Abstract:
The aim of this research is to analyze the acoustic characteristics of the oral and nasal vowels in open and closed syllables in Pattani Malay and to compare the results of this research with studies on vowels in other languages. The data was collected from ten native male speakers pronouncing the test words in sentence frames. The test words covered both types of vowel, i.e. eight oral vowels: /i/, /e/,, /Ɛ/, /Ə/, /a/, /u/, /o/, /Ɔ/and four nasal vowels: /ĕ/, /ă/, /û/, /ɔ/.Only stressed syllables, open and closed, were analyzed using Praat version 4.5.06. The research results indicate that all oral vowels in open syllables have lower F1, F2 and F3 values than those in closed syllables. Only the difference in F1 is statistically significant. All nasal vowels in open syllables have lower F1 value but higher F2 and F3 values than those in closed syllables; only the difference in F1 is statistically significant. All oral and nasal vowels in open syllables have longer duration than those in closed syllables; this duration difference is statistically significant. Furthermore, most oral and nasal vowels in open syllables have higher intensity value than those in closed syllables. When comparing the oral vowels with nasal vowels, it is noticeable that, both in open and closed syllables, most of the nasal vowels have lower F1 values but higher F2 and F3 values than the oral vowels. The difference between formant frequencies is statistically significant. Generally, the oral vowels have shorter duration but higher intensity than the nasal vowels. The ratio of duration for oral-to-nasal vowels is 1 : 1.8 in closed syllables and 1 : 1.9 in open syllables. In addition, the findings stated above are similar to those found by previous researchers on vowels in other languages in relation to the following aspects. Nasal vowels have lower F1 and lower intensity but longer duration than the oral vowels. Vowels in open syllables have lower F1 and longer duration than in closed syllables. In relation to intensity, vowels in open syllables have higher intensity than those in closed syllables. This finding is opposite to what has been found in studies of oral and nasal vowels in other languages.