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Phonological Use of the Larynx: a Tutorial Jacqueline Vaissière

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Phonological Use of the Larynx: a Tutorial Jacqueline Vaissière Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial Jacqueline Vaissière To cite this version: Jacqueline Vaissière. Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial. Larynx 97, 1994, Marseille, France. pp.115-126. halshs-00703584 HAL Id: halshs-00703584 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00703584 Submitted on 3 Jun 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Vaissière, J., (1997), "Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial", Larynx 97, Marseille, 115-126. PHONOLOGICAL USE OF THE LARYNX J. Vaissière UPRESA-CNRS 1027, Institut de Phonétique, Paris, France larynx used as a carrier of paralinguistic information . RÉSUMÉ THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF THE LARYNX Cette communication concerne le rôle du IS PROTECTIVE larynx dans l'acte de communication. Toutes As stated by Sapir, 1923, les langues du monde utilisent des physiologically, "speech is an overlaid configurations caractéristiques du larynx, aux function, or to be more precise, a group of niveaux segmental, lexical, et supralexical. Nous présentons d'abord l'utilisation des différents types de phonation pour distinguer entre les consonnes et les voyelles dans les overlaid functions. It gets what service it can langues du monde, et également du larynx out of organs and functions, nervous and comme lieu d'articulation des glottales, et la muscular, that come into being and are production des éjectives et des implosives. maintained for very different ends than its Nous abordons ensuite l'utilisation de patrons own" [1]. The primary function of the larynx caractéristiques de la fréquence du is protective. It prevents the entrance of fondamental au niveau lexical pour contraster foreign material into the lungs. It also permits entre les mots dans les langues à tons et à the building up of intrathoracic pressure. accent mélodique. La participation du larynx pour transmettre des informations PHONATION IS NOT PARTICULAR TO linguistiques et paralinguistiques au niveau HUMAN SPEECH de la phrase est traitée en dernière partie. The secondary function of the larynx is to provide phonation. During the INTRODUCTION production of speech, the vocal folds (VFs) are mainly in adducted position. They vibrate, The larynx is one of the main alternatively opening and closing the glottis articulators in speech production, with the (the space between the VFs) for a very short tongue root, the tongue body, the tongue period of time. The principles underlying blade, the velum and the lips. The goal of this vibration are now rather well understood. The tutorial is to review succinctly the different excessive subglottal airpressure forces the uses of the larynx for communicative closed VFs to go apart and the elastic recoil purposes. The first part concerns the and the Bernoulli effect suck them again segmental use of the larynx: (i) the phonation together without any muscle action. The types for differentiating consonants and vibrations divide the continuous stream of vowels, (ii) the larynx as a place of expired air coming from the lungs into puffs articulation for the glottal consonants, and of air that will excite the supraglottic cavities. (iii) the initiation of airstream in glottalic The quasiperiodic modulation of the consonants. The second part concerns the respiratory airstream by the vibrations of the nonsegmental (prosodic) use: the VFs provides the primary source of energy participation of the larynx for contrasting for the production of voiced sounds and this higher linguistic units such as words, phrases process is called phonation. and sentences (tone, accent and intonation ). Most of the speech sounds (vowels The third part tackles the problem of the and most of the consonants) are voiced. The degree of voicing however greatly varies Vaissière, J., (1997), "Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial", Larynx 97, Marseille, 115-126. from one language to the next. A study by Heightened subglottic pressure generally Catford has shown that French is voiced 78% assists in making focus and prominence. of the time, while Chinese (Canton) only 41% Second, the length and the mass of (English: 72%, Russian: 61%, and Alkhaz: the VFs can be directly controlled. Two 56%) [2]. muscles are mainly involved: the cricothyroid Phonation is not properly linguistic. (CT) and the vocalis (VOC). The contraction The acoustic energy in nonspeech production of CT stretches the VFs. Lengthening results of