Final answer:
The place of articulation for alveolar consonants is identified by its energy concentration in the high frequencies, between 4000-7000 Hz, which is the answer to the student's question related to the shape of the stop burst spectrum.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question relates to the acoustic properties of speech sounds, specifically the place of articulation and how it can be identified by analyzing the frequency spectrum of a stop burst. Alveolar consonants have a burst spectrum with most of its energy in higher frequencies, roughly between 4000-7000 Hz.
Step-by-step explanation:
In linguistics and phonetics, the place of articulation for different consonants can alter the distribution of energy across the frequency spectrum. For example:
- Bilabial sounds like /b/ and /p/ tend to have energy in the lower frequencies.
- Alveolar sounds like /t/ and /d/ typically show more energy in the higher frequencies, hence it’s the alveolar place of stop production that has most of its energy in high frequencies.
- Velar sounds like /k/ and /g/ usually have energy that's spread across a wide range of frequencies.
This property is useful in speech recognition and in understanding the mechanics of human speech production.