Laryngeal Activity in Icelandic Obstruent Production

Abstract

Laryngeal activity in the production of voiceless obstruents and obstruent clusters in Icelandicwas investigated by the combined techniques of transillumination and fiberoptic filming of the larynx. Contrasts of preaspirated, unaspirated, and postaspirated voiceless stops were found to be produced basically by differences in laryngeal-oral timing. In clusters of voiceless obstruents, one or more continuous laryngeal opening and closing gestures occurred depending on the segments in the cluster.Peak velocity of glottal abduction was higher for fricatives than for stops. This, and other differences in laryngeal adjustments and interarticulator timing between stops and fricatives, are most likely due to different aerodynamic requirements for stop and fricative production. The present results further question the usefulness of timeless feature descriptions for modeling speech production.

Phrase boundary effects on the temporal kinematics of sequential tongue tip consonants

“…These results suggest that the single movement in fast speech was the consequence of great overlap between the two gestures. Comparable results were reported by Löfqvist and Yoshioka ͑1981͒. Juncture geminates can also be differentiated from single consonants in terms of their durational characteristics and their degree of articulator displacement. Kelso and Tuller ͑1987͒ note that the results of gestural summation would be a larger gesture with increased amplitude and steeper onset and offset slopes.…”

Influences on articulatory timing in consonant sequences

“…One reason for this may be that an unusually abducted glottis is found for / s / 's in comparison to voiceless stops due to the necessity for a high rate of airflow (Hirose & Gay , 1972 ;Hirose , Lisker & Abramson , 1972 ;Collier , Lisker , Hirose , & Ushijima , 1979 ;and Yoshioka , Lo ¨ fqvist , & Hirose , 1982) . Additionally , in a number of languages only one glottal gesture is found for words beginning with s-stop clusters (Petursson , 1977 ;Lo ¨ fqvist & Yoshioka 1980a, 1981bBrowman & Goldstein , 1986and Goldstein , 1990citing Yoshioka , Lo ¨ fqvist , & Hirose , 1981and Fukui & Hirose , 1983) . Because the stop in s ϩ stop sequences is generally voiceless , the insertion of an epenthetic vowel would require a rapid change from a very abducted glottis to a brief moment of voicing for the epenthetic vowel to , again , an abducted glottis for the voiceless stop .…”

Towards an articulatory phonology

“…Crucial to this account is an understanding of the behaviour of the glottis in voiceless stops and clusters. This has recently been investigated in English (Yoshioka et al 1981), Swedish (Lofqvist & Yoshioka 1980a), Icelandic (Lofqvist & Yoshioka 1980b;Petursson 1977) and Danish (Fukui & Hirose 1983). Like English, these other Germanic languages contrast an initial voiceless aspirated stop with either an unaspirated or voiced initial stop, but neutralise the contrast after / s / .…”