amphibians, primates, and human infants is in an increase in the longitudinal tension of generated in the same manner. The the VFs, which increases the rate of interruption of phonation (mainly during the vibrations of the VFs (and therefore of the consonants) will be used to create contrasts perceived pitch). Pitch variations is mainly between consonants (as seen later). used for tone, accent and intonation. The contraction of the VOC assists CT for pitch raising and may favor voicing at high frequency rate of vibration by slackening the EVOLUTION HAS FAVORED FINER VOCAL cover of the folds [7], [8]. ADJUSTMENTS Third, the glottis (airspace between A morphofunctional consequence of the VFs ) can be finely adjusted. The the various neuro-cranial rearrangements arytenoids cartilages may be pressed together caused by an increase in extreme prefrontal or abducted, and there may be a medial cortex size during hominization [3] has been compression of the vocal fold tissue. Slightly a descent of the larynx in the neck. The abducted glottis or slightly adducted glottis descensus of the larynx in the human neck allows vibration of the VFs, in breathy voice, had rendered larynx and tongue movements murmur, or slack voice, and in creaky voice, more independent than otherwise. The laryngealized voice, and stiff voice, intrinsic fundamental frequency (FO) of the respectively. The abduction of the glottis vowels shows however a tongue-larynx leads to air leakage and to the presence of interaction, supposedly via the hyoid bone noise. Strongly abducted or adducted VFs [4]. A lower position of the larynx has made hinder voicing. Combined spacing between possible finer adjustments at the level of the the VFs and tension are used in phonation larynx, particularly of the tension of the vocal types for segments (breathy, creaky vowels folds (VFs) and the spacing between them. In and consonants). Voice quality over larger amphibians, the tension of the VFs cannot be units also carries also affective message, as varied and the vocal repertoire is seen later. monotonous. Fourth, the whole larynx can be For what concerns the spacing, an interesting raised or lowered. First, the raising of the fact can be noticed. The posterior larynx decreases the volume of the cricoarytenoid (PCA) is the only abductor supraglottic cavities, increases the VFs muscle and it is found only in man [5]: it will tension by stretching them, and increases the be particularly active for the production of coupling stiffness in the vertical dimension of voiceless and aspirated sounds. the larynx. A lowering movement has the reverse effects. The larynx movements are THE POSSIBLE CONTROLS OF THE LARYNX essential for the production of glottalic Let us resume succinctly the controls consonants. Second, they are used to assist F0 which are used linguistically. (consult [6] on raising and lowering, through their effect on the mechanisms underlying the control VFs length. Third, a lowered larynx may fundamental frequency). Figure 1 summarises assist voicing by a 'bunching' of the surface the general trends. issue (slackening) the VFs and participate to First, the subglottic pressure and the the phonetic implementation of the [+slack] pressure across the glottis may be varied. feature for voiced consonants [9], [10]. Vaissière, J., (1997), "Phonological use of the larynx: a tutorial", Larynx 97, Marseille, 115-126. An increased effort on a vowel Second, the same muscles (e.g. CT) decreases the Open Coefficient (OQ: the ratio are involved in both the realisation of the of the open glottis state to the total period distinctive features of the segments duration) and increases the abruptness of (voice/voiceless), and higher level factors closing, leading to reduction in the spectral (FO patterns, for example): the observed data tilt. conflate too many conditioning factors to be All the controls can be used for directly interpreted. Local gestures for carrying an affective message (exasperation), phonetic contrasts and more global gestures to express the attitude of the speaker toward may conflict with each other or reinforce the listener (drawing his attention) , and each other. Alignments between word pitch toward what he is saying (doubt, conviction) pattern and the segments are not invariant: in particular the range of pitch variations and peak of FO tends to occur earlier during a voice quality. vowel after voiceless a consonant, and later after a sonorant. The interference leads to interspeaker and interstyle variability. The Subgl. pressure Focus, Prominence speaker may choose to compensate or not by Spreading of VFs Phonation adopting more complex articulatory tension of
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