Session Voice Quality II:

Voice Quality II

Type: oral
Chair: Janet Slifka
Date: Thursday - August 09, 2007
Time: 13:20
Room: 5 (Blue)

 

Voice Quality II-1 THE LARYNGEAL ARTICULATOR: SOURCE AND RESONATOR
Jerold Edmondson, University of Texas at Arlington
Mamalinani Cécile Padayodi, University of Texas at Arlington
Zeki Majeed Hassan, University of Göteborg
John H. Esling, University of Victoria
Paper File Additional Files
  The laryngeal articulator, consisting of the glottal mechanism, the supraglottic tube, the pharyngeal/ epiglottal mechanism, and including three levels of folds: the vocal folds, the ventricular folds, and the aryepiglottic folds, is shown to be responsible for the generation of multiple source vibrations and for the complex modification of the pharyngeal resonating chamber that accounts for a wide range of contrastive auditory qualities. Laryngoscopic evidence drawn from Tibeto-Burman, Semitic, Cushitic, Kwa, and Gur languages demonstrates the distinctive use of the laryngeal articulator in pharyngeal trilling combined with glottal voicing, voiceless pharyngeal trilling, and epilaryngeal tube shaping to create opposing vocal register series. One such series is the [ATR/–ATR] contrast.
Voice Quality II-2 Voice quality and consonantal weakening: a case of correlation in Scouse?
Massimiliano Barbera, Dpt of Linguistics University of Pisa
Marlen Barth, Dpt of Linguistics University of Pisa
Paper File
  Liverpool English, also known as Scouse, presents peculiar characteristics on the segmental as well as on the paralinguistic level, probably linked with the Irish immigration (see [3], [6]). Maybe the most important feature is the lenition of obstruents to affricates or fricatives as a result of a lax voice context. The widespread velarization of all consonantal segments in Scouse seems to interact with the phonatory setting, causing a vocal type defined as adenoidal. Our analysis, based on a corpus of spontaneous speech produced by six native speakers, aims at an acoustic evaluation of the voice quality of Scouse through the use of parameters which allow us to classify the phonation types according to the labels used by Laver [5]. There seems to be a gender differentiation in relation with the frequency of lenition as far as the vocal characterization of the speakers is concerned.
Voice Quality II-3 INFANTS’ PHONETIC ACQUISITION OF VOICE QUALITY PARAMETERS IN THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE
Allison Benner, University of Victoria
Izabelle Grenon, University of Victoria
John H. Esling, University of Victoria
Paper File
  Little is known about cross-linguistic differences in infants’ production and acquisition of voice quality parameters. In our study of Canadian English, Moroccan Arabic, and Chinese Bai infants, we found that for all infants, laryngeally constricted phonatory settings (harsh voice, creaky voice, whispery voice, and whisper) predominate in the first months of life and decline throughout the first year in favour of unconstricted settings (modal voice, breathy voice, and falsetto). To better understand the distribution of voice quality parameters in the infants’ utterances, we analyzed the phonatory settings employed in babbling. We found that the babbling of Arabic infants was more likely to feature laryngeal constriction than the babbling of English infants. Bai babbling showed the least stable incidence of laryngeal constriction, possibly reflecting the more complex use of this feature in the infants’ ambient language.

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