Vowel-Related Differences in Laryngeal Articulatory and Phonatory Function

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 712-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen B. Higgins ◽  
Ronald Netsell ◽  
Laura Schulte

The purpose of this investigation was to study the interaction between the supralaryngeal and laryngeal components of the speech mechanism by examining vowel-related effects for a variety of vocal fold articulatory and phonatory measures. Secondary issues were to determine if vowel-related differences were influenced by the nature of the speaking task or gender. Between-vowel differences in estimated subglottal air pressure, peak oral air flow, mean phonatory air flow, air flow near the termination of the vowel, electroglottograph cycle width (EGGW), fundamental frequency, and voice onset time were examined for men and women during syllable repetitions and sentence productions. Significant vowel-related differences were found for all of the measures except mean phonatory air flow, and generally were not influenced by speaking task or gender. Vowel-related effects for estimated subglottal air pressure, peak oral air flow, fundamental frequency, and VOT were consistent with some earlier studies. New findings included vowel-related differences in EGGW and air flow near the termination of the vowel. We propose a model that includes the contribution of mechanical forces, reflexive neural activity, and learned neural activity to explain vowel-related effects. When vowel height is varied, changes in laryngeal cartilage positioning and vocal fold and vocal tract tension appear to influence laryngeal articulatory and phonatory function.

Author(s):  
Michael J. Hammer

Purpose Measures of estimated subglottal air pressure and translaryngeal air flow enable the researcher or clinician to noninvasively assess aerodynamic features related to respiratory and phonatory function. Our goal was to examine the unique relationship between air flow with sound pressure level (SPL) during syllable production while attempting to hold fundamental frequency and subglottal air pressure relatively constant. Method We completed two studies. Study 1: During syllable production, resultant sound pressure level was measured under conditions of constant fundamental frequency and estimated subglottal air pressure while systematically varying translaryngeal air flow. Study 2: During syllable production, resultant sound pressure level and closed quotient (using laryngeal stroboscopy) were measured under conditions of constant fundamental frequency and estimated subglottal air pressure while systematically varying translaryngeal air flow. Results Study 1: Findings suggest a steady increase in sound pressure level with increases in air flow between 25 cc/s and 150 cc/s. Interestingly, relatively stable mean sound pressure level was maintained over a considerable range of air flow values between 225 and 450 cc/s, suggesting that air flow could be further increased without a marked loss of sound pressure level. Study 2: Findings suggest a systematic increase in mean sound pressure level as supraglottic activity subsided and as the closed quotient decreased from 0.80 to 0.58. Interestingly, sound pressure level was relatively stable as the closed quotient decreased from 0.58 to 0.35. Conclusions Our findings suggest that sound pressure level can be maintained over a considerable range of increasing translaryngeal air flow values and over a considerable range of decreasing closed quotient values. These results provide motivation for investigating the interaction between air flow, glottal closure, and sound pressure level among other measures of phonatory function, with important clinical implications for therapeutic approaches that emphasize increases in air flow and focus on reducing contact between the vocal folds.


2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUE ANN S. LEE ◽  
GREGORY K. IVERSON

The purpose of this study was to conduct an acoustic examination of the obstruent stops produced by Korean–English bilingual children in connection with the question of whether bilinguals establish distinct categories of speech sounds across languages. Stop productions were obtained from ninety children in two age ranges, five and ten years: thirty Korean–English bilinguals, thirty monolingual Koreans and thirty monolingual English speakers. Voice-Onset-Time (VOT) lag at word-initial stop and fundamental frequency (f0) in the following vowel (hereafter vowel-onset f0) were measured. The bilingual children showed different patterns of VOT in comparison to both English and Korean monolinguals, with longer VOT in their production of Korean stop consonants and shorter VOT for English. Moreover, the ten-year-old bilinguals distinguished all stop categories using both VOT and vowel-onset f0,whereas the five-year-olds tended to make stop distinctions based on VOT but not vowel-onset f0. The results of this study suggest that bilingual children at around five years of age do not yet have fully separate stop systems, and that the systems continue to evolve during the developmental period.


