Acoustic correlates of some phonetic categories.

Some of the acoustic properties that distinguish one speech sound from another are reviewed. The point of view is that the auditory system responds to sound with different acoustic properties in distinctive ways, and that these special responses play an important role in selection and classification of the inventory of sounds that are used in language. Examples of several of these acoustic properties are discussed and illustrated, including the presence or absence of rapid spectrum change, abruptness and amplitude change, voicing and aspiration, and gross spectral properties relating to place of articulation for consonant and vowels.