Optimizing FastTrack’s performance to obtain formant values in fricative noise FastTrack by S. Barreda [1] References Alexander Shiryaeva • Alexandre Arkhipovb • Michael Danielc • Ekaterina Shepeld a Independent researcher, Singapore • b University of Hamburg, Germany • c University of Tübingen, Germany • d Université Paris Cité, France This paper has been produced in the context of the joint research funding of the German Federal Government and Federal States in the Academies’ Programme, with funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The Academies’ Programme is coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. A Praat plugin for (semi-)automated formant tracking • Only original Praat [2] formant estimates, no modifications • Varying Praat’s Formant ceiling (=max. value for F5) in 8, 12, 16, 20 or 24 steps • At each step, formants are estimated by Praat, the resulting formant tracks are approximated by a smooth function • The analysis with less curved tracks is chosen (“Winner”) • 3 or 4 formants can be tracked • Variable curvature of approximating smooth function • Allows manually choosing another of the suggested analyses • Each formant can be separately picked from a particular analysis step FastTrack analysis with eight approximations for [ħ] in cenħe ‘together’, formant ceiling range 4,000-6,000 Hz, curvature 4, speaker Kz. “Winner” analysis in the bold frame, red ovals show how approximating functions change due to ceiling value Data Settings [1] Barreda, S. (2021). Fast Track: fast (nearly) automatic formant-tracking using Praat. Linguistics Vanguard, 7(1) [2] Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David (2024). Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.4.12, retrieved 2 May 2024 from http://www.praat.org/ • Optimal formant ceiling range? • Optimal approximation function curvature? • 3 or 4 formants to track? • Are fricatives more difficult to track than vowels? Choosing FastTrack parameters [3] Dobrushina, N. 2019. The language and people of Mehweb. Daniel, M. et al. (eds.), The Mehweb language: Essays on phonology, morphology and syntax. Language Science Press, 1–15. [4] Moroz, G. 2019. Phonology of Mehweb. In: Daniel, M.et al. (eds.), The Mehweb language: Essays on phonology, morphology and syntax. Language Science Press, 17–37. [5] Arkhipov, A., Daniel, M., Shiryaev, A. & Shepel, E. 2023. Evaluating Formant estimations and Discrete Cosine Transform to differentiate between pharyngeal fricatives in Mehweb. 20th ICPhS, Prague. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8264637 • Given smooth formant transitions between epilaryngeals and adjacent vowels, can it be helpful to track formants on entire VCV sequences? • Do they need higher curvature settings? General observations • Optimal formant ceiling range is speaker-dependent with women having higher ranges, as expected • Laryngeal [h] is the most error-prone due to low intensity and duration • Plain epilaryngeal [ħ] has the clearest formant structure, and therefore attains highest FT accuracy among epilaryngeals • In pharyngealized [ʜ], individual formants are less visible (“flatter” high- energy region) ⇒ more errors than in plain [ħ] Formant ceiling range: four 2 kHz ranges for each speaker, 500 Hz step between ranges. Lowest range (men): 3,000-5,000 Hz, highest range (women): 6,000-8,000 Hz. Number of steps: 24 steps for each combination of settings Curvature: 4, 6, 8 Number of formants to track: 3 Preliminary tests have shown that optimizing for 4 formants can yield less precise results for F1-F3 (if F4 itself is not studied) Segment types: C / V individual consonant / vowel vCv consonant +35 ms of adjacent vowels VCV consonant + entire adjacent vowels Discussion • FastTrack’s accuracy on [ʜ] was generally similar to that on vowels • Increased curvature in most cases did not improve FastTrack accuracy. Curvature 6 was optimal only for the speaker Kz, curvature 8 perform