Acoustic cues for the perception of tones of disyllabic nouns in Edo

Abstract

Most studies on speech perception, with particular reference to the perception of tones, explained this phenomenon mainly from the auditory point of view. Many questions were therefore left unanswered with regard to the mechanisms involved in the perception of tone. This paper attempts to explain this phenomenon from an acoutic standpoint using recorded disyllabic Edo nouns. It reveals in particular that certain acoustic cues are indispensable for an Edo speaker/hearer in the perception of tones of disylabic nouns, the fonn and the direction of change of F0 variation being the most important. F0 is realized in different ways for a given speaker depeinding on the tone pattern as well as the frequency zone characteristic of each of the two basic tonemes, High and Low.

Keywords

• tone
• acoustic
• phonetics
• Edo