PURPOSE: To acoustically analyze the stop consonants /p, b, t, d, k, g/ and the fricatives /f, v, s, z,∫, <img src="/img/revistas/rsbf/v14n3/simbZ.gif" align="absmiddle">/ from Brazilian Portuguese, regarding the variables duration, frequency and octave variation per second. METHODS: The production of words with the target phonemes was analyzed by using an imitation task. Each participant, with age between eight and ten years, repeated a series of isolated words selected from a phonetically balanced list for Brazilian Portuguese. Words were acoustically analyzed considering duration of the target sound (stop or fricative consonant), and initial and final frequency values of F2, measured in Hz. Based on these values, the variation of octaves per second present in each consonant's F2 was calculated, as well as the average value considering all consonants analyzed. RESULTS: Consonants' duration varied from 31 ms to 170.5 ms. Values of F2 varied from 2617 Hz, for the initial frequency of the voiced stop /b/, to 4557 Hz, average value for the initial frequency of the voiced fricative /z/. Regarding the variation of octaves per second present in F2, the higher variation was found for the unvoiced stop /p/ (16.23 octaves per second), and the lower variation, for the unvoiced fricative /S/ (1.624 octaves per second). The average value found for all target-sounds analyzed was of approximately 6.8 octaves per second. CONCLUSION: The values observed in the study will be useful to the elaboration of auditory tests and trainings including nonverbal stimuli analogous to the temporal characteristics of speech in Brazilian Portuguese.
Auditory perception; Language; Acoustics; Speech
