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tags:
- linguistics
# Phoneme
- Smallest unit of speech
- Distinguish words
- Continuous speech is stream of different phonemes
- English has 44
- Consonants
- Voiced or unvoiced
- Vowels
- All voiced
# Voiced
- Quasi-periodic vibration of vocal cords
- Sound transmitted along vocal tract unimpeded
- Air forced through glottis
- Quasi-periodic oscillation
# Unvoiced
- Air flow through vocal apparatus is either cut-off or impeded
- Constriction using tongue or lips
- Turbulence or noise
- Fricatives
- \\s\\, \\f\
- Plosives
- \\p\\, \\t\
- Modelled as random noise
# Formant
- Vocal tract can be modelled as resonant system
- Modes or peaks in spectral response of resonant system
- Lowest 3 most important in speech
![](../../img/formant.png)