Approximants and Nasals

Flashcards covering key concepts related to approximants and nasals from lecture notes.

Approximants

Consonants with constriction insufficient compared to stop burst & frication noise, including glides and liquids.

Glides

Semivowels /j/ and /w/ that have relatively constant formant transitions.

Liquids

Consonants /l/ and /r/ with specific airflow characteristics; lateral emission for /l/ and a low F3 for /r/.

Nasal Murmur

Strong resonance about 200-500 Hz indicating vocal fold vibration and nasal cavity resonance.

Antiformants

Loss of energy at specific frequencies caused by the absorption of sound energy in the oral cavity.

Formant Transition

Rapid changes in formants, faster in approximants (75-250 ms) compared to diphthongs (350 ms).

Velopharyngeal Port

The opening that allows sound to resonate in the nasal cavity, essential for nasal sounds.

Waveform

A visual representation of sound wave amplitude over time.

Wideband Spectrogram

A graph that shows the relationship between frequency and time, illustrating formants.

Consonants

Speech sounds made by obstructing airflow; includes approximants, nasals, stops, and fricatives.