5V5
"The good guys wear white hats."

N
[ð], IPA 131
Eth
Well, there's a nice little fricative here. It's really short, such that it looks like a release, but it ain't. It's a fricative. Kind
of loud, but you can tell it's no sibilant--it has too much formant-like shaping to the spectrum. Like aspiration. Which is
what I'd probably have guessed what it is if I didn't know any better. The transitions into the vowel (and the spectral
change in the frication itself) looks like it's moving from something alveolar. Or at least coronal. So we're looking for a
non-sibilant coronal. Vaguely voiced, I thought at the time. Now I'm less certain.
[ɨ], IPA 317

Barred I
Short little vowel, with mostly transitional looking movement during. Reduced. THe F1 looks decidedly low to me,
hence barred-i, although that hardly matters.
[k], IPA 109

Lower-case K
The transitions into this look vaguely labial. The F2 seems to be coming down. The F3 is definitely coming down, but
the F4 is definitely not. And there's no particular reason for all the formants except F4 to be responding to labialization.
So if you thought this was labial, I hear you. Something weird is definitely happeing in F2. Turns out it's probably
backing or rounding rather than moving to a labial closure. But how are you suppsed to know? Search me. On the other
hand, the messy release looks sort of like a double burst. While not striclty pinchy, the F2 is clearly loweriing into the
beginning of the voicing in the vowel, so maybe that's really velar pinch.
[ʊ], IPA 321

Upsilon
Highish vowel (low F1), very back and round (as my back and round vowels go), but transitions towards schwa rather
than being steady or moving back. So this is sort of [uə], which is a pretty stereotypical realization of /ʊ/. Well, I'm
trying.
[d], IPA 104

Lower-case D
The F3 is sort of sitting there, the F2 is sharply rising to about 1700 Hz. Gotta be an alveolar. Voiced. The clunk I think is
the alveolar closure releasing--it doesn't look [s] shaped because there's no air moving from behind it, due to the ...
[k], IPA 109

Lower-case K
... closure back here. Voiceless. Again with a mushy, sort of double-looking release. Fairly clear pinch in the following
transitions. So we have to posit a second closure, and it pretty much has to be velar.
[ɑɪ], IPA 305 + 319

Script A + Small Capital I
Ah, diphthongs. Or triphthongs. Or VISC. Or whatever. Look at that movement. F2 hits its minimum just ahead of 600
msec, around 1200 Hz. So quite back. Not at all central. At that same moment, the F1 is rising, hitting its peak just after
600 msec, at which the F1 is between 800 and 900 Hz. So about as low as my vowels ever get. Ordinarily, I'd locate a
'moment' at the F2 minimum, and another at the F1 maximum (since they don't coincide, they must be different
moments) and consider this some kind of weird low-low diphthong. Since that's not really a likely option, I'll decide to
ignore the two moments, and decide this is a low vowel. But then there's the the long, slow offglide, relatively speaking.
Which is a fronting diphthong. Apparently.
[z]̥ , IPA 133 + 402

Lower-case Z + Under-ring
So here we have a weak fricative. It is [s] shaped, being broad band and strongest in the higher (above 4000
Hz) frequencies. But it's not voiceless. Let this be a lesson--/z/ can be realized as voiceless--probably passively, due to
airflow issues rather than vocal abduction. But anyway, the correlates of /z/ involve a shorter, weaker fricative than a
corresponding [s].
[w], IPA 170

Lower Case W
Nice little moment of approximant. Loks like a nasal (sorry, no comparisons in the spectrogram) with a strong voicing
bar and nothing much in the way of resonances bove. But the transitions indicate something other than 'just' an oral
stop articulation. Just look at that swooping F2. Wow. What could cause an F2 like that? Only something seriously back
and seriously round. Which aren't really abundant in my dialect. Really, only [w] is really that back and round. And
close enough that it can seriously damp the high frequencies. Seriously. Remember that, in case it comes up again....
[ɛ], IPA 303

Epsilon
Okay, this is not the clearest vowel. One the F3 is coming down, probably pushing the F2 down with it as it does. But the
F1 clearly separates from the voicing bar, edging up past 500 Hz, if only just barely. Gotta be 'mid' at least. The F2 starts
low because of the [w] but zooms up as far as it can unti the F3 starts to push it down again. So let's call this one 'clearly
heading to someplace front'. Mid and front. Only a couple of possibilities, and one (in my dialect) typically has an
unexpectedly low F1 (i.e. is really a high vowel).
[ɹ], IPA 151

Turned R
On the other hand, whatever else might be going on, the F3 is dropping like a rock. So here we have a coda /r/. But
notice what happens, the F2 flattens out and the F3 starts to rsie again. And then ...
[w], IPA 170

Lower Case W
... something else happens. The F2 stays low low low, the F3 appears to at least start to head back to neutral, and the F1
drops again. So we've got something very close, and outrageoulsy round and back. With damped higher frequencies.
Look familiar? Good.
[ɑɪ], IPA 305 + 319

Script A + Small Capital I
So here we go again. This one has a clearer offglide, and the F2 doesn't have a moment of its own separate from the F1
moment. Look at that. Who'd'a' guessed these two things were related.
[t], IPA 103

Lower-case T
The plosive here is weak, almost flap-like. Chew on that one for a while as you look around. But in the mean time,
there's clearly an [s]-shaped/acute release burst just before 1400 msec, so there has to be some kind of alveolar release
here. Unless we're really unlucky and it's just a clunk. It ain't. But I suppose it could ahve been.
[h], IPA 146

Lower-case H
So given that there's a plosive release, is this aspiration, or a separate thing (bonus points for anyone who can clearly
explain why this isn't really an interesting question)? Well, notice that the release noise, if that's what it is, isn't
'continued' in the following frication. That is, it doesn't just sort of keep going, as aspiration/release nosie might. The
noise is 'clustered' in the formants of the following vowel, so we're clearly dealing with something glottal, and probably
not just 'aspiration' of the preceding plosive.
[æ], IPA 325

Ash
Very high F1. Very low vowel. But the F2 is sort of, well, starts high and doesn't really fall to 'low'. So this is not a back
vowel. Which leaves a few possibilities, I admit, but if you're putting together words at this point, only one makes much
sense.
[t], IPA 103

Lower-case T
Long gap. Gotta be a plosive. The last few pulses of the vowel look like the F2 is transitioning to a labial, but the F3 isn't
moving. At all. So possibly, but not probably labial. Probably not velar (but see earlier). SO split the difference. It's a
guess. At least this sentence is semantically predictable at this point. It wasn't going to be.
[s], IPA 132

Lower-case S
Or possibly a devoiced [z]. So think about that for a second. How will you choose? (Bonus points available.)

