Aerodynamic Features of French Fricatives

The present research investigates the aerodynamic features of French fricative consonants using direct measurement of subglottal air pressure by tracheal puncture (Ps) synchronized with intraoral air pressure (Po), oral airflow (Oaf) and acoustic measurements. Data were collected from four Belgian French speakers’ productions of CVCV pseudowords including voiceless and voiced fricatives [f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ]. The goals of this study are: (i) to predict the starting, central, and releasing points of frication based on the measurements of Ps, Po, and Oaf; (ii) to compare voiceless and voiced fricatives and their places of articulation; and (iii) to provide reference values for the aerodynamic features of fricatives for further linguistic, clinical, physical and computational modeling research.