The cross‐linguistic patterns of phonation types

Abstract

We provide an update on the state of research on phonation (the production of sound by the vocal folds) since Gordon and Ladefoged's, Journal of Phonetics, 2001 29, 383-406 overview, focusing on the acoustics of breathiness, creak, and other linguistic voice qualities. We highlight cross-linguistic variation, introduce measuring techniques, and discuss the relationship between phonation and other phonological dimensions (e.g., tone, vowel quality). We also review perceptual literature, an area of phonation research that has greatly expanded recently. Taken together, the studies reviewed demonstrate that phonation types indeed lie not just on a single continuum, but in a multidimensional space.

The Phonetics of Tone and Voice Quality Interactions in Sylheti

“…As such, one might predict that those vowels should have been generally breathier even now. In this context, let us recall that the literature on phonation types generally associate greater and positive (spectral balance and tilt measures) values with breathy and lax vowels, an intermediate value for modal vowels, and less and often negative values for a tense and creaky vowel (Stevens and Hanson 1995;Blankenship 2002;DiCanio 2009;Wayland and Jongman 2002;Esposito 2010aEsposito , 2010bEsposito and Khan 2020). All the acoustic measures considered in this study indicate a higher and positive value for the vowels associated with low tone.…”

“…Only a handful of languages reported employing phonation contrasts on both consonants and vowels as a phonemic property to draw lexical contrasts. The list includes Gujarati Esposito et al 2019), !Xóõ (Traill 1985), Ju| hoansi (Miller 2007), Wa (Watkins 2002), and White Hmong (Esposito 2012;Esposito and Khan 2012) as reported in Esposito and Khan (2020).…”

“…Phonation or voice quality refers to the production of speech sounds by the vibration of vocal folds (Ladefoged 1971;Silverman et al 1995;Gordon 2001;Wayland and Jongman 2002;Esposito and Khan 2020). This paper seeks to examine the phonetic contribution of phonation in the production of tonal contrasts in Sylheti.…”

“…In his model, Ladefoged (1971) proposed that the size of the glottis might range from voiceless (when the vocal folds are held furthest apart), through breathy voice (where the glottis is held more open), to regular (modal voicing), to creaky (produced with a constricted glottis), and lastly to glottal closure (when the vocal folds are held closest together, hence no vibration and without phonation). According to Esposito and Khan (2020), modal phonation stands out as the most common phonation type in the majority of the world's languages that distinguish between one or both of the extremes of the continuum (i.e., voiceless sounds) and one center point (i.e., voiced sounds). However, many languages make distinctions within the voiced range of this continuum (viz., breathy, lax, tense, and creaky) in addition to modal phonation (Esposito and Khan 2020).…”

“…According to Esposito and Khan (2020), modal phonation stands out as the most common phonation type in the majority of the world's languages that distinguish between one or both of the extremes of the continuum (i.e., voiceless sounds) and one center point (i.e., voiced sounds). However, many languages make distinctions within the voiced range of this continuum (viz., breathy, lax, tense, and creaky) in addition to modal phonation (Esposito and Khan 2020).…”