Background. Endoscopic management of laryngeal carcinoma has gained popularity among laryngologists based on the good oncologic and functional results. We evaluated the voice quality after laser cordectomy for early glottic cancer in a variety of vocal situations and its relation with the extension of resection and the age.Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional study of voice quality in 42 consecutive male patients treated for T1 glottic carcinoma with laser cordectomy. Patients were compared with 21 controls. Voice quality was self-assessed by the patients. Perceptual analysis was done by a speech pathologist on a running speech sample [GRBAS (grade, roughness, breathiness, asthenicity, strain)]. Acoustic analysis included fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer, noise to harmonic ratio (N/H), and maximum phonation time (MPT) on the sustained vowels /a/ and /i/, and on various running speech voice samples.Results. Distribution of the patients included in the study by T classification was as follows: Tis, n ¼ 2 (4.8%); T1a, n ¼ 35 (83.3%); and T1b, n ¼ 5 (11.9%). Cordectomy types were: (I), 14%; (II), 26%; (III), 21%; and (V), 38%. Voice improved in almost 60% of patients, returning to normal in 45%. GRBAS showed significant differences between patients and controls and correlated with type of cordectomy. Acoustic analysis showed significant differences in F0, and jitter, with smaller differences in shimmer, N/H, and MPT.Conclusion. Voice quality after laser cordectomy differs from controls, but improves in a majority of patients after the surgery, with almost 50% of patients with subjective normal or near normal voice. Voice quality depends on type of cordectomy. V

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The article focuses on some intonational features of three Romance languages spoken in northern Sardinia (Algherese Catalan, Logudorese Sardinian, and the Sardinian regional variety of Italian). The first part of the article shows, by means of both qualitative and quantitative analyses, that the above-mentioned languages share some intonational features that are not present in the dialects of Catalan and Italian spoken in the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula, respectively. In the following sections the article puts forward a diachronic explanation for this intonational convergence, basing on the role of Sardinian as a substrate language for both Algherese Catalan and the regional Italian of Sardinia. The final part of the article proposes a generalization of the findings of the case-study and puts forward a diachronic model of prosodic transfer that includes the mechanisms of direct transfer, fusion, and accommodation.

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