Practice question · True or false
F1 varies inversely with vowel height: a high vowel has a low first formant.
Hints
- Compare the vowel of see with the vowel of father.
- The high vowel has an F1 near 300 Hz, the low one near 700 Hz.
Show the answer
True
Why
True, and the inversion is what trips people up. Higher tongue position, lower F1, the vowel of see sits near 300 Hz and the vowel of father near 700 Hz. Plotting F1 downwards on a chart is a convention adopted precisely so the acoustic plot resembles the articulatory quadrilateral.
Practise The Acoustics of Speech
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