Phonetic space

Phonetic space is a concept pioneered by Martin Joos in 1948[1] and developed by Gordon E. Peterson in a 1951 article entitled "The Phonetic Value of Vowels". It is at the core of phonetics. "The extensive use of the well-known vowel diagram strongly suggests that, when nasality and lip rounding are held constant, vowels can be successfully ordered in two dimensions. The horizontal and vertical dimensions of the vowel quadrilateral are related in some manner to positions in the vocal cavities. X-ray pictures which have been made, however, indicate that there is some question as to the precise aspects of the vocal-cavity positions which these dimensions represent" (p. 548). It turns out that they represent a space defined by two formants, the F1 and F2.

History

The idea of phonetic space could not have developed until we knew what phonetics was and had a way to place sound in space. While Grassmann's development of linear algebra set us on the conceptual path to placing values in space, it was C. G. Kratzenstein who first published detailed methods to synthesize speech in the 1700s. "Although when his principal phonetic work, was published in 1781 and 1782 there was no clear understanding of acoustic resonance, his accomplishment – via trial and error – was remarkable and contributed to accumulating "existence proofs" that speech could be understood in physical and physiological terms."[2]

References

  1. ↑ Joos, Martin (April 1948). "Acoustic Phonetics". Language. 24 (2): 5. doi:10.2307/522229.
  2. ↑ Kratzenstein, C. G., & Ohala, J. J. (2011). Pioneer in Speech Synthesis. Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2011), (August), 156–159.


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