Acoustic Features for Characterizing Voiceless Plosives

Abstract

This paper analysis the acoustical behavior of (VOT)  in relation to the voiceless plosives of the Spanish spoken in Temuco, taking into consideration two modalities of speech: normal / fast for any given person. The timing between the plosive explosion and the moment when the vocal cords initiate their motion is at present known as Voice Onset Time (VOT)

For the last twenty years this parameter has been considered an important although not exclusive means of establishing a distinction between voiced plosives [b, d, g] and voiceless plosives [p, t, k]. Their phonetic/acoustical behaviour could probably also be used in forensic phonetics to aid in the recognition of people from their voice.