Acoustic analysis of occlusive weakening in Parkinsonian French speech

Danielle Duez (1)

1 LPL - Laboratoire Parole et Langage

The current study investigated selected acoustic characteristics of the weakening of occlusives (O's) in French Parkinsonian Speech (PS). The results confirm an increase in the reduction of O's in PS compared to control speech (CS). In PS, O's have a significantly decreased intervocalic energy level, slightly shorter realisations and a higher number of visible formants and noise; the number of burstless and omitted O's is also higher. However, weakening patterns vary between different consonants and are strongly dependent on voicing and place. Occlusive weakening, a consequence of Parksinson's disease production deficits, appears to be influenced by the inherent-articulatory characteristics of consonants.

Keywords: Occlusives; weakening; acoustic cues; Parkinsonian speech

Domains: Linguistics

Danielle Duez. Acoustic analysis of occlusive weakening in Parkinsonian French speech. International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Aug 2007, Saarbrücken, Germany. pp.1-4. ⟨hal-00244491⟩