Dept. of Linguistics Current Mystery - Solution - Past Mysteries
University of Manitoba How To - Research - Courses
Winnipeg, Manitoba To the Lab - To the Department - To the University
CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for December 2004
N"Snow blocks the street."

Lower-Case S
[s], IPA 132
Well, this is sort of weak, but you can see the fricative, starting about about 100 msec and going on to almost 250 msec.
It's broad band (rather than organized into narrower formant-like organization), and concentrated in the very high
frequencies. Toward the beginning, where the overall amplitude is much less, the frequencies we can see are very high.
So this is a pretty typical sibilant, almost definitely [s].
Epsilon
[ɛ], IPA 303
So the vowel starts just before 250 msec and goes on for about 100 msec. The F1 is a little low of mid, suggeting a
slightly higher mid vowel, which is weird for me if this is [ɛ]. But anyway, this vowel looks quite central, and so this
looks very schwa-like. But judging from the amplitude it must be stressed, and if it's stressed, this can't be my [ʌ],
which is typically low. So this is probably mid or high, and otherwise non-descript. Oh well. The falling formants are
clearly transitional, since they mostly all do it, so they don't help. Not long and not tense.
Lower-Case V
[&#x;], IPA 129
Well, it's very weak, but there's frication throughout this gap up to 400 msec. There's also voicing, so this is either a
very weak voiced stop or a weak voiced fricative. The transitions in and out all suggest bilabial (although the F3 doesn't
help--more later), so, since bilabial fricatives are not an option, as this is my English, labiodental is not a stretch.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
So there's that F3, clearly transitioning way down in the previous vowel, and there it is here, down at about 1600 Hz or
so. So this must be an /r/ of some kind. Nuff said, I guess.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Transcribing this as a vowel is merely a convenience. There seems to be 'something' between the /r/ and the following
segment, but exactly what is open to interpretation.
Tilde L (Dark L)
[ɫ], IPA 209
So from about 475 to 550 msec or so, there's a dip in amplitude, accompanied by an apparent zero in F2, and a relatively
high F3. Very high considering the previous /r/. I'm not quite sure what's going on in F2, but the raised F3 is usually a
good indicator of the lateral. And the F2, if it's anywyere, is down there below 1000 Hz, so it must be dark.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
Again, this is a bit of vowel. I made a mistake transcribing it as barred-i--I think I must have misread the F3 as an F2, but
that's idiotic, since even the highest F2 can't get up that high. But it's a transitional vowel more than anything else. So
there.
Lower Case W
[w], IPA 170
So here's another attenuated, presumably consonantal articulation, but fully and clearly voiced. So this is almost
undoubtedly a sonorant, but very, very close. The low F2 is consistent only with something very round and very back,
and the following F2 transition is typical of [w], so there you go.
Open O + Rhoticity Sign

[ɔ˞], IPA 306 + 419
Again, a transcriptional convenience more than anything else. I needed something mid and fairly round. This might be
better as an [o], but whatever. The /r/ colo(u)ring is fairly clear, with that low F3 again, but the vowel is again mostly
transitional. To the degree that it F1 indicates something mid and the F2 indicates something mostly back, take your
pick.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
Well, here's another /r/. Low F3, though not as low as previously. I've been noticing that the bandwidths of initial /r/s
being very narrow, but that may just be me doing stuff to do that. Anyway, thsi looks like a typical /r/ in coda position,
with the higher (closer to F3) F2 than in other positions.
Lower-Case D
[c], IPA 104
Gap. Probalby a plosive of some kind. Very voiced, which is interesting. There seems to be a folling F4 (or something),
But the F3, if anything, has a rising transition into this gap. But then it would be, since it' starts so low. The F2 is
ambiguous to say the least. SO on the balance, I think the alveolar guess is just a default thing. The release is even weak,
so it's not clear if that fricative coming up is just release (which would tell us a lot about the place of this plosive) or if
it's a fricative.
Lower-Case Z
[z], IPA 133
Well, if there's a fricative, it must be a sibilant. Look at that frequency. And it must be alveolar. Same reason. And
voiced.
Lower Case W + Rhoticity Sign

[w˞], IPA 170 + 419
I went nuts with the rhoticity this time, I guess. There's some labial shaping to the tail of the fricative, which is the only
decent indication of anything other than just the /r/. If you missed it, I don't blame you. There's some weird overlap of
the fricative and the following /r/, but the only thing I latched onto was the attenuation of the voicing before the F3
minimum coming up. The rhoticity sign is is just because the F3 is so low.

