Duration of selected fricatives produced by esophageal speakers

Abstract

This paper describes the results of an acoustic study of /s/ and /z/ durations uttered by nine normal and nine esophageal speakers. Stimulus materials were eight symmetric CVC syllables formed by combining /s/ and /z/ with four vowels (/i/,/I/,/a/,/u/). Audio recordings of each subject uttering these syllables within a frame sentence were phonetically transcribed by a listening panel. Only those syllables meeting representativeness criterion were spectrographically analyzed (approximately 87%). Comparisons between syllable durations for the two groups were statistically nonsignificant; however, intrasyllabic differences for the /s/ symmetric syllables proved to be otherwise. Even though the esophageal speakers in this study maintained /s/ and /z/ durational relationships for voicing contrast, the ratio of preceding vowel duration to word-final voiceless fricative duration was altered. Vowel durations were significantly longer and the word-final fricative /s/ was significantly shorter. These findings suggest that total laryngectomy surgery produces substantial changes in articulatory maneuvers as used by esophageal speakers. [Work supported by The American Cancer Society.]