An acoustic-articulatory database of VCV sequences and words in Toda at different speaking rates

Abstract

We present a database comprising simultaneous acoustic and articulatory recordings of thirty $\mathrm{V}_{1}\mathrm{CV}_{2}$ nonsense words and forty two Toda words, recorded with an electromagnetic articulograph and spoken by six Toda speakers (two males and four females) at four different speaking rates, namely slow, normal, fast and very fast. The vowels in the $\mathrm{V}_{1}\mathrm{CV}_{2}(\mathrm{V}_{1}\neq \mathrm{V}_{2}$) come from a set of six vowels, namely, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /y/, where the last vowel is a front rounded vowel in Toda. The consonant in the $\mathrm{V}_{1}\mathrm{CV}_{2}$ stimuli is chosen as /p/ for all the recordings. The articulatory data in the proposed database comprises recording of movements of five articulatory points, namely, upper lip, lower lip, jaw, tongue tip and tongue dorsum in the midsagittal plane. The acoustic and articulatory recordings are made available at 16 kHz and 100 Hz respectively. Boundaries of vowels and consonant in $\mathrm{V}_{1}\mathrm{CV}_{2}$ stimuli are provided along with this database. Basic acoustic and articulatory analysis of the $\mathrm{V}_{1}\mathrm{CV}_{2}$ recordings in this database are presented, which show the manner in which the acoustic and articulatory spaces as well as coarticulation change with speaking rates. The proposed database is suited for a number of research studies including the effect of speaking rates on the acoustic and articulatory aspects of coarticulation in Toda, analysis of labial kinematics during consonant production at different speaking rates, and acoustic-articulatory analysis of front rounded vowel in Toda.