(n.) A sound intermediate between a vowel and a consonant, or partaking of the nature of both, as in the English w and y.
(n.) The sign or letter representing such a sound.
Example Sentences:
(1) High correlations were evident between accelerometric and EAI values when a stimulus sentence contained obstruents, semivowels, and vowels.
(2) The features can be divided into those which separate the semivowels from other sounds and those which distinguish among the semivowels.
(3) Acoustic correlates of these features were investigated in this study of the semivowels.
(4) Analysis of individual subject data found that children who identified self-produced semivowels most successfully were the same children whose semivowels exhibited the most second formant frequency and transition rate differences in the previous production experiment.
(5) These languages also differ in their patterns of coarticulation between semivowels and adjacent vowels.
(6) Cross-language differences were found between what are described as the same semivowels, i.e.
(7) The children, parents, and raters were much more successful in identifying correctly produced semivowels than misarticulated ones.
(8) Acoustic properties related to the linguistic features which characterize the semivowels in American English were quantified and analyzed statistically.
(9) Children with correct semivowels produced distinctive formant frequency patterns for semivowels that were similar to those previously reported in the literature for adults and children.
(10) Confusion patterns also varied across listening conditions, especially for the nasal and semivowel stimuli.
(11) Six- to seven-month-old infants were tested on their ability to discriminate among three speech sounds which differed on the basis of formant-transition duration, a major cue to distinctions among stop, semivowel and diphthong classes.
(12) No correlation existed between DME and accelerometric values when the stimulus sentences contained primarily nasal semivowels and vowels.
(13) Using synthesized speech and normal-hearing subjects, it was found that this mode of presentation reduced the recognition scores with stop consonants by about 6%, semivowels by about 4%, and fricatives by about 5%, compared with binaural presentation.
(14) Nonetheless, the semivowels differ in systematic ways from the vowels in directions that make them more 'consonantal'.
Vowel
Definition:
(n.) A vocal, or sometimes a whispered, sound modified by resonance in the oral passage, the peculiar resonance in each case giving to each several vowel its distinctive character or quality as a sound of speech; -- distinguished from a consonant in that the latter, whether made with or without vocality, derives its character in every case from some kind of obstructive action by the mouth organs. Also, a letter or character which represents such a sound. See Guide to Pronunciation, // 5, 146-149.
(a.) Of or pertaining to a vowel; vocal.
Example Sentences:
(1) The obtained results are used to study the relation between the acoustic characteristics of these vowels and the corresponding articulatory dimensions.
(2) The current study explored the temporal course of the perception of vowel duration.
(3) In addition, they were tested with dichotic listening for correct reports of consonant-vowel syllables.
(4) Test items in each of the 4 groups therefore contained different amounts of information regarding the nature of the following vowel, due to coarticulatory influences of the vowel on the preceding consonants.
(5) Coarticulatory effects of the vowel on the aperiodic portion were found to (1) occur early in the aperiodic portion, (2) vary with consonant and vowel, and (3) vary with vowel feature.
(6) As for vowel formant, missing anterior teeth and missing posterior teeth presented more such differences for formant i and formants i and e, respectively.
(7) Vowel identification was best when at least two kinds of cues were available.
(8) Three male and 2 female subjects produced six repetitions of 12 utterances that were initiated and terminated by vowels and consonants of differing phonetic features.
(9) The perception of voicing in final velar stop consonants was investigated by systematically varying vowel duration, change in offset frequency of the final first formant (F1) transition, and rate of frequency change in the final F1 transition for several vowel contexts.
(10) These results suggest that Japanese monkeys process formant and pure-tone frequency increments differentially and that the same mechanisms mediate formant frequency discrimination in single-formant and vowel-like complexes.
(11) The major findings were as follows: (1) no significant difference was found in consonant identification scores between aperiodic, aperiodic + vocalic transition, and vocalic transition segments in CV syllables compared to those in VC syllables; (2) consonant identifications from vocalic transition + vowel segments in VC syllables were significantly greater than those from vocalic transition + vowel segments in CV syllables; (3) no significant difference was found in vowel identification scores between aperiodic + vocalic transition, vocalic transition + vowel, and vocalic transition segments in CV syllables compared to those in VC syllables; and (4) vowel identifications from aperiodic segments were significantly greater in CV syllables than in VC syllables.
(12) Comparisons between normalized spectral energy within a selected high frequency range revealed that energy within this frequency range for vowels produced by TE speakers was significantly higher than that produced by normal speakers.
(13) The amount of variability found in the labeling of speech contrasts may be dependent on cue salience, which will be determined by the speech pattern complexity of the stimuli and by the vowel environment.
(14) Acoustic information about the place of articulation of a prevocalic nasal consonant is distributed over two distinct signal portions, the nasal murmur and the onset of the following vowel.
(15) The shorter latency N2 was found for the separating features of vowels or intensities but not for consonants.
(16) After learning to categorize syllables consisting of [d], [b], or [g] followed by four different vowels, quail correctly categorized syllables in which the same consonants preceded eight novel vowels.
(17) The ability of listeners to identify 10 vowels under two conditions was investigated.
(18) In this article, acoustic analyses are reported which show that the spectral properties of stuttered vowels are similar to the following fluent vowel, so it would appear that the stutterers are articulating the vowel appropriately.
(19) The perceived goodness of i parallel vowels declined systematically as stimuli were further removed from the prototypic i parallel vowel.
(20) All subjects received 60 monaural and dichotic consonant-vowel (CV) nonsense syllables presented at equal loudness levels using the most comfortable level (MCL) as the loudness criteria.