Investigation of the Chinese rolling tongue consonants

Some special monosyllabic Chinese words which contain rolling tongue consonants are discussed. Based on the spectrum analysis, the special characteristic is found at a frequency 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 from the straight tongue consonants both in utterance and in hearing, but those in the south region of China do not. The results of the hearing investigation using synthesized speech show that the consonant part corresponding to the normal one has more effect than the vowel part on the recognition of the words containing the rolling tongue consonant.