This study investigates the interaction between voice quality and pitch by revisiting the well-known case of Mandarin creaky voice. This study first provides several pieces of experimental data to assess whether the mechanism behind allophonic creaky voice in Mandarin is tied to tonal categories or is driven by phonetic pitch ranges. The results show that the presence of creak is not exclusively limited to tone 3, but can accompany any of the low pitch targets in the Mandarin tones; further, tone 3 is less creaky when the overall pitch range is raised, but more creaky when the overall pitch range is lowered. More importantly, tone 3 is not unique in this regard, and other tones such as tone 1 are also subject to similar variations. In sum, voice quality is quite systematically tied to F0 in Mandarin. Results from a pitch glide experiment further suggest that voice quality overall covaries with pitch height in a wedge-shaped function. Non-modal voice tends to occur when pitch production exceeds certain limits. Voice quality, thus, has the potential to enhance the perceptual distinctiveness of extreme pitch targets.

Multiple-level tone contrasts are typologically disfavoured because they violate the dispersion principles of maximizing perceptual distance and minimizing articulatory effort. This study investigates the tonal dispersion of a multiple-level tone system by exploring the cues used in producing and perceiving the five level tones of Black Miao. Both production and perception experiments show that non-modal phonations are very important cues for these tonal contrasts. Non-modal phonations significantly contribute to the dispersion of the five level tones in two ways: either by enhancing pitch contrasts or by providing an additional contrastive cue. Benefiting from more than one cue, the level tones T11, T33 and T55 are well distinguished in the tonal space; by contrast, the level tones T22 and T44, only contrasting in pitch, are the most confusable tones. The tonal registers model proposed in this article sheds light on the different uses of non-modal phonations across languages.

No abstract

TENSE--LAX PHONATION CONTRASTS 2This study explores the vocal fold contact patterns of one type of phonation contrastthe tense vs. lax phonation contrasts of three Yi (Loloish) languages. These contrasts are interesting because neither phonation category is very different from modal voice, and because both phonations are largely independent of the languages' tonal contrasts.Electroglottographic (EGG) recordings were made in the field, and traditional EGG measures were derived. These showed many small but significant differences between the phonations, with tense phonation having greater contact quotients and briefer but slower changes in contact. Functional Data Analysis was then applied to entire EGG pulse shapes, following Mooshammer (2010). The resulting first Principal Component was found to be mostly strongly related to the phonation contrasts, and correlated with almost all the traditional EGG measures. Unlike the traditional measures, however, this component also seems to capture differences in abruptness of contact. Furthermore, previously-collected perceptual responses from native speakers of one of the languages correlated better with this component than with any other EGG measure or any acoustic measure. The differences between these tense and lax phonations are not large, but apparently they are consistent enough, and perceptually robust enough, to support this linguistic contrast.

Earlier studies claimed that the contrastive tonal registers in the Shanghai dialect of Chinese were distinguished by contrastive phonation types, with the lower register showing breathier phonation. However, more recent studies found that younger speakers of Shanghai Chinese did not use phonation cues to contrast the tonal registers. The different results between the studies may indicate an ongoing sound change: phonation contrasts are merging among younger speakers. To better understand the phonetic realization of the tonal registers in Shanghai Chinese and to investigate whether a sound change is underway, speakers from both the older generation and the younger generation were recruited to produce pairs of words in different registers. Simultaneous audio and EGG signals were collected, and extensive acoustic and articulatory measurements were extracted. Significant age difference was found. Older speakers reliably produce contrastive phonation types for different registers, as demonstrated by significant differences in the overall spectral slope and the periodicity in acoustic signals, and the contact quotient in EGG signals. The lower register is breathier. In contrast, younger speakers do not produce breathier phonation for the lower register. This study provides evidence for the suggestion that Shanghai Chinese is gradually losing the breathy voice associated with the lower register.