Phonation categories in Cajonos Zapotec.

Abstract

Phonation categories such as breathy, modal, and creaky have been described using the acoustic measurements (H1–H2) and (H1–A1). The measure (H1–H2) is the difference in dB between the first and second harmonics and is used to approximate the proportion of a glottal cycle in which the glottis is open (the open quotient). (H1–A1) is the difference in dB between the first harmonic and the most prominent harmonic in the F1 region. (H1–A1) is used as a measure of F1 bandwidth that is related to degree of glottal opening. These measures were applied to an undocumented variety of Villa Alta Zapotec spoken in San Miguel Cajonos. Acoustic data from four speakers were analyzed. Measures were taken at four evenly spaced points in time for /i/, /e/, /a/, and /o/. Results show that (H1–H2) and (H1–A1) discriminated correctly between the categories breathy, modal, and creaky with varying percentages of accuracy at different time points. (H1–H2) had a (58%) accuracy rate at time point three, compared with (63%) for (H1–A1). Combining the two measures showed that the accuracy rates rose from point one (50%) through points two (61%) and three (65%), and fell slightly at point four (58%).