1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ryalls ◽  
Annie Larouche

Ten normally hearing and 10 age-matched subjects with moderate-to-severe hearing impairment were recorded producing a protocol of 18 basic syllables [/pi/,/pa/,/pu/; /bi/,/ba/,/bu/; /ti/,/ta/,/tu/; /di/,/da/,/du/; /ki/,/ka/,/ku/; /gi/,/ga/,/gu/] repeated five times. The resulting 90 syllables were digitized and measured for (a) total duration; (b) voice-onset time (VOT) of the initial consonant; (c) fundamental frequency (F 0 ) at midpoint of vowel; and (d) formant frequencies (F 1 , F 2 , F 3 ), also measured at midpoint of vowel. Statistical comparisons were conducted on (a) average values for each syllable, and (b) standard deviations. Although there were numerical differences between normally hearing and hearing-impaired groups, few differences were statistically significant.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoonjung Kang ◽  
Naomi Nagy

AbstractKorean has a typologically unusual three-way laryngeal contrast in voiceless stops among aspirated, lenis, and fortis stops. Seoul Korean is undergoing a female-led sound change in which aspirated stops and lenis stops are merging in voice onset time (VOT) and are better distinguished by the F0 (fundamental frequency) of the following vowel than by their VOT, in younger speakers' speech. This paper compares the VOT pattern of Homeland (Seoul) and Heritage (Toronto) Korean speakers and finds that the same change is in progress in both. However, in the heritage variety, younger speakers do not advance the change, unlike their Seoul counterparts. Rather they have leveled off or are perhaps reversing the change, and there is very little sex difference among the younger heritage speakers' patterns. We consider possible accounts of the differences between the Seoul and Toronto patterns, building our understanding of how language-internal variation operates in bilingual speakers, a topic that has received relatively less attention in the variationist literature.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 1013-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. McCrea ◽  
Richard J. Morris

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of fundamental frequency (F 0 ) on stop consonant voice onset time (VOT). VOT was measured from the recordings of 56 young men reading phrases containing all 6 English voiced and voiceless stops in word-initial position across high-, medium-, and low-F 0 levels. Separate analyses of variance for the voiced and voiceless stops revealed no significant main effect for F 0 for the voiced stops but a significant F 0 effect for the voiceless stops. Across the voiceless stops, productions at high F 0 s displayed significantly shorter VOTs than productions at low or mid F 0 s. The findings indicated that researchers must take into account the F 0 level at which voiceless stop VOT is measured.


1981 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard N. Aslin ◽  
David B. Pisoni ◽  
Beth L. Hennessy ◽  
Alan J. Perey

Author(s):  
Matti D. Groll ◽  
Surbhi Hablani ◽  
Cara E. Stepp

Purpose Prior work suggests that voice onset time (VOT) may be impacted by laryngeal tension: VOT means decrease when individuals with typical voices increase their fundamental frequency ( f o ) and VOT variability is increased in individuals with vocal hyperfunction, a voice disorder characterized by increased laryngeal tension. This study further explored the relationship between VOT and laryngeal tension during increased f o , vocal effort, and vocal strain. Method Sixteen typical speakers of American English were instructed to produce VOT utterances under four conditions: baseline, high pitch, effort, and strain. Repeated-measures analysis of variance models were used to analyze the effects of condition on VOT means and standard deviations ( SD s); pairwise comparisons were used to determine significant differences between conditions. Results Voicing, condition, and their interaction significantly affected VOT means. Voiceless VOT means significantly decreased for high pitch ( p < .001) relative to baseline; however, no changes in voiceless VOT means were found for effort or strain relative to baseline. Although condition had a significant effect on VOT SD s, there were no significant differences between effort, strain, and high pitch conditions relative to baseline. Conclusions Speakers with typical voices likely engage different musculature to increase pitch than to increase vocal effort and strain. The increased VOT variability present with vocal hyperfunction is not seen in individuals with typical voices using increased effort and strain, supporting the assertion that this feature of vocal hyperfunction may be related to disordered vocal motor control rather than resulting from effortful voice production.


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