title: Prosodic boundary tone classification with voice quality features.
abstract: Voice quality features such as harmonic structure and spectral tilt are investigated in classifying vocalic segments into one of five boundary tones in the tones and break indices system. Static and nonstatic features are examined, and performance is compared with features related to duration, pitch, and amplitude, along with adjacent segment characteristics. From statistical tests, voice quality features are found to be significant for classifying prosodic boundary tones, and especially for distinguishing low-tone boundaries. Classification results using features selected from Kruskal-Wallis tests, Akaike information criterion values, and from sequential forward search show that using voice quality features leads to lower balanced error rates.
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, 134 Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-749, Korea. magnolia@dsp.yonsei.ac.kr
authors.forename: Ran
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Jeung-Yoon
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Choi
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors; D014833:Voice Quality