A landmark-based approach to automatic voice onset time estimation in stop-vowel sequences

In the field of phonetics, voice onset time (VOT) is a major parameter of human speech defining linguistic contrasts in voicing. In this article, a landmark-based method of automatic VOT estimation in acoustic signals is presented. The proposed technique is based on a combination of two landmark detection procedures for release burst onset and glottal activity detection. Robust release burst detection is achieved by the use of a plosion index measure. Voice onset and offset landmarks are determined using peak detection on power rate-of-rise. The proposed system for VOT estimation was tested on two voiceless-stop-vowel combinations /ka/, /ta/ spoken by 42 native German speakers.