Effect of tone on voice onset time in laryngeal and esophageal speech of Mandarin

Abstract

Defined as the time between the release of burst of a stop and the onset of the following vowel, voice onset time (VOT) directly indicates the interarticulator timing between the voicing source and the articulatory movement in the vocal tract. A number of studies have investigated the VOT characteristics of different languages. Yet, few have studied how VOT is affected by tone level in a tone language, and by the type of phonation. The present study investigated the possible effect of tone level and phonation type on such interarticulator timing characteristics. VOT values were measured from the syllables /pha/, /tha/, and /kha/ produced at four Mandarin tone levels by eight laryngeal (NL) and seven esophageal (SE) speakers who were native speakers of Mandarin. Results indicated that significant differences in VOT were found in the NL speaker group, but not in the SE speaker group. With respect to phonation type, SE speakers showed significantly shorter VOT values than NL speakers. Such differences may be related to the use of pharyngoesophageal (PE) segment as a new sound source. SE speakers appear to take a shorter time to start PE segment vibration as compared to NL speakers.