There Are No Back Vowels: The Laryngeal Articulator Model

Abstract

BACKGROUNDVowels are usually described as lingually high or low and front or back. This conceptualization implies a model of lingual movement within the dimensions of a square space -four-cornered in two-dimensional terms -with the tongue moving up or down and from front to back. The tongue is usually represented in this model as the articulator responsible for changes in vowel quality along the high-low and front-back dimensions. This can be called the H-L-F-B model. The frameworks of the vowel quadrilateral, or the vowel triangle, have long represented auditory events in an articulatory way for graphic representational purposes. The image of the tongue moving high in the mouth or back in the mouth, however, does not conform with a growing body of articulatory evidence on pharyngeal phonetics. Neither is it as useful an image as it could be for understanding how sound quality is shaped by articulator movement, vocal tract postures, and resulting cavity resonances.

Patterns of Misperception of Arabic Consonants

“…They also can share phonotactic restrictions that other consonants within a language do not have, such as not occurring within clusters or word-finally, or not co-occurring within a word. A number of features have been proposed to characterize the gutturals or certain sets of them, including advanced tongue root and retracted tongue root (Rose 1996;Shahin 2002), and +pharyngeal (McCarthy 1994;Esling 2005). However, the featural specifications used for gutturals do not present a clear picture of the guttural class, because the features shared under such systems often do not align with the physical gestures which these segments have in common.…”

Revisiting acoustic correlates of pharyngealization in Jordanian and Moroccan Arabic: Implications for formal representations

“…Although located near the constriction observed for 'true' pharyngeals, authors claimed that the two, i.e., 'true' pharyngeals and pharyngealization, share the same place but vary in degree of constriction (e.g., Laufer & Baer, 1988). Hence, and following the Laryngeal Articulator Model (Esling, 2005), both will share an epilaryngeal constriction that may be exhibited differently. An epilaryngeal constriction causes the tongue root and body to be pulled back and down in a one combined gesture and causes the vowels to be produced with the 'retracted' quality (Esling, 2005;Moisik, 2013a;Sylak-Glassman, 2014a, b).…”

“…Hence, and following the Laryngeal Articulator Model (Esling, 2005), both will share an epilaryngeal constriction that may be exhibited differently. An epilaryngeal constriction causes the tongue root and body to be pulled back and down in a one combined gesture and causes the vowels to be produced with the 'retracted' quality (Esling, 2005;Moisik, 2013a;Sylak-Glassman, 2014a, b). A secondary consequence of an epilaryngeal constriction causes a change in the voice source with an increase in harmonic amplitude especially in high frequencies (Halle & Stevens, 1969;Laver, 1980;Moisik, 2013b;Stevens, 1977Stevens, , 1998Story, 2016).…”

“…Our aim in this study is to provide a complete analysis of the acoustics of Arabic pharyngealized plosives in order to evaluate the presence of acoustic evidence for epilaryngeal constriction. In addition to the traditional use of absolute formant frequencies, we will investigate Bark-difference metrics as an alternative correlate to the articulatory 'retracted' vowel quality that is associated with an epilaryngeal constriction (Esling, 2005). Acoustic correlates of voice quality via harmonic differences will also be investigated to assess the presence of a tense voice quality as a consequence of an epilaryngeal constriction.…”

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This exploratory study of Jordanian and Moroccan Arabic (JA and MA) aims to evaluate whether pharyngealization is associated with an epilaryngeal constriction which causes 'retraction' and tense voice quality in surrounding vowels, following the Laryngeal Articulator Model (LAM) (Esling, 2005). Twenty male speakers (10 per dialect) produced vowels preceded by /d or dˤ/.

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