Subject: Speech Processing

Topic: Speech Production, Acoustic Phonetics and Auditory Perception

Difficulty: Low

Semivowels:

Semivowels are class of sonorant constants generally characterized by transitions that glide between adjacent phonemes in vocal tract area function and broadly classified into Liquids and Glides .

A semivowel is a sound such as |w| or |j| in English, which is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions often as the syllable boundary. The plot of utterance of |w|.

These are called semivowels due to their vowel-like structure. They occur between adjacent transition in functioning of the vocal tract area. Depending on the context, the acoustic characteristics of semivowels change. |w| and |y| are glides where as |r| and |l| are liquids.

Nasals:

It is produced with a lowered volume. It allows air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity will function as a resonant cavity, but the air does not escape through the mouth because it is blocked either by the lips or the tongue.

As compared to its volume, the surface area is significantly large for the inner surface area of the nasal tract is complicated and has a comparably large into ratio of surface area to cross-sectional area due to which the spectral broadening of the resonances occur.