An acoustic study of kode particles na and nã in their speech context | مجلة قضايا لغوية | Linguistic Issues Journal

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Yannick Romain Konan
Baule-Kode, a variant of the Baule language belonging to the Kwa family, has two particles that systematically occur in most sentences: the additive particle na and the negative particle nã. Moreover, those particles in Baule-Kode pose the problem of sentence recognitions and interpretations. Given the problem of sentence recognition and interpretation due to the use of the particles in speech sentences, we propose an acoustic study based on the prosody parameters (fundamental frequency F0, duration, vowel formants, and formants of the bandwidth) to make a clear-cut difference between these particles. The results indicate that, among the prosody parameters, the fundamental frequency F0 is the key factor for distinguishing between the particles in speech.
Keywords: duration; formants of the bandwidth; fundamental frequency F0; particles; vowel formants.
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