[ɹ]̩ , IPA 151 + 431
Okay, well, there's clearly something we want to call a vowel here, and it's got the typical low F3, hence the syllabic /r/
transcription.
Lower-Case G
[g], IPA 110
Well, there's another gap here, with voicing. Nice loud, but noisy release. Transitions in and out have F2 and F3 close
together, so velar is probably the best guess. Transitioning from back to front velar is apparent from the frequency of
the 'pinch' on either side.
Small Capital I
[ɪ], IPA 319
So if it ends up as afrotn velar, this vowel must be front vowel. ANd it is. Quite front, at least at the beginning. And quite
high, judging from the low F1. The F2 transitions down in a way that I'd expect an [i] to have more of a steady state or
trend upward, at least until it starts to transition into a following consonat. So this is probably lax/short/whatever you
want to call it.
Script V
[ʋ], IPA 150
Well, this looks short, and vaguely flap-like, being a short, fully voiced 'gap' looking thing. But while the amplitude
attenuation is appropriate for a flap, the sonorousness is not. The formants may dip away, but the don't 'stop' the way
the would/might ina proper flap. Then there are thte transitions. All falling. So this looks (bi)labial again. Not really a
good fricative like the previous one, but an approximant-y looking fricative. And again probably labiodental over
bilabial, just because this is English.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Okay, now this looks like a schwa. Formants at 500, 1500, 2500 and--well, short of 3500, but what the heck.
Lower-Case N
[n], IPA 116
Another segment that has roughly the duration of a flap, although it might be just a tad long. And considering the
length, it's fully sonorant (with resonances), so probably not a tap. The attenuation therefore is probably close
articulation, and the discontinuity in the frequency/bandwidth of the formants, not to mention the apparent zero
below "F2" suggest a nasal. No evidence of velar pinch or a single F2/F3 range pole, and the pole is up around 1500 Hz,
too high to be my bilabial. One one choice left.
Lower-Case A + Upsilon
[aʊ], IPA 304 + 321
Well, abstracting away from the first 50 msec or so, the F1 here is fairly high, indicating a fairly low vowel. The F2 starts
in the central range, and goes down, indicating increasing rounding and/or backing. So this is probably a diphthong
[aʊ]. I wish I could see hte F1 dropping a little, to suggest going from low-to-high, vowel height-wise, but whatever. I
don't regard /aO/ a likely diphthong in this case.
Lower-Case T + Right Superscript H

[tʰ], IPA 103 + 404
Well, I probalby should have marked some preglottalization on the previous vowel, but I guess I just read it as low pitch
when I was doing the transcribing. But looking at it now, it looks creaky, sort of. Anyway, without the release, it would
be hard to tell anything was going on here. But the release at about 1800 msec, is clearly alveolar-looking. Sharp and
abrupt, broad band, followed by something that looks very sibilant. Typical of alveolar plosion noise. Especially if you're
used to seeing my voice in these things.

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for July 2004
"We paid too much for those."
Lower Case W
[w], IPA 170
Well, the voicing starts at about 75 msec, but the upper formants don't really kick on for another 50 msec or so. So
there's something here, something less 'open' than a vowel. But it doesn't look gappy or fricativey, so that leaves nasal
or approximant. The fact that the F1 is 'full' and not damped in any obvious way suggests approximant. The F2 starts
very (very, very) low, so this can't be a [j]. The F3 doesn't seem to be doing anything. Certainly not low enough to be an
[ɹ], it doesn't look raised either. So it looks like back and round is the only good choice.
Lower-case I
[i], IPA 301
So even though the F2 is apparently being pulled down on both sides, from the front by the preceding [w] and on the
right by whatever that transition is doing, it reaches an extremum (in this case a maximum) well above 2000 Hz, mayb
eeven 2200 Hz. Whenever you see a male voice with an F2 above 2200 Hz, it can only really be an [i].
So the astute spectrogram reader will be saying to itself, "[wi]. Hmm. And this is a declarative English sentence, so I'm
probably looking for some kind of NP at the beginning. Hmm."

[pʰ], IPA 101 + 404
Well, we've got a gap--a suddent cessation of resonance at all (or almost all) frequencies. There's some residual voicing
in the low frequencies, but we can ignore that, and there's a little noise from somewhere near F3, but not really enough
to make us pay attention too much. This is obviously some kind of plosive. So check the transitions. F1 doesn't tell us
much, F2 is ambiguous--it's dropping at the left and rising at the right, but it's not pointing at a frequency low enough
to be clearly clear of the alveolar locus, which for me is about 1700 or 1800 Hz. The F3 on the left isn't doing much, and
the F4 is rising. On the right, the F3 and F4 seem to be rising. So on the right we've got things entirely consistent with a
bilabial closure, and on the left we have, well, ambiguity. So I'll take the bilabial and run with it at least until I can't
make a word out of it, or can't make a word with it that makes sense with anything else. Note the VOT, so this is
apsirated.

[eɪ], IPA 302 + 319
Well, F1 is sort of mid, I guess, and moves slightly lower, suggesting a mid vowel that moves toward high. The F2 starts
very high, indicating a front vowel, and moves up, indicating fronter. So [eɪ] is the best bet.
Lower-case D
[d], IPA 104
Ah, another gap. But this one should strike you as very long. So maybe something is going on here. Look at that voicing.
It's strong, as if it was really voicing and not just perseveration of the vowel's voicing. So this might be a voiced stop. Or
part of this might be a voiced stop. I arbitrarily segmented the gap along with the voicing, just cuz, but that means we
have to look at only the left-side transitions for a cue to place of this stop (since any right-side transitions will be
covered up by the proposed following stop). So the F2 seems to be rising, but that last pulse looks like it's dropped al
ittle. F3 doesn't seem to be doing much. F4 seems to be rising, sort of, but I'm not sure what that means. Well, at least
we know it's voiced. Probably not velar. Not amazingly labial looking, and statistically [d] is more likely than [b] post-
vocalically anyway.
So now the astute spectrogram reader (hereafter to be known as the ASR) will be thinking, "[wi] might be a pronoun,
which might be a good subject, and now we have [pʰeɪd], which might just make a decent verb. Hmm."

[tʰ], IPA 103 + 404
So on to the voiceless side of this gap thing. Wow, talk about voiceless. Big huge release followed by very strong
aspiration. How much more voicless can you get? The noise is [s]-shaped, i.e. broad band, strongest in the very high
frequencies, so this is probably an aspirated [t].
Small Capital I + Upsilon

[ɪʊ], IPA 319 + 321
We have something short of 100 msec of vowel where, starting from the onset of voicing and ending at that, well, let's
just call it a 'discontinuity' for the moment, just shy of 800 msec. At the begniing, the F1 is mid or low-of-mid,
suggesting something moderately high. The F2 is, well low-of-mid and dropping, although the drop may just be
transition. F3 is just hanging out, but F4 is definitely heading downward. So all in all this looks like rounding from
something vaguely high and not at all front to something rounder or backer. Or maybe it's just transition.
The ASR at this point will be recalling that in my west-coast USA voice, /u/ is not particularly round or back, and
following coronals I will have that merged /u-ju/ thing. And this is almost definitely post-coronal.
Lower-case M
[m], IPA 114
Well, there's an abrupt discontinuity as I mentioned before, one that involves reduced amplitude and steadying of
resonant frequencies for not quite 100 msec, when about 875 msec or so there's a 'symmetrical' moment, where the
amplitude and formant movement suddenly start up again. So we've got something resonant, but of reduced amplitude
(compared to the surrounding vowels). And unlike your average approximant, the edges are quite sharp, and there's no
movement or anything happening during the 'closure'. Which is pretty good indication of a nasal. The transitions all
suggest labial, as does the relatively low pole, or whatever that is, at about 800 or 900 Hz. (My coronal pole is closer to
1000 Hz.)
Turned V
[ʌ], IPA 314
Well, without being distracted by the voicing bar, the F1 here is moving up from a middish kind of vowel to something
that is pretty definitely low. THe movement may again just be transition from the preceding labial, but whatever. The
F2 is defintely low to start with and moves, well, to the mid-range. F3 and F4 just don't tell us much. So this is a mid-to-
lowish vowel of indeterminate back-to-centralness. How's that for a description?
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Gap. Plosive. Rising F2, but not much indication of a lowering F3, I guess, so whatever this is it probably ain't labial and
it probably ain't velar. That and the release looks sibilant again.
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
Well, I was convinced earlier that this was definitely an esh, but now I just don't see it. I'm tempted to point at that F2
or F3 shaping of the noise, but there' some of that in the previousl aspiration that I just called apsiration. The noise is a
little clunky, suggesting spittle more than anything else. And I just don't see the usual sign of esh-ness, which is an
absence of noise in the lower frequencies. So I just don't know. If you think that's just more aspiration, make a word out
of it and get back to me.
Lower-case F
[f], IPA 128
But there's definitely something going on beyond just aspiration, cuz otherwise it (or the fricative release of the
affricate, or whatever) would go on for almost 200 msec, which is just too long. So I think there's qualityative change
here, in the form of the formants which sort of go away in favor of very diffuse, unshaped, unfiltered noise in this
segment. The formants that we can see all point down on the left, and on the right most of them are rising out of the
fricative, so this is all consistent with labial. Or, since this is an English labial fricative, labiodental. And voiceless, of
course. No one is thinking voiced, right?
The ASR will be going crazing trying to make a quantity (that can be 'paid') out of the sequence [t] vowel [m] vowel [t]
fricative [f], until it starts to sound it out.

[ɹ]̩ , IPA 151 + 431
Well, look at that F3. Down there below 1800. Way low. Must be an /r/. Since it doesn't seem to have a steady state, it
doesn't really look syllabic, but if I transcribed a vowel in here it would have to go on the wrong side, so I'm doing some
finessing here. There's an /r/. There may be another vowel heading into that flappy thing, but, well, try making a word
out of.
Eth
[ð], IPA 131
So there's shortish vaguely gappy thing, but with full voicing. Could be a nasal flap, but the upper frequencies a) are
there and b) are noisy. Pretty good indicator of some kind of fricative. Or at least something oral. Transitions aren't
telling us anything. I mean nothing, in the sense of no information, and not just ambiguous. Which is often more
consistent with coronal (not to say alveolar) than anything else. So think of all the voiced, coronal, flappy fricatives you
can, and plug one in.
Turned V + Upsilon
[ʌʊ], IPA 314 + 321
Do not ask my why I have this vowel. It might be allophonic (following eth) or it might be isolated to this word, or it
might just be me watching too many Britcoms on TV. But ther it is. Mid throughout. Starting just back (or round) of
neutral and moving oh-so-slightly backer or rounder. The extreme length is presumably phrase-final lengthening
(combined with some phonological lengthening, but we'll come back to that) so that's not all that odd. The loss of
amplitude doesn't really look like nasality so much as just overall loss of amplitude, again consistent with just being
phrase-final. But get as far as mid and obviously not front, and you're doing pretty well.
Lower-case Z + Under-Ring
[z]̥ , IPA 133 + 402
Ah, an [s]. It's broad band, it's concentrated in the very high frequencies. But it's kinda short for something that's being
phrase finally lengthened. And it's kind of weak for a phrase-finally boost. So maybe this is a [z], but devoiced. Which is
what it is. This would explain a) the obvious lack of voicing, b) the weird length (short because its voiced and
lengthened from short because it's phrase final) and c) the incredible lengthening of the preceding vowel. Calling this a
devoiced (or voiceless) [z] is what we call an 'elegant solution'. Yeehaw.
So, ASR, what did you come up with?


Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
"A highboy is a tall chest."
Glottal Stop
[ʔ], IPA 113
Well, glottal stops are nonphonemic in English, but this is phonetics. There's some noise, or something, in formant-
looking frequencies, before 100 msec, something that looks like a glottal pulse or two (depending on where you look)
just after 100 msec, and then regular voicing kicks in. So unless you believe this is an [h], which I suppose it could be,
you have to account for this. It doesn't look like aspiration (unless you believe this is an [h], which it isn't), so this can't
be the release of a plosive. So if it's not an [h], and it better not be, this is just the glottal 'attack' of a vowel-initial
utterance.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
So the vowel here starts just after 100 msec, and goes on, sort of, until almost 200 msec. It's actually very low and back,
but I swear I hear it as a schwa and not at all like an [ɑ], which is really what this looks like to me. So if I were working
from just the spectrogram, this is an incredibly short [ɑ], and the only real reason for it to be so short is that it's
reduced. So I still might call it a schwa. But check out these formants, because they'll come back to haunt us in a
moment.
Hooktop H
[᧖], IPA 147
Well, there's a dive in amplitude here, and an increase in the noise above 500 Hz, but if you notice, this is pretty much
voiced throughout (though perhaps only passively). The noise is sort of formant-shaped, if you know what I mean,
which is pretty characteristic of [h]. But voiced.

[aɪ], IPA 304 + 319
Well, it starts low (high F1) and gets high (low F1). It starts back(ish) and goes front(er). It's a diphthong. Part of the
reason I chose this word is that I wanted to compare back-to-front diphthongs. So this one starts as [ɑ], which it's not
supposed to, if you follow the usual descriptions of American English. I don't know what I was thinking when I
transcribed this. I do remember I was in a hurry. I must have been cheating.
Lower-case B
[b], IPA 102
Well, the transitions out of the preceding vowel are definitely falling into this. THe F2 transition is clearly falling below
1500 Hz, which is alreayd lower than you might expect for an alveolar. So this is pretty cledarly a [b]. It's even fully
voiced. Ignore the transitions out. They'll just confuse you.
Lower-case O + Small Capital I

[oɪ], IPA 307 + 319
Well, the F1 is mid (for the most part--I attribute the (relative) lowness at the beginning to the transition) pretty much
throughout. The F2 starts severely low (below 1000 Hz) so this definitely starts out either seriously back or round or
both. But after bottoming out around 525 msecs, it rises in an unbelievably straight line. So this starts out mid and back
and round, i.e. [o] (and not particularly [[ɔ], so for once I really was paying attention to the spectrogram), and moves to
something mid(ish) and seriously front. So of the available diphtongs, some variant of [oɪ] is the likekly candidate.
Please note the differences between this diphthong and the previous one. If you don't, this whole spectrogram will have
been a waste of time. This one looks like it has two targets and a quick as-the-crow-flies shift in between them. The
other one looks like it has two targets and a smooth acceleration-deceleration interpolation between them. Hmm. And
what the heck is going on with the F2 at the beginning of the [oi]?
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
Well, there's something here beyond just transition between the offglide of the previous diphthong and the amplitude
dive between 750 and 775 msec. So there's a short little vowel there. Probably reduced from something.
Lower-case Z
[z], IPA 133
If you look at the very top of the visible part of the spectrogram, there's noise. It's strongest way there and trails off as
you go down in frequency. The noise doesn't seem to be well supported by the resonances, i.e. there's no formant-like
organization to the noise that is continuous with the vowel formants on both sides. So there's got to be a fairly close
articulation here, probably fricative or there wouldn't be that much noise, I suppose. And pretty much voiced
throughout. There's not a lot of really good transitional information in the surrounding vowels, but luckily the noise is
clearly [s]-shaped. But voiced.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Another short, weak little vowel, this time from just before 800 msec to 850 or so. Probably reduced.

[tʰ], IPA 103 + 404
There's a gap between about 850 to about 925 msec. Well, except for that clunk just before 900 msec. Up there around
2800-3600 Hz. That transient thing. A clunk. It might be a closure transient. Or it might just be a clunk. It's probably the
closure transient, but it could just be a wad of spit. So ignore it (unless you think it's a release, in which case you need to
stick in another consonant in there), and concentrate on the release burst and VOT phase. OMG, that's some aspiration.
Note the [s]-shape of the noise immiediately following the release transient, and the formant structure (especially in F3
and F4) suggesting high-amplitude aspiration/airflow, rather than a separate fricative phase. The VOT looks like it's a
good 120 msec, which is pretty outrageous. This can only be the result some kind of stress probably in combination
with being initial in some kind of prosodic phrase.
Script A
[ɑ], IPA 305
On the subject of stress, it's worth noting that the voicing striations in the following vowel are far apart, indicating
relatively low pitch. So disconnet 'high pitch' from your notion of stress, and replace it, if you must, with the notion of
'pitch accent' or 'pitch excursion'. Ennyhoo, we've got a great long vowel here. Qutie high F1, so very low vowel, Very
low F2, indicating backness and/or rounding. The backness is enhanced here for contextual reasons (the velarized [l] to
follow, but that's for later). I don't have a phonemeic [ɔ] or the Canadian [ɒ], so that limits the choices.
Tilde L (Lower-case L + Mid Tilde)

[ɫ], IPA 209
Some /l/s are darker than others, but for me they're all prety dark. The only real cue that I can see that there's
something ogin on here, tho, is the attenuation and narrowing of the formants, especailly F3. I can convince myeslf that
F4 is raised, but since it's pretty depressed in the vowel, it's really just returning to neutral. So there's something here.
And the backness of the vowel suggests one of those modifications before /l/. Sort of. So confluence of possible cues
leads us, possibly, to a good idea, but without a lot of confirmatory 'positive' cues.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Well, it's mushy, but there you go. The main thing here is that there's a sudden cessation of voicing, and so approaching
the following sibilant you've got a sharp gap. Moving on.
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
Well, this is clearly a fricative, and probably sibiliant. It's concentrated in the higher frequencies, but not really in the
highest frequencies. I don' t know off hand if this is characteristics of /t/ shaping of esh noise in the affricate
(broadening the band of the noise, and pulling up the pole from the F2-F3-range cut-off) or if this is just how esh-noise
is really shaped. [s]-noise is usually concentrated well above 4000 Hz, and this noise is clearly centered between 3000-
4000 Hz. So it's and esh, and this is an affricate. You can tell because of the sharp onset. You get a sharp onset because of
the preceding 'gap'. TMSAISTI.
Epsilon
[ɛ], IPA 303
Lowish vowel, but not as low as it could be (as indicated by the high F1), basically neutral F2. Not much going on in F3.
So frankly ,this look slike an [a]. But it ain't. I've decided the attenuation that I always get in the middles of final
(stressed) vowels is just the low boundary tone. If this were further back (or rather 'earlier) in the utterance, I'd swear
there had to be a lateral or something here. But since we can attribute the amplitude change to the pitch excursion, we
should.
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Nice little bit of noise. Centered way up above where it was in the esh. So there.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Well, there's are a real gap. What makes this look like a [t] is the release/aspiration phase. It's [s]-shaped, indicating
alveolar airflow.

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
"That could be one approach."
Egad, this turns out to be a hard spectrogram, because there's a dearth of positive clues, and a lot of ambiguity.
Welcome to the real world, gang.
Eth + Raising Sign

[ð]̝ , IPA 131 + 429
Well, there's not much here, except the one pitch-period-or-so of frication. But since the vowel here (from 200 to 325
msec or so) doesn't seem to start with creakiness, there must be *something* here. (Or this word would be vowel initial
and get a glottal onset.) The frication (rather than a sharp release) suggests a raised fricative. Utterance initial eths
often 'strengthen' to (inter)dental 'stops', but with fricative rather than transient releses. So safe bet.
Ash
[æ], IPA 325
Lowish vowel (higher than 500 Hz F1), not outrageously back (or the F2 would be lower), so this could be something
lower than mid and fronter than, well, back. Good candidates are [æ] or [ɛ].
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Nice little gap (okay mushy in the lower frequencies, but whatever), apparently voiceless with a nice sharp release. So
this is almost undoubtedly a voiceless plosive of some varaiety. The release is a little ambiguous, being strongest in the
F3 region. A little low for alveolar, a little high for bilabial or velar. The transitions aren't really helping. No obvious
downtrends like bilabials, no obvious pinch like velar, no obvioust lift to F3 like alveoalrs. But the F2 doesn't seem to
move at all, and it's overing sort of above 1500 Hz. This is near the locus for alveolar transitions, but it would be nice to
ahve some serious positive evidence. How about this. How many words like 'thep' or 'thek' can you think of?

[kʰ], IPA 109 + 404
Well, part of the problem with the previous plosive was that there's some coarticulation with this plosive going on. So
this one is definitely a plosive too, but its cues are also sort of ambiguous. The F3 in the following vowel seems to point
up (into the plosive, i.e. it may be falling. and F2 seems to point down, if anything, but not a lot of useful movement is
going on. Okay, well, we know its plosive, and that 60 msec or so of aspiration clearly suggests voiceless (and aspirated,
to be precise) The release burst is sort of long, possibly doubled, and centered, sort of, in the F2 region, more
characteristic of velars than alveolars, but bilabials can't be ruled out either, except by the transitions. But speaking of
the transitions, I'm really unhappy at the absolute *absence* of velar pinch in the aspiration. What's up with that?
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Short vowel, mostly transition in F2. Call it schwa and move it on.
Lower-case D
[d], IPA 104
Well, if I didn't know better, I'd suggest this was a nasal. But it's not. It's not really resonant enough, considering how
voiced it clearly is. But good guess. So if it isn't a nasal, it must be a plosive. I guess. Again, transitions aren't telling us a
great deal, except that they're 'consistent' with alveolar. At least it can only be voiced.
Lower-case B
[b], IPA 102
Ditto this, as voicing is concerned. This is a long, long stretch for a single voiced consonant. There also seems to be
some kind of amplitude discontinuity just before 700 msec, if that means anything. The release (at about 750 msec) is a
little clean to be alveoalar, even though it seems to be broad band and concentrated, if anything, in the high
frequencies. But the transitions into the following vowel are totally inconsistent with that. The F2 clearly starts quite
low, and the F3 and F4 all definitely point down (toward the plosive, i.e. they rise into the vowel), which is most
consistent with bilabials.
Lower-case I
[i], IPA 302
Well, the F1 doesn't move a lot, it seems to stay sort of low. So this is a fairly high vowel throughout. The F2 extremum
(800 to 825 msec) is way high, at least 2200 Hz. The only thing that ever gets that front is [i]. And I don't usually produce
offglides that front. So this is probably [i] and not [ei] or something like that, and the F2 movement is entirely
coarticulation. That's my story.
Lower-case W
[w], IPA 170
Well, the swooping F2 can only mean extreme backness and rounding. The loss of ampoitude in the higher frequencies
suggests initial /w/, although there's really nothing here to rule out a full-on [u], since a very tightly-rounded high [u]
could damp the higher frequencies like this. The fact that there's another vowel on the other side might sway the
decision.
Turned V
[ʌ], IPA 314
This is short, and could be another schwa, but the F1 definitely approaches the lower vowel range (compare it with the
first vowel in this spectrogram), and the F2 doesn't rise they way it might. So this is farily back, even at the end. Lower-
mid, and back.
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
This is a nice little nasal. Sharpish edges, but fully voiced and clearly resonating. Nice little zero at about 750 Hz, and a
few more as you go up). The pole is up around 1200 Hz or so. This is a little low for my [n], but is a little high for my [m].
No apparent velar pinch, nor bilabial transitions, so in the end this is consistent with [n]. If it were a little shorter, it
would look like a nasal flap, so it would definitely be alveolar.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Short vowel. Moving on.

[pʰ], IPA 101 + 404
Another plosive, followed by a sharpish release, and some pretty obvious aspiration. So voiceless and probably word
initial. The transitions from the preceding schwa suggest bilabial, which is consistent with the release information. So
that's enough of that.
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 151
Well, even with the aspiration, we can see a seriously low F3 at the left edge of this vowel. So there must be an /r/ here.
Finally, something sreighforward. Please notice that moment just before 1400 msec, where the F2 reaches a local peak.
At abou same moment, there's amplitude change in the space between F3 and F4, and I think a bandwidth change in F3.
So that's the moment I segmented off the /r/. Something 'changes' here. Exactly what, I'm not sure, but it's as good a
landmark as any.
[oʊ], IPA 307 + 321
So starting at the moment before 1400 Hz where everthing changes, F1 seems to be mid, and drifts downward a little. So
this vowel goes from mid to higher-mid. The F2 starts sort of low and gets lower. So theres movement from backish to
backer, and/or roundish to rounder. Maybe both. Ignore the F3 transition, which is just transition. Mid and backish to
higher and rounder. It's worth noting, I guess, that there really seem to be two targets here, and two different pitches of
voice too.
Lower-case T
[t], IPA 103
Ah, gaps. Well, this one isn't bad, from the point of view of transitional information. There's a nice little closure
transient, for once, between 1525 and 1550 msecs, and the good news is that the energy in F3 is definitely higher than it
was when the harmonics in F3 seekmed to turn off. So what we have here is a rising transition. F2 rises as well, and
that's pretty typical of alveolars. That and the following fricatve pretty much make this a dead cert.
Esh
[ʃ], IPA 134
Sibilant fricative, which by the way means it's high amplitude and high frequency, Actually, I think 'sibilant' means that
it's produced by directing a jet of air at the teeth, but this is acoustic phonetics, not articulatory. This fricative, unlike
the prototypical /s/ is not obviously highest in apmlitude in the very high freuencies, but definitely has lower
frequency centeres, in the F2 and F3 region. Also the energy drops off sharply below the F2 region, leaving basically no
energy below 1500 Hz or so. Typical of Esh. Note also the sharp onset upon release of the preceding plosive. So this and
the preceding plosive together are an affricate [tʃ].
This page last modified: 11/08/2009 22:57:21

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5
Solution for January 2004
"Roads can be icy in winter."
Turned R
[ɹ], IPA 161
This is what I call a type DA /r/. Well, first things first. THe F1 is quite low, The F2 is pretty low, but that F3 is just
freakin' *low*. So it's an /r/. My type D is one that has no steady state, i.e. the F3 is absolutely always moving and seems
to start at its minimum (insteady of having an extremum in the middle of something). It's type A in the sense that it has
three serious formants, and a clear duration prior to the kicking in of a the upper formants (which I take to be the
'beginning' of the vowel, or the 'release' of some constriction or other associated with the /r/.
Lower-case O
[o], IPA 307
Okay, so once the F2 decides where it's supposed to be going we've got a moderately flat, overall. The F3 is just too busy
trying to get back up to where it thinks it was supposed to be all along to tell us anything useful. The F1 is sort of lower
than for a basic mid vowel, but it's definitely higher than it was where it started in the /r/. So mid-to-high vowel.
Mostly back and/or round.
Lower-case D
[d], IPA 104
Voiced plosive. Clear voicing bar lasting quite a while, and no resonance. Transitions (from the [o]) pointing up.
Probably coronal.
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Well, this is a little short fricative. The very high frequency noise is suggestive of an /s/, even though its duration and
overall intensity aren't all that compelling. Still, there's a plosive following, so maybe that's hiding. Also, it's an
incredibly weak position. But whatever. The duration and weakness may be indications of the 'underlying' /z/ (by
which I mean the phonologically predicted [z] allophone of the plural marker), and this may be better transcribed as a
de-voiced [z]. But I didn't.

[kʰ], IPA 109 + 404
Tiny short gap, but there it is, significant enough to get some pressure build-up and a good strong release. The release
is centered in the F2-F3 range, consistent with a velar release. Longish VOT, so this is aspirated.
Schwa
[ə], IPA 322
Tiny short vowel, transcribed as schwa and otherwise not worried about. I'm glad I noticed, this. I probably should have
marked it as a barred-i, but it was all I could do to notice it was there.
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
From about 375 to about 550 msec or so, there's some serious voicing going on. Most of it has formants and is therefore
resonant. So this is some kind of sonorant. The formants actually look pretty good, but they are separated by areas of
no energy, indicating the presence of zeroes, as in a nasal. So probably that's what this is. The F2 is at about 1500 Hz,
which is about where my F2 usually is for [n].
Lower-case B
[b], IPA 102
This is a shortish gap, but enough to have a clear release to it. The nasal isn't doing much in terms of transitions, but
that's the nature of nasals. For place information we'll look at the burst and the following transitions. And it looks to
me like those transitions are pointing down (that is, rising, out of the gap), which indicates bilabial. Of course that's just
a guess, since if you look at where the F2 and F3 end up, it's not like they could be heading anywhere but up out of the
gap. But they look sort of smooth, so I'll say bilabial. If they were coronal, the F2 would start a trifle lower, and if they
were velar, I'd think the F3 might start a little lower.
Lower-case I
[i], IPA 301
Well, we've got a low, low F1, and a high, high F2. So this is [i].
Glottal Stop
[ʔ], IPA 113
Well, not so much a stop, in the sense of a gap, and certainly not plosive in the usual sense, but the absence of a voicing
bar (sort of) and the irregular pulse pattern in the upper frequencies is indicative of creak or glottality or whatever you
want to call it. So we've probably got a vowel-initial word coming up, probably phrase initial too.

[aɪ], IPA 304 + 319
F1 starts (by 800 msec) up around 800 Hz, while the F2 is just low of 1500 Hz. Then by the time you get to 900 msec, the
F1 has dropped and the F2 is crossing 2000 Hz. So this goes from sort of low and neutral to high and front. Classic /aj/
diphthong.
Lower-case S
[s], IPA 132
Now that is a fricative. Look at that. Probably longer than 100 msec of voiceless fricative, with more noise on either side.
The noise is extremely broad-band, and centered in the higher frequencies. This suggests [s], which is what I'll say it is,
but frankly with something this long I'd expect the amplitude, especially in the higher frequencies, to be a lot stronger.
Then again, maybe it is, off the top of the spectrogram. Or would have been if we hadn't low-passed before sampling.
Nyquist, you know.
Lower-case I
[i], IPA 301
Another incredibly low F1 accompanied by an incredibly high F2. (By incredibly high, I mean well up above 2000 Hz, at
least in my voice). But then after reaching a max around 1150 msec, it starts to drop. F1 seems to moderate about that
moment as well, so I'm calling that a separate segment. The pattern of the movement is just not characteristic of a
transition, so this must be a separate thing. He says.
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
So what is it? Heck if I known. The F1 is still sort of low, but the bandwidth has changed. The F2 is moving without any
indication of trying to get anywhere in particular either in terms of having an 'inflection point' or even a place where it
starts to slow down as it approaches its target. ALmost as if it doesn't have a target. Which is one of the descriptions of
vowel-reduction (or rather the acoustic manifestation of vowel reduction) in English. This one I have marked as a
barred-i, because it seems to me the F2 stays above 1500 Hz, and the F1 is always below 500, so the F2 is always closer to
F3 than F1, and following Keating et al. (1994), I transcribe it as barred-i.
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
This one is less obviously zero-ey than the preceding one, but you can still see the total reduction in amplitude
characteristics of nasals. I'd probably mistake this one for an [m], since what we can see of the F2 is low (just above 1000
Hz). But the F3 transition into the following vowle doesn't look bilabial at all. I think what this is actually a nasalized
flap-kind of thing, and the tail end (as the tongue is retreating) the oral resonance can be shaped by the lip rounding (in
preparation for the following sound). But I'm not sure what's actually going on here. Definitely a nasal, and, well, you'll
get further if you guess [n] than [m], if you are trying to make a sentence out of all this.
Lower-case W
[w], IPA 170
Well, let's start with the F3. Looks like it's rising. Don't ask me why. The following vowel seems to have a neutral F3 and
an F4, where the F4 is continuous with this F3. So I choose to ignore the evidence of the F3 and look at the rest of it. The
F2 is about as low as it can possibly get, well down below 1000 Hz. So this must be as back and as round as anything I can
produce. The transition out from this minimum is pretty straight, which is more characteristics of an /w/ retreat-from-
rounding transition than anything else, The raised F3 might indicate [l] (in this case, a dark [l], of course), but since I
can't tell if that's a raised F3 or a really low F4 (conceivably consistent with rounding) I'll again ignore the F3 and just
assume this is a [w].
Barred I
[ɨ], IPA 317
Short vowel. This one is even more schwa-like than the one I marked as a schwa. What was I thinking?
Lower-case N
[n], IPA 116
It might be easy to miss, but there's resonances at F2 and F3 above the voicing bar/F1 thing. If those were absent, I
might be include to regard the F1 thingy as perseverative voicing into an oral plosive. But the upper resonances are
there, so there must be a nasal in here. Again, the F2 is up around 1500 Hz, indicative of [n].

[tʰ], IPA 103 + 404
But there's a really sharp burst following the nasal thing, so there must be an oral plosive in here as well. The [s] shaped
release indicates a [t], and the VOT is just long enough to strike the ear as aspirated.

[ɹ]̩ , IPA 151 + 431
Well, call it [əɹ] if you want to, since the F3 moves to its minimum rather than being dead flat. But since this is
unstressed, maybe that's just characeristic of unstressed syllabic /r/. Or maybe I'm just making this all up. Low F3
indicates the /r/ at least at the end, the the only available vowel is really schwa (F1 about 500 Hz, F2 about 1500 Hz,
what else could it be?). So this is either a syllabic /r/ or a schwa-r diphthong of somekind. Not what I call a robust
contrast in American English.

Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA R3T 5V5

Solution For June 2002: "The Story Is About A Mechanic."

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Solution For June 2002: "The Story Is About A Mechanic."

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To properly view the phonetic symbols in the text below, you must have installed either SILDoulos IPA93

Solution for June 2002

"The story is about a mechanic."

Eth + Raising Sign, IPA 131 + 429

Schwa, IPA 322

Lower-case S, IPA 132

Lower-case T, IPA 103

Open O + Rhoticity Sign, IPA 151 + 419

Turned R, IPA 151

Lower-case I, IPA 301

Barred I, IPA 317

Lower-case Z, IPA 133

Schwa, IPA 322

Lower-case B, IPA 102

Lower-case A + Upsilon, IPA304 + 321

Fish-hook R, IPA 124

Schwa, IPA 322

Lower-case M, IPA 114

Barred I, IPA 317

Lower-case K + Right Superscript H, IPA 106 + 404

Ash, IPA 325

Fish-hook R + Tilde, IPA 124 + 424

Barred I, IPA 317

Lower-case K + Right Superscript H, IPA 106 + 404

Support Free Speech

Robert Hagiwara, Ph.D.

"It comes in a huge bottle."

Small Capital I, IPA 319

Lower-case T, IPA 103

Lower-case K + Right Superscript H*, IPA 109 + 404

Turned V, IPA 314

Lower-case M, IPA 114

Lower-case Z, IPA 133

Barred I, IPA 317

Lower-case N, IPA 116

Barred I, IPA 317

C Cedilla, IPA 138

Lower-case J, IPA 153

Turned M, IPA 316

Lower-case D, IPA 104

Esh, IPA 134

Lower-case P, IPA 101

Fish-hook R, IPA 124

Lower-case L + Mid Tilde + Syllabicity Mark, IPA 155 + 428 + 431

Support Free Speech

Robert Hagiwara, Ph.D.

Solution for April 2002

"Curling season is over."

Lower-case K + Superscript Lower-case H, IPA 109 + 404

Turned R + Syllabicity Mark, IPA 151 + 431

Lower-case L + Superimposed Tilde, IPA 155 + 428

Lower-case I, IPA 301

Eng, IPA 119

Lower-case S, IPA 132

Lower-case I, IPA 301

Lower-case Z, IPA 133

Schwa, IPA 322