An investigation of the Chinese rolling tongue consonants by time-frequency analysis

This paper deals with some special monosyllabic Chinese words which contain rolling tongue (retroflex) consonants. According to the spectrum analysis, the special characteristic is found at frequencies higher than 3 kHz. The distinction is not only in the consonant part but also in the vowel part. The people in the north region of China distinguish the rolling tongue consonants and the normal consonants both in their utterance and in their hearing, but those in the south region